EMAIL
PRINT
50 COMMENTSShare & save this story:
Also in Sex and Relationships
"Fag" Is Turning into a High School Insult for Any Guy Who Doesn't Play Football
C. J. Pascoe
Does Barbie Need a Man?
Amie K. Miller
Moaning Lisa: A Blow-Up Doll, Upgraded
Annalee Newitz
Sex Workers Plan Brothel in 2010 Olympics City
Wency Leung
The Truth Behind the Sex Trade
Susie Bright
For millennia, marriage decisions were dictated more by economic and political considerations than by love and personal satisfaction. This made marriage a very coercive institution, especially for young people and for women in general. Today, by contrast, people have unprecedented freedom about whether, when, and whom to marry, as well as about how to organize their personal relationships in and out of marriage. Marriages are no longer based on the legal subordination of women and children, and many women have even attained economic equality with their partners.
But like all democratic revolutions, the transformation of marriage and family life has been messy. More choices mean new opportunities for success, but also new opportunities for failures, and new temptations to reach beyond one's grasp. We have solved many old problems, but in the process created some new ones.
For example, on average, parents invest more emotional energy and financial resources in their children than ever before, but children whose parents cannot or will not make such investments face new vulnerabilities. Young people have greater mobility and personal freedom than in the past, but their independence can turn into isolation after they become parents.
Similarly, the things that have made marriage more fulfilling have made it more brittle. Because couples expect so much more love, intimacy, and mutuality from marriage, they work harder to live up to their ideals but when marriage doesn't meet their high expectations, they can be quick to divorce.
Family history is full of examples of such trade-offs: For thousands of years, the flip side of a strong institution of marriage was the equally strong and tremendously unjust institution of illegitimacy, which allowed families to turn their backs on any children born to a relationship not sanctioned by one's parents and community.
Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of such babies were abandoned, often to death, over the centuries. Abolishing harsh penalties for illegitimacy was a world -- historic gain. But it also allowed some men to refuse marriage if a partner became pregnant because having their child out of wedlock no longer carried such severe consequences. At the same time, many young women have underestimated how hard it is to raise a child without the support of a partner.
We need to address the new challenges raised by the transformation and diversification of marriage and family life. But we cannot do so if we delude ourselves into thinking there has ever been a Golden Age when life was much better for all, or even most, families. Instead, we must build on the very real gains we've made while recognizing the new dilemmas we face dilemmas that require policy solutions as well as individual effort.
Real traditional marriage
Sometimes people romanticize marriages of the past. In fact, the personal relationship between husband and wife did not count for much in traditional marriage. Instead, the economic and political interests of the couple's parents or community were paramount. In the upper classes, people married to acquire influential in -- laws, forge business deals, or even conclude peace treaties. In the middle classes, men looked for wives who would bring a handsome dowry at marriage. Women married for social respectability and future financial security. Farmers and artisans could not survive without a "yoke mate," so a strong arm and good work ethic outweighed more sentimental considerations.
Under these circumstances, it was considered irresponsible to let young people freely choose their own mates on such a self-indulgent basis as love. And once married, couples were not expected to construct a relationship that fostered mutual cooperation, but to conform to a rigid marital model based on male dominance and wifely subordination. "Husband and wife are one," said traditional English common law, "and that one is the husband."
It was only 200 years ago that Western Europeans and Americans began to believe that young people had the right to choose their own mates, and that they should do so on the basis of love and mutual attraction. It was only 150 years ago that laws began to give wives equal property rights over money they inherited or earned, and just 120 years ago that courts ruled that a husband had no right to physically "correct" or imprison his wife. Adultery, once accepted as normal for husbands, became less acceptable. Wife-beating was increasingly condemned, although it was seldom treated as a serious offense until after the second wave of feminism in the 1970s.
But well into the 20th century, couples did not have to work hard at negotiating their relationships because law and social custom required wives to give in to their husbands' wishes. In the 1950s, marital advice books invariably told women to play dumb, act helpless, and let their husband be "the boss."
See more stories tagged with: gay marriage, marriage, family
Stephanie Coontz teaches history and family studies at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, and is the director of research and public education for the Council on Contemporary Families. She is the author of "Marriage, A History: How Love Conquered Marriage" (Viking Press).
No comments:
Post a Comment