Marriage, a History

Coontz (2005) focused on historical changes in marriages from prehistoric to present times, mainly in terms of how institutional and social needs affected restrictions on the liberties of wives. Although she described historical periods as characterizing married patterns, she c arefully n unrivalledd that near(prenominal) within and surrounded by periods, history has been cyclical.For example, birth and divorce rates have fluctuated establish on the changing needs of economies during diametrical times, and conceptions of women as either familiarly pure or wanton have varied over the ages. She takes issue with three myths she believes good deal hold that the history of women contri saveing to the support of their families has a fairly short history, and that both bask as a reason for marrying and couples aspiring to the marital form of save as sole breadwinner have long histories.Contrary to what Coontz believes legion(predicate) people think, from the counterbalance of hum an evolution, through the days of ancient Greece, until the 1950s, the majority of women were a part of what we now call the work force. In prehistoric history, she, of course, noted that men were hunters and women were gatherers, since congregation could be d mavin while caring for the young. However, it was gathering, not hunting, that provided well-nigh of the food needed for survival, and hunters and gatherers shared within groups or bands (p. 38), rather than as couples. Marriages between sons and daughters from different bands served to maintain friendly between-band relationships.The author dated the time that marriage became an institution where wives lacked power in ancient agricultural societies (p. 46), although widows would be a more than perfect term than wives. Coontz was referring to the choices a woman had after the death of her husband, e.g., killing herself or marrying a relative of her dead husband. These practices were a result of the development of economic inequalities, where wealthier families became more interested in whom their kin married (p. 46).Both economic theories and the fact that it is women who are able to reproduce make this interpretation convincing. In addition, although not noted by Coontz, the fact that on average men are physically larger and stronger might explain why women were not able to resist in decent dominated.Probably because women were the ones who gave birth, there has been a tradition of holding them accountable for failing to provide phallic heirs for their husbands. Coontz recounted the well- sack outn fate of Anne Boleyn in the sixteenth century (p. 133), who refused to become the mistress of Henry VIII, when his current wife Catherine failed to produce a son.Her refusal led Henry to break ties with the pope who refused to grant him a divorce, so he could marry Anne just he had her executed when she too failed to produce a son. People still speak of wives giving their husbands sons, when anyone wh o has taken high-school biology knows that women have nothing to do with a childs transmitted sex i.e., since only men have a Y chromosome, women al counsels provide one of their two X chromosomes and the genetic sex of a child depends upon whether the father passes on his X or Y chromosome.Prior to the seventeenth century, although married women and men might come to bonk distributively former(a) after marriage, love was not deal outed necessary or even desirable in a marriage. Indeed, early Christianity discouraged close marital or other family ties because ones first loyalty was supposed to be to God (pp. 87-88). In medieval Europe, marriages within family aristocracies were encouraged, and despite the selectively enforced rules of the Catholic Church, incest was not uncommon.The overwhelming majority of people were not among the aristocracy, but marriages among tradespersons also were arranged for economic purposes, and the marriages of peasants generally were arranged by t heir masters.In the seventeenth century, marriage based on the personal choices of those being married was sanctioned. But it wasnt until the eighteenth century in Western Europe and North America that marriage for lovebecame a cultural ideal (p. 7), until the nineteenth century that marriage in the form of husband as breadwinner with a wife at home emerged, and it wasnt until the 1950s that the economy in America permitted the majority of marriages to assume this form.It is easy to assume, as Coontz does, that those who marry for love have been happier than those in arranged marriages or those marrying for other reasons. Interestingly, there seems to be no evidence that social scientists have ever tested this assumption. We dont really know, for example, whether women who marry for love wind up any more or less happy than women in arranged marriages, such as Golde, in Fiddler on the Roof (Stein, 1971), who ends her description of days of caring for her husbands needs, by asking, I f thats not love, what is?Actually, the difference between a sexual relationship between a couple who love each other and a couple who are in love is not clear, and may, in fact, be a quantitative variable, rather than the qualitative one people assume. Montagu (1999), considered a major anthropologist of the last century, wrote, Marriages between persons of character who can be friends tend to last and grow in reward and happiness and in the end result in love, as opposed to marriages resulting from that frenzy miscalled love (p. 105).In fact, most of us know some very happily married couples who met because they were able to abide the expensive services of businesses that have replaced the matchmakers of days past. In fact, based on observation, love does not conquer all, in the awareness that most marriages still are between those of similar socioeconomic status, who are of the same race, and even the same religion.As for the form of marriage where the husband is breadwinner, as Coontz observed, the form was a goal of both husbands and wives. Presumably, the rewards husbands expected were status, i.e., being a man who could provide for his wife and children through his own efforts (or the efforts of wealthy ancestors), having his needs met by women advised to have elegant meals and blameless homes and children awaiting his return from work, and the advantages of a charming wife to help him succeed in corporate America. Women too must have expected status, i.e., snaring a successful husband through her own charms (or those perceived in women with wealthy ancestors), fulfillment in being able to devote herself to raising her children, and leisure to pursue her interests.Coontz has noted that the male breadwinner model has worked and continues to work for some couples, but not for most. Men were less vocal, probably because its harder, or perceived as less noble, to express discontent for having sole responsibility than to express discontent most not bein g able to assume responsibilities. While Coontz devoted only half a scalawag (p. 251) to male discontent, and does so in the context of rebelling against social expectations and wanting to enjoy the sexual pleasures Hugh Heffner was promoting, men were expressing the realities of the world of work they knew, as opposed to women expressing a propensity to join a world they didnt yet know.When you think of work, as others have done, in terms of what you actually do, as opposed to how much youre paid to do it, how much work is there thats inherently interesting or rewarding to those doing it, how much is even a pleasant way to pass the time, and how much is so meaningless and mind-numbing that those doing it are leading lives of quiet desperation (Thoreau, 1854/1995)? It would be interesting to read about work and marital relationships pen in the year 2050.Coontz views the rejection of the 1950s predominant model of marriage in the context of dissatisfaction with this model. She des cribes The Feminine Mystique (Friedan, 1063/2001) as a wake-up call to women that was an important force in introducing the changes over the next thirty years that have made diverse forms of relationships acceptable.Friedans book was, in fact, a wake-up call to white middle-class women, but the rejection of the 1950s model of marriage probably should be seen as part of the larger historical context, i.e., rejection of a decade of fear of nonconformity after people witnessed lives were destroyed as a result of seeing communists under all of our beds who were out to paint America red. The 1950s dictated not only marital arrangements but all facets of our lives. While still oversimplified, perhaps the wake-up call that eventually resonated with many Americans was the question finally put to Joe McCarthy Have you no shame, sir? (Welch, 1954, cited in Kiely, 2005).SurprisesIt should confusion no-one that wives have had a long history in the work force. If nothing else, we do know that l adies had maids and some of the ladies maids must have had husbands. We know too that some have considered prostitution the oldest profession and, despite the obstacles, there were at least some women who were able to become poets or scientists. However, I had never thought about the large number of women, married and single, who would have had needed to work because the overwhelming majority of people were and in some countries still are poor.While we all know that arranged marriages were not unusual in the past, I was surprise to learn that for most of human history virtually all marriages were arranged and love was not even considered a reason for marrying. I guess my surprise is a result of our culture being saturated by stories of love. If love is not the foundation of a movie, its hard to think of any movie that doesnt have a love interest as part of the plot.By the fifth grade, girls and boys lease they are in love, and, despite the changes in the ways Coontz believes young people think, most of the young people I know think, talk, and are more elusive in both love and sex than in thinking about and working on equitable and mutually rewarding relationships. Knowing now that sweet before marrying wasnt even considered for most of human history, Id like to know how the concept in love developed and suspect its actually a social construction or perhaps simply means both loving someone and wanting a permanent sexual relationship with that person.As for the history of the man as breadwinner form of marriage, I did assume it had always been around, but was not surprised that it was a form that, except for the fifties, most married couples were unable to adopt. Even in the fifties, this form of marriage was affordable by only a small majority As long as women are allowed to work and can find jobs that pay more than the cost of childcare, for most of the world, working is not an option that women or men choose, but what one does in order to put food on the table, pay the rent, etc.Coontz said in reference to the nineteenth century, It is hard for us to grasp the slim rim that made the difference between survival and destitution for so many people in the past (p. 174). This sentence probably surprised me more than anything else in her book. It is hard for me to grasp that anyone capable of reading a book, let alone writing one, is unable to grasp that this slim margin is true for so many people in the present, for many in the United States and for the majority of those living in many so-called third-world nations. Perhaps this sentence explains why I had the sense that after descriptions of her own middle-class reality, she merely felt obliged to pay lip-service to the unwashed masses.Sometimes, what she failed to say was more revealing than what she did say. For example, she failed to mention that a by-product of Friedans (1063/2001) call for middle-class married women to enter the work force resulted in poor, often minority, women being poorly paid (probably in cash) for caring for the children left at home or in children being left with poorly paid and poorly trained workers at understaffed daycare centers. I also was surprised that she felt comfortable drawing conclusions without providing empirical data to support them. For example, she says that marriage remains the highest expression of commitment in our culture. She states this as fact, rather than as I would state my belief as an opinion that the highest expression of commitment is between mothers and their children.Finally, her noting that marital history was cyclical made me realize that it was a mistake to consider current social conditions in general as either permanent or becoming more firmly established. However, Coontz herself believes that we cannot turn back from changes in patterns created by the marriage revolution. Why not? She does not even consider this question.ReferencesCoontz, S. (2005). Marriage, a History From obedience to intimacy o r how loveconquered marriage. raw York Viking.Friedan, B. (1963/2001). The feminine mystique. New York Norton.Kiely, K. (2005). Supreme court. USA Today. Retrieved April 23, 2007.Montagu, A. (1999). The natural superiority of women. Walnut Creek, CA AltaMira Press.Stein, J. (1971, based on Aleicham, S.). Fiddler on the roof. Minsch-Cartier Production.Thoreau, H. D. (1854/1995). Walden. New York Houghton Mifflin.