It seems there’s been a rash of celebrity engagements this past couple of weeks. Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Drew Barrymore, Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel, Mario Lopez, John Legend and even Aretha Franklin all announced engagements. Even Sinead O’Conner is staying married, after announcing a split. With all of this attention put on marriage, I thought I’d take a look at who really benefits in a traditional marriage.
The institution of marriage predates reliable recorded history. It was the norm for all marriage to be arranged, sometimes at birth. The parents would pick a spouse based on purely economic factors. Families joining to become financially and socially stronger. Whether the groom’s family paid a bride price, or dower, or the bride’s family paid a dowry, the melding of families was very much for power and economic reasons and had nothing to do with love. It was a purely secular union put in place to help each family move up in society. Brides wed out of obligation and duty and were expected to be virtuous and faithful to their husbands, who, in turn were expected to provide financially for their wife and children. However, sexual monogamy was never expected for the husband. It was assumed that his sexual needs would be met both inside and outside the marriage bed. Great deal for him, but what about her?
These women went directly from their father’s home to their husband’s home and were expected to be obedient in both surroundings. They never enjoyed the luxury of personal freedom and exploration. Even in North America, women weren’t able of choose to be single without fear of societal backlash until the sexual revolution of the 1960’s. Women were expected to subjugate their personalities in favour of the path their husband chose… even when marrying for love. It was 2006 when the Church of England officially took the word OBEY out of the marriage vows. Yes, women were expected to OBEY their husbands. That one four letter word gave men all the justification they needed to abuse their wives for centuries.
In the 1960’s women in western civilizations seemed to have had enough. There was an uprising of women who were demanding their human rights. The right to choose what to do with their own life. It sure took us long enough, but once we started tasting freedom, it became more and more widespread. The church was still doing everything in its power to keep us barefoot and pregnant, from not allowing birth control use and abortion to shoving the institution of marriage down our throats at every opportunity.
There was a perceived danger in women choosing to be single. The erosion of the family unit. Traditionally, parents would take care of their family, then later in life, the family of their children would take care of the parents. If a woman chose to be single, how could she possibly afford to take care of her parents in their declining years? Would she even want to? If she is choosing freedom, what does obligation even mean to her? These were some of the questions at the root of society’s fear of the Women’s Movement.
Indeed marriage rates did decline and divorce rates went way up. Men went from “Honey, I’m home. What’s for dinner?” to wondering when the delivery guy was coming. Something else of importance happened during this time. In 1965, in the United States, medicare and medicaid became available. This took away the need for children to take care of their elder parents. This changed the economic family dynamic.
Unfortunately, there was a backlash to the feminist movement. It seemed to create a generation of men with severe Peter Pan syndrome. These adult men, not only want their wife to be a partner, but also a mother. It seems that these liberated feminist mothers didn’t think to teach their sons how to be liberated, strong men. This, along with the media (magazines, movies etc.) telling women that they are not complete without a man, created a surge in marriages. .. marriages that didn’t last. After all, what liberated woman wants to be mean mommy to her husband? And let’s face it no man (unless it’s his fetish) wants to have sex with mean mommy.
Women who choose to be single, have reproductive freedom like never before. Now medical science has made it possible for women to have babies without benefit of marriage, or even a relationship. It’s easy to understand why there are so many heterosexual men out there who seem to genuinely hate women. They fear they are being rendered obsolete, and that is a legitimate fear. Successful women are choosing to be single mothers.
As Gloria Steinem once said, “Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry.”
Yes traditional marriage was great for men. They had a subservient wife who took care of hearth and home, their every need and want, with no expectation of sexual fidelity. The pendulum travelling inexorably to the other side now. Even in the non western world we are seeing another women’s revolution. Here in the west, there are women who choose marriage just to have a companion, knowing full well that it can be as permanent as they want it to be.
This attitude has spawned another type of man. I have seen it in generations Y and Z. This young man is looking to be kept. They are male gold diggers, looking for an older, successful woman to marry.
I suppose marriage hasn’t changed that much after all. After a brief flirtation with love, it’s still all about money and power.
What women under 39 do you know to have to DIRECTLY from their Father’s Homes to their husbands? Have you met any women in their 20s?
Read a little closer. i was talking about BEFORE the sexual revolution of the 1960’s
There are also tons of gay men that are trying to get their rights!
Absolutely. I’m all for gay (GLBTQIA) marriage. It’s the wave of the future.
Marriage started with Adam and Eve – a woman was designed to be a companion for a man. Society and culture are the ones that destroyed the beauty that it was supposed to be. I have no problems being subservient to my husband because he respects what I do for him. We have no issues with money and power. We chose love and family. Life is about decisions. We learn between right and wrong by age 7 – plenty of time to gain some knowledge before puberty.
No one has problems with you being subservient to your husband (or vice versa) if that’s what you want, whether through innate temperament, religious belief or sexual proclivity. The problem arises when that’s what’s expected and/or required, regardless of the wishes of the people involved. Everyone, regardless of gender or sexuality, should be free to make their own informed choices, unfettered by law or dogma, so long as all are consenting adults.
I think in a sense that it is required for there to be balance in the relationship. Even in gay relationships someone is more dominant than the other. Someone needs to protect and the other nurtures. Women just get offended these days at the thought of having to do something that they may have not have seen – by being raised with one parent only – or by seeing there own mothers not be respected or get abused. There must be order in the family unit for it to function properly, if you say equal than everyone must be equal. Would you allow a three year old to sit and watch family guy with you and your partner? If you are a responsible adult, I think the answer would be no. There are people to answer to. The children to the parents. The wife to the husband. The husband to God. When all of these things are done accordingly the family structure and the members in it will thrive.
Yes, one partner is normally subservient to the other, but usually that changes depending on context and ability. One might be better at some chores and tasks while the other is better than others. Makes sense for the one that does it best to be in charge of how that particular task is done. There’s no reason these things should be divided along traditional gender-based lines, though. Case in point, my mate’s wife is a darn good motorcycle mechanic (believe me, it’s as much an art as a learned skill). Traditionally, their bikes would be maintained by the worst mechanic of the two. Would that make sense to you?
“if you say equal than everyone must be equal. Would you allow a three year old to sit and watch family guy with you and your partner?”
Did you not notice the part where I said ‘so long as all are consenting adults’?
I’d be crazy to suggest that children should have equal say in family decisions, and you’d be crazy to agree, if you did.
I don’t see how the statement, ‘women need not be subservient to their husbands’ equates to ‘children need not obey their parents’ or anything like it. And anyway, we were talking about the married partners and what’s expected of them, not about the entire family.
Daz, Your reply made me swoon a little 😉
Aw shucks. I was only doing what we Brits call ‘statin’ the bleedin’ obvious’, after all. But thank you, erm … (is there a name I can call you by, other than ‘Wind’ or some such? ‘Windy’ would be very unflattering… 🙂 )
Daz, Lol Windy could be construed as unflattering. Just call me skirt… no, that’s slightly offensive too.
If I do an impersonation of HM the Queen, it sounds like Wendy…
Perfect. That solves it.
Before making judgment of men in general, much less women, either in marriage, the workplace or even society, you should bone up on a few areas of study, first, such as cultural evolution and wave theory. Before agriculture, even before marriage, for example, there was no such thing as monogamy. It was all polygamy, mediated not by any law laid down by men but, instead, mediated by the environment. Hunting and gathering was endless activity, if one was interested in staying alive, at all. The hunter who succeeded most in bringing game home to the clan was highly prized for his life-sustaining skills. All clan members looked up to him for his prowess and generosity for sharing food with the entire clan. In fact, the very survival of the clan depended on the rare skills of a handful of expert hunters, without which expertise, hunger and famine was a certainty for everyone. It was stark reality that every single clan member was keenly aware of. The last thing the clan needed was a slacker, prized hunter, so every member motivated and rewarded him for his bounty. And there is no better way to reward a male than with increased access to sex. No, a female then was not a whore. As much as a male was interested in sex, a female was interested in the best genes for her offspring. And what better way to select the best genes than those from the best hunter? It was a quid pro quo — nature pulling strings in the background. And it wasn’t just one female who wanted the best hunter’s genes — all females wanted his genes. Less skillful hunters had to step aside because females rejected them. Everything about clan culture was about females selecting the best genes, even if it meant many, many females sharing the genes of one male.
To understand how human cultured eventually evolved away from a predominance of polygamy to a predominance of monogamy, you’d have to bone up cultural evolution, a fascinating discipline that challenges the very existence of the concept of “free will.”
Something else to consider. One male has capacity to father an unlimited number of children, while one female can only have but a small finite number of offspring in her lifetime. One quickly sees how nature, by design, “had” (emphasis added) naturally selected males to adapt a larger physique at a faster rate than for females. Everything about nature’s design is about enhancing survival. Bigger males meant bigger prospects for more food. I use the past tense “had” because few women remaining today go after the best genes, accounting for why the human race has devolved. Unlike animals, man no longer lives in nature. Rather, he lives and survives in an artificial exchange economy, which, unlike nature, is a corrupt construct designed to benefit one percent at the expense of ninety-nine percent.
In the same way that culture compels conformity in subliminal ways, without knowledge or even consent, your feminist culture compels your own duck stepping, only far more obediently as though you are a hypnotized disciple in need of deprogramming, if you will figure prominently in nature’s plan, at all.
Then there is wave theory, which defines how behavior is mediated by hormones. The hormone for hunger, for example, compels you to open the refrigerator door in search of pleasure that comes from eating food or drink. It’s merely another of nature’s design, making it difficult for any scientist to successfully make the argument that you’re exercising free will. If you go to the gym and workout, you get hungry faster, in which case you open the refrigerator sooner, not because of free will but because a hormone compels. The clergy, naturally, dismiss hormone theory entirely in favor of denial, but for anyone in search of absolute truth, nature’s a good bet.
Finally, get real and off the misandry wagon. It only indicates ignorance of cultural evolution and wave theory, much less history, agriculture and many other disciplines — even including nature’s mechanism that mediates gay culture. It also makes you come across as one who gives free passes to baby girls for messing diapers while blaming only baby boys.
Of all the feminists, only Camille Paglia has had honest-enough intellect to completely comprehend human culture and its evolutionary components, explaining why she has spent a lifetime coming to the defense of men who have been unfairly blamed by ignorant women, even while it has meant perpetual scorn from her peers. Quit seeing men as the source of your perceived persecution. Instead, focus on the one percent. Or maybe even on yourself.
I’m trying, and failing, to see where in the OP hunter gatherer society is discussed. As regards that society, yes there is an imperative for splitting the workload, but you’re putting the ‘symptom’ (glory etc for prized hunter) ahead of the real reason. Pregnancy and breast feeding use calories, and lots of them. On what we would consider a near-starvation diet, a women who is likely to be doing one or the other, or both, for much of her life quite simply cannot sustain the energy levels needed for long tracking expeditions, often done at a constant, hours-long trot.
You’re also missing the point that for most of recorded history, the husband has been technically expected to be monogamous, especially once we reach the the judeo-christian cultures, but has suffered far fewer penalties for straying than has the wife; an open-secret hypocrisy, if you will.
I’ll cut this short. What misandry? Pointing out that marriage has more often been made for political than romantic reasons, most often benefiting the male? Hardly misandry to state the bleedin’ obvious.
“nature’s mechanism that mediates gay culture.”
Until we have a gay culture that isn’t shaped by anti-gay legislations and attitudes, I fail to see how gay culture can tell us anything meaningful, except in regards to civil rights issues.
“It also makes you come across as one who gives free passes to baby girls for messing diapers while blaming only baby boys.”
Whut?
Society is going to be different without traditional marriage in it. (I mean with both parties being monogamous) I don’t know if will be better or worse, just a new normal.
The old rolls got us this far, but they don’t work well with our new (relatively) reality of gender equality.
It is a struggle for men to figure out how they fit into a more modern relationship. But I think if people can express what they want out of a relationship before hand, the divorce rate would be much lower.
As for myself, I want a committed relationship, but I can’t see myself ever having kids. I’m not opposed to marriage though.
I could go for the traditional marriage, sans kids, with the familiar gender rolls. I could also go for more of a partnership, for me it’s whatever she’s comfortable with.
What I know for certain is I don’t want to get divorced. My parents did, most of my family has, and so have most of my friends. Nothing good has come from any of it.
@xWarriorPoetx