Women and Marriage

According to Webster dictionary marriage is when two people, man and woman according to the law are joined in special kind of social and legal dependence for the purpose of founding and maintaining a family.

Every thing in life is a contract, marriage as well. People marry when a (conscious or unconscious) comparison of costs and benefits makes marriage look lucrative. Costs are not always simply financial or material and benefits can be psychological, social or spiritual. They depend on the value a person attaches to alternative uses of time, and can include, for instance, the value of the hours a person is unable to devote to reading books because of marriage. Becker and other sociologists have used the term "marriage market." What does it mean? Marriage markets consist of markets for spousal labor supplied by wives and husbands. Individuals participating in these markets act according to cost-benefit analysis and try to maximize their own value, which can also include social and spiritual aspirations. Individuals make decisions about their willingness to supply services that can be of use to a spouse, supply labor services in the regular meaning of the term, and acquire goods and services, including services from spouses. When my mom married my father, their parents sealed their marriage contract. As the man of the house he was expected to go out to work and bring money to the family, and my mom was expected to quit the army, skip college, and be a good wife and a mother. For a while this arrangement seemed so natural. We used to come back home from school and see my mom either doing the laundry, or cooking dinner, and I remember one day we came back home and it was a mess. Nothing was ready, or clean. My oldest sister asked my mom then how come she didn’t make us dinner, and my mom answered I just didn’t feel like it anymore. Suddenly the contract that we all knew as a family was broken. That was the first time I saw my mom as an individual who has needs other than taking care of her family. Later my mom took English courses in the evening, and studied to become a medical secretary during the day. What do you do when one of the partners wants to change the contract? In order to answer that let’s review the marriage institute historically.

Marriage has always been an evolving institution, bent and shaped by the historical moment and the needs and demands of its participants. Years ago society saw only the man as an independent individual. According to Simone De Beauvoir society regarded the man as a producer whose existence was justified by the work he does for the group, while the woman’s role, as the domestic keeper didn’t guarantee her an equal identity. Man cannot manage his existence without a woman, but a woman’s existence is even more in doubt without a man. She is economically, and socially dependent on her husband. Married women were legally considered a property of the man they married in the eyes of the law. Women were not allowed to vote, married women had no property rights, women were not allowed to enter professions such as medicine or law, and had no means to gain an education since no college or university would accept women students. Her job was to keep her husband happy; she needs to cook, clean, shop, take care of the children (society expects her to provide him children), take care of the dog, and many other tasks that are summed under the same umbrella of “good wife”. After all “A good wife always knows her place.” Secondly, marriage was a way to protect the woman from one man’s erratic actions, but at the same time legitimating another. By marrying a man, the woman becomes his vassal. He is the economic head of this small group, called family. She takes his name, his religion, his class, and she joins his family. She gives him her person. That’s why A Doll House by Ibsen rocked the stages of Europe when it was premiered. Who heard of a woman in 1879 to reject marriage and motherhood? In "A Doll's House", Ibsen portrays a sad but true picture of three women from different economic backgrounds. Each of them had to make sacrifices in life as society left them no choice. The play represents women as the strong sex, emotionally, and, mentally. Mrs. Linde for example abandoned Krogstad, her true but poor love, for a richer man in order to support her mother and two brothers. The nanny abandoned her children, to support herself by working for Nora. Though Nora is economically elevated in comparison to the other female characters, she also leads a hard life because society decrees that Torvald her husband should be the dominant member of the family. Torvald patronizes Nora, unintentionally forcing her to hide the loan from him. Nora knows that Torvald could never accept the idea that his wife, or any other woman for that matter, could have a role in saving his life and reputation.

Simone De Beauvoir