Response to Predators and Nurturers

Response to Predators and Nurturers

In “Predators and Nurturers” by Sylvia Ann Hewlett arises the question of if it is beneficial for men and women to be married or single? The argument is made that marriage is good for men and bad for women that are educated. Hewlett uses recent research to argue and support her findings, and I would have to agree with her that marriage is beneficial to both sexes. Marriage has shown to be beneficial to men and women physically, mentally, emotionally, and financially. Overall I think the author does a good job of citing events from the past and present that are a concern of married and single people.

“Predators and Nurturers” emphasizes how marriages were viewed in the 1970s and how marriages are viewed today. The essay mainly focuses on how marriages that were once beneficial to only the male are now showing a move toward being beneficial to females as well. Hewlett argues toward the side that says marriage today can be exceptionally good me men and women. At first she focuses mainly on the female and shows how in the past marriage has been know for making women depress and lowing their self esteem. She also went on to explain how marriage limited women’s pursue of self-development. Hewlett shows the effects of the women first because she is trying to throw out the idea that women have it so bad since the old view of marriage was so negatively pointed toward women. Then she fast forwards to more recent research and compares the benefits of males and females how are married. Hewlett thoroughly takes into account money, health, and sex, and the affects marriage has on them. The only problem with her finds is very few people have been exposed to this information about the benefits of marriage. Since people accepted the early views of marriage as “fact” this new idea of thinking has not be widely spread.

Hewlett uses two other authors to help present the side of her argument that marriage is more beneficial to men than women. Jessie Bernard, a sociologist in the early seventies first brought about this notion in her book The Future of Marriage. Here she stated that “in ever marital union there are really two marriages, his and her, and his is a whole lot better than hers.” Also in the early 1970s, Bernard argued that marriage was like a “low-grade fever” which slowly but surely wore women down physically, mentally, and emotionally. During the same time feminist groups spoke on the issue that married women are severely limited in the area of self-development, and radical women had the audacity to say that marriage constituted “slavery” and “legalized rape.” Another view of this subject came from Betty Friedan’s book, The Feminine Mystique, where she says that a “fifties-style marriage” can be crippling to college educated women because their hard work to achieve their degree is being wasted on common household chores that could be accomplished by an eight year old. These authors’s research provides strong support to Hewlett’s argument.

Then Hewlett fast forwards to present day and mentions forty years have gone by and women have achieved many freedoms inside and outside of the home. She starts with the issue of mental health. Recent studies show that women are happier when their married and not depressed, contrary to old