Today’s rambling glob of an essay on marriage was inspired by two items in my inbox this morning. One, an email from one of our prominent blamers:
I’m on Feministing right now, and people are getting upset with me for saying that marriage is a sexist institution. It’s making me feel a bit insane.
And then this, an unsigned communiqué linking to an article about a “surrendered wife” named Skye Lamont. Lamont was once “a high-flying career woman” but now “much prefers being a submissive housewife” who “wears make-up, takes real good care of herself and leaps into [his] arms when [her asshole misogynist alpha-prick of a husband] come[s] home each day.”
Ay yi yi.
As a radical feminist dyke spinster aunt, I am the world’s leading authority on marriage. I have other matrimoniological credentials, too. I am the offspring of two married heterosexuals who dominated me for over 18 years. I’ve read Jane Austen. I’ve spent almost a whole year watching Turner Classic Movies on TV. I was ‘maid’ of honor at my sister Tidy’s wedding.
Not only that; some of my best friends are married!
And it’s gotta go, I tell you.
Sure, a wind has to be pretty ill to blow nobody good, and I’m not about to tell you that marriage isn’t a pretty sweet deal.
If you’re a dude.
l.
The dude-friendliness of marriage is not merely a function of the usual sexist crap you’re expecting me to list here — viz., that even among such ‘enlightened’ dual-career Western married couples as would consider Skye Lamont a mental defective, the majority of the drudgery falls upon the woman; that women who drop out of the work force to raise kids for 20 years get totally screwed financially as well as personally; that women can’t, in fact, ‘have it all’.
This marriage wind blows extremely ill for creatively stifled housewives, yes, but my main beef is with its brutal success as an organizing force of a social order predicated on violence, exploitation, and oppression. And I don’t just mean that marriage is a get-out-of-jail-free card for batterers and rapists, or that in many parts of the world a wife is a slave, or that international marriage brokerage, wherein women are trafficked as slaves, is a thriving business. I mean that marriage benefits not just individual men at the expense of individual women; it is the very foundation of global patriarchy. Wives are the unpaid labor that supports misogynist male culture.
ll.
Everyone knows a few intellectuals or hippies whose curiously enduring child-free marriages seem to be mostly about companionship and health insurance, but the reality is that marriages tend mostly to produce in droves that primary repository of patriarchal ideology known as the nuclear family, and its dutiful self-sacrificing menial, the wife-and-mother [1].
It is in the wife-and-mother’s cavernous receptacle that male society stockpiles its ideals of femininity, submission, and sex, ideals which must be passed to each new generation to ensure the ascendency of patriarchal oppression. A married woman’s value is assessed according to the success with which she assimilates and performs wife-and-mother behaviors. These behaviors are not limited to reproduction, shopping, child-rearing, husband-servicing, and toilet-scrubbing, but also encompass a woman’s fundamental sense of her own inadequacy, and of the inadequacy of women generally. This sense of defectiveness ensures that her identity is little more than a function of her service to male culture.
lll.
Even modern American marriages between progressive, trendy hipsters are, at the least, fanciful or ironic reenactments of a gruesome misogynist hegemony, and wreak some degree of megatheocorporatocratic carnage. Especially when the male hipster is a depressive artiste, and the female hipster has one of those Bettie Page haircuts.
lV.
Two heterosexual people may marry for ‘love’ but sooner or later they find their ideal subsumed by duty to bogus culturally constructed expectations. ‘Love’ as it is commonly understood — a sense of unbridled benevolence toward one of your own kind — cannot withstand the pressures wrought by the power differential between dominator and dominated. Because all of society, not to mention the global economy, turns on the difference between two classes — oppressor and oppressed, man and woman, white and black, top and bottom — love, initially an affinity between two like entities, morphs into a class struggle. Couples struggle against the world and each other for fidelity, for money, for sex, for kids, for individual happiness or fulfillment. Thus, marriage is ‘work’, as patriarchybots like Oprah will tell you, but it is the woman who has to do most of it; the dude merely has to show up at the wedding.
Your Nigel is different, of course, but unless he is a woman (and sometimes even if he is), he enjoys a privilege that you will never see for as long as you live. I allude to the privilege of personal sovereignty. Deny this truth at your peril.
V.
Every marriage is a replication of the basic unit of patriarchy [2].
__________________________
1. Before you flame me, O thou feminist wife-and-mothers, know this: I acknowledge your right to have made such choices as are commonly available to women in this male-dominated world. I do not disparage you personally, and I do not blame women generally for gettin’ hitched. I merely allude to a paradigm that generates enormous suffering for the several billions of women who aren’t as fortunate as, perhaps, you are.
2. Yes, even gay marriage. Marriage is currently heteronormative, but when gay marriage is legal, as it will undoubtedly be sooner or later, it will align itself precisely with the heteronormative model, since the primary function of marriage — yesterday, today, and forevermore — is to institutionalize the policing of penis placement.
That Skye Lamont article… oy. The only thing that keeps me relatively sane is the fact that, on some level, I’m positive she KNOWS she’s full of shit. She’ll get sick of this Stepford Wife charade once she realizes that Frank does not inherently deserve a femmebot to dote upon his sloppy, lazy, tired ass.
Also, thanks for the post as usual, Twisty. I’m 22, I’ve had a steady boyfriend for 3 years, and already people want to know if we’ll be “getting married anytime soon.” I simply don’t have the mental fortitude to launch into an explanation of how absurd on every level that question is.
I mentally fast-forwarded twenty years, where Skye Lamont is being traded in for a younger, perkier femmebot and crying about how she doesn’t know how this happened.
I sit here waiting for people to start flaming you, people who don’t seem to grasp the differences between individuals and systems. Individuals who get married may or may not be “bad”; either way, they’re making the best choice for themselves in a system that affords them nothing but bad choices. The system, however, totally stinks, for lack of something more eloquent to say. Besides, you already said it in this post.
Why yes, I do realize that this kinda-sorta paraphrases your first footnote. Maybe if it’s in bigger text, they’ll notice it better. (Some people, however, wouldn’t get it if it were printed on a two-by-four and subsequently imprinted in their skulls.)
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, having recently argued against marriage with my sister (another radical feminist).
Though I argued against it with her, claiming basically Twisty’s principles as my argument (sadly, much less articulately), my mind is beginning to turn. I also spoke at length on how irritating I find the whole proposal business. I’m supposed to wait around for my boyfriend to propose to me, hoping against hope that he’ll choose me as the bride he wants to buy–oops, I mean marry. Proposals of the romantic sort (if such a thing were to exist, I would use “dripping sarcasm” tags on the word romantic there) are nothing but a acting-out of the worst extremes a heterosexual relationship could tend to. They remind me of a man picking out a couch to buy, and it irritates me that my so-called feminist friends don’t think that a heterosexual, feminist-friendly relationship involves equality, they think it means “he treats me like a princess! and like totally idealizes me in every way! I hope I don’t fall off this pedestal ahhhh!”
Here’s the rub, for me anyway. I don’t really think that the pledge of two people to love each other for a long, long time is patriarchal in concept, and I love (love!) big parties with open bars and foi gras appetizers. And I also love having an excuse to get all my friends from all over the world into one city to have fun together. What’s more, I don’t think all relationships have to follow a dominate/submit paradigm–I mean, we can’t escape our socialization, but we can resist it, right? Isn’t that what blaming the patriarchy is all about? So if two people, regardless of gender, who are on the same page about respect and trying as hard as they can to avoid privileged assumptions and actions, and who strive toward the same goal of equality and a rejection of the heteronormative, patriarchal bullshit paradigm, want to have a party to announce that they love each other a lot and plan to for a good while and also want to have all their friends and family hang out and party with them, it seems like a good plan to me.
However, I just realized that since I don’t think divorce is a big deal, nor does the baby-makin’ thing really apply to me, that what I define as marriage is probably more likely to be defined as “party” to most folk. However, if we can define “woman” as “a member of the sex class” and recognize the essential truth in that definition (instead of “contains vagina,” like most folk), then I suppose I can define marriage any way I want, and defend that position.
Did I mention that some of my best friends are wife-and-mothers?
i agree with what your saying, but your missing the big picture. all the things you list aren’t just bad about marriage; they’re bad about *ALL* heterosexual relationships.
Well, Alie, if having a party were all that marriage entails, I wouldn’t have a problem with it.
Haha, good point mustelid, but perhaps you’re being rather generous with Frank’s allotment of Skye’s “Wifey Time”. I’d give the asshole 5-10 years to ditch his current trophy for a newer, shinier one.
Thank-you. I’m not going to sit here and tell you all the shit that happened in my marriage. I’ve typed it too many times, and it’s the same old story: he bought into the patriarchal structure of marriage completely, and I didn’t. I was a self-identified Feminist before we got married, and I have no idea what the hell he was thinking, because that never changed, though I guess he had hopes that it would. He’s not the devil, but he certainly loves male privilege, and all that goes along with it, and like a lot of the privileged, he just wouldn’t open his eyes to what I was dealing with, because he’d have to give some of it up. We’re on speaking terms (again, he’s not the devil) but lesson learned from my end: the way I want to live my life is not compatible with marriage. And you know what? As a hetero girl, sometimes it’s pretty fucking lonely. But I’d rather be lonely than capitulate.
Huh. Typed more than I thought I would there. This is a huge issue for me, obviously.
And holy run-on sentences there! :(
Hey Twisty, thanks for this. I’ve recently embarked on a venture of cohabitation with a (yes, “enlightened,” whatever that means for one of them) dude so chock full o’ privilege it’s falling out of every orifice. I happen to love him in spite of this, but I’m keeping a bag packed for the inevitable time when it all goes to pot on me.
The point of all that being, I’ve been getting pressure from all sides in response to this arrangement. This includes my heretofore independence-supporting parents, who rock, but are all “Well, shouldn’t you just marry him then?” and not quite understanding why that makes it unnecessarily complicated and much scarier, despite the fact that my father is in fact the original patriarch and they should both get it. It’s good to have my instincts reaffirmed.
Plus, as you yourself acknowledge, if you can’t go to a radical feminist dyke spinster aunt for marriage advice, who CAN you go to? Everyone else is too bitter and corrupted by its very institution, after all.
This is all very true.
I’m engaged right now. I love my fiancé, we’re happy, we have an equal partnership. I fully expect us to have the intellectual-hippy marriage, but if we don’t, I’m so out of there.
As always, very thought provoking post. I totally follow your line of thinking, agree with it, and love your wonderful use of words.
What do you propose as a way to right this marriage situation? Or how can a person make a wise choice in this area of life? It seems to get clouded and tangled with a big glob of emotion.
I mean an answer for a reasonably sane feminist. Not the Skye Lamont’s of the world. Those types become old ladies eating cat food in retiremnt.
Ay yi yi.
This is probably an insane question, but did you get this from The Manolo?
That article about Skye Lamont is a joke, right? I mean, no serious publication would ever publish those words in that order unless it was a satire of something, would they?
Why yes, I have been called hopelessly naive, why do you ask?
I wish people wouldn’t expect me to propose solutions. The only solution is revolution, which, as you might imagine, requires something of a commitment.
Speaking as a feminist wife and mother, I was going ‘hell yeah!’ all the way through your post even before reaching postscript number 1. And I think I’ve got a good marriage to a gentle man. Given the choice of doing it over I would make exactly the same choices. But that’s because I’m living in the Pre-Twisty Revolution years. Any attempt to raise children in a nuclear family unit is predicated upon the at least partial surrender of the mother/wife’s sense of self. My view was that if you’re going to procreate you might as well get married because at least gives you some legal protection (and yes, an excuse for a big party). But it’s still a compromise with the patriarchy.
“Ay yi yi.
This is probably an insane question, but did you get this from The Manolo?”
Nope. Ricky Ricardo.
To which all I can hear in my mind is, “Lucy! I’m home!”
Talk about synchronicity (or some such Jungian BS). I created a new post at my blog, flipped over to see Twisty’s Wisdom o’ th’ Day, and I found the above discussion.
And yes, given the premises of feminist thought, marriage indeed comes out of as a pile of steaming male privilege. IBTP.
And dammit! As can be seen above, I really miss that comment preview of yours, TF!
I *want* the revolution. Can’t we start?
This Skye Lamont person sounds like The Total Woman, revisited. I think that happens ever 17-20 years, sorta like cicadas.
ew_nc: ha, ha, ha–hilarious!!
I’m married. To a great guy. He’s kind. He’s loving. He’s an amazing father. He does shit like come upstairs, see that the dining room floor is full of 3 days’ worth of meal detritus, and gets out the broom.
He never expects adulation, kudos, or any special recognition for participating in the running of the household.
I have two kids, and I love them. And they’re really cool, of course. Funny and smart and loving and lovable. Of course.
Yet honest to goddess, I still agree 100% with Twisty. Maybe it’s middle age; I don’t know. But sometimes I wish I had just done whatever the heck I wanted, whenever I wanted.
However, that choice was never open to me, was it? I Blame (wait for it) You Know What.
Upon going for a thought-provoking run, I’ve realized that my great plans for that party I was writing about actually have nothing to do with an actual marriage, but are more of a redefinition of a wedding, I suppose. Marriage has little to do with dinner parties, methinks.
“The only solution is revolution” - Fair enough!
But after the revolution, what should we expect long-term child-rearing relationships to look like? Would we end up with something that is essentailly similar to marriage but without the backgorund of male-privilege? Or will we get soemthing completely different?
Welp, I got married. Two het, hipster, intellectual, punkhippy types. Artists, y’know. He’s a good man, and we have a good marriage, by any standard. And it sucks. It’s actually pretty hellish, for a whole lot of stupid, boring, trite reasons that you can easily imagine. I can’t even begin to imagine how much it sucks for women stuck with men who are not as nice and good as my husband.
All I have to say to women is: whatever you do, do not get married. Because it sucks.
Every woman I know told me this before I got married, but I thought “oh, he’s different, I’m different, it’ll be different.”
I was wrong, all those women were right, and now I’m stuck.
No matter how wonderful he and the relationship is–he will change, it will change, it will be bad and you will be miserable. (He’ll be completely blissful, of course.) It will suck. A lot. Don’t get married. Just live together or something. Do not get married.
I love being married.
Twisty- I appreciate that you used the word “child-free” rather than “childless”. I hate it when people miss the distinction.
That’s one of the reasons I don’t want to get married; I know that no matter how egalitarian the marriage may be, no matter if we both share the housework and don’t have children and allow each other total freedom, the marriage will always be a model of the patriarchal institution of marriage worldwide.
Damn it, now you had to go and make me cry.
Even when you try to work it out differently, American marriages boil down to a truly ghastly arithematic. I’m not sure what the actual algorithm is, but I’m pretty certain that it involves 7 dinners a week, the weekly number of loads of laundry in the household, the average cost of a house in your town, and of course the ever-present .77, for the amount that the wife makes compared to the husband’s salary. Then you can multiply whatever hideous answer you get by the number of children.
Doesn’t “child-free” sort of slight one group of people, while “childless” slights the other?
I don’t understand women (who weren’t imported) in the western world that say they were forced into marriage, or that they are stuck in a marriage they are unhappy with.
Leave?
It’s really not so awful and terrible to be single, also known in some circles as “independent”. It’s just what the patriarchy wants you to think.
Reason why I got married after 8 years of cohabitation and a child on the way?
Legal guardianship costed $400, and a wedding license costed 0.
And now I hate it. I don’t hate the alleged husband, because he’s an excellent father and does more than his fair share housework, but I just HATE being married. I feel so trapped. I should have spent the extra $300. :(
Yes, yes, yes. From the comfort of a happy marriage I know that the ‘what-ifs’ of its limitations will be with me to the end. What will child-rearing, long term relationships look like after the revolution? Hopefully as happy and as comfortable and as fulfilling as the best partnerships can be but without the need to do the ‘what-if’ and ‘if only’ routines (which I think are not only the exclusive preserve of women). IBTP for the way in which social expectations and assumptions result in marriage that confines and limits the potential to take chances and dare to please yourself before everyone else!
As a member of the doubleX caste bound in a patriarchal union with My Nigel, I have to ask what will most likely come across as a stupid 101 question:
Supposing I accept the arguments against marriage (and as a twenty-something new generation feminist slowly realizing I may not be able to have it all let’s call that highly likely), and supposing I want to engage (heh) in the solution/revolution…
…do I have to lose the husband?
Because he’s really nice.
Well, Niki, I get what you’re saying, but some women can’t leave. Poor women with kids, no job, no prospects, no support system. Such women are literally enslaved.
I am married and have two children - and I couldn’t agree more with everything that Twisty has said about marriage. It costs me a lot to say that, at this stage of my life after 20 years of marriage and with two children still under 12, but I have come to believe implicitly that I am living a life that is mired deep in the patriarchal shitpile - and what can I do about it now? Dump my kids and husband for my radical feminist beliefs? By god, I am so tempted at times, especially when the patriarchy is getting me down, but mostly I just resolve to live a life with as much radical feminist integrity as I can within this prison I set up for myself when I was young and stupid.
anon for this one said: All I have to say to women is: whatever you do, do not get married. Because it sucks.
Good advice. I would add: Don’t have kids, either. They are the ultimate trap. Frankly, if I had the chance to do it over again I’d go the whole hog and be a radical feminist lesbian separatist and try and organise a collective somewhere far from the madding crowd.
Here’s what I figured out, the hard way: living with a man, without the marriage license, is just as oppressive as living with a man you are married to. I’ve done both. The minute you move in, he expects you to turn into Betty Fucking Crocker. With the live-in relationship, I spent three long, miserable years thinking “haven’t you MET me? did you really think I was going to turn into Betty Crocker?” And then I moved out.
I think the ideal solution for two people who love each other and want to spend a lot of time together is to either live next door to each other, or else in a shotgun double, with one connecting door. My kitchen, my mess level, my bed, my thermostat, my decor, my computer, MY GODDAMN BATHROOM, and my noise level. The only thing you absolutely have to share is the mortgage. You could even raise kids that way. At the very least, don’t live with a man until you can both afford to split the cost of a housekeeper to do all of the crap he’s going to expect you to do for free.
Niki,
It’s not so easy to leave. A lot of women really do marry for “love” and it’s difficult to give that up, even when the guy is acting like an asshat. If he’s not hitting you, or cheating on you, you spend a long, long time second-guessing yourself, wondering if you’re being unreasonable, wondering if love > self-respect (yes, I really did do that math). In the end, love wasn’t greater, but I was raised to be completely independent. Many women weren’t. It’s still not expected of them. So that makes it, again, harder. It’s not easy to leave someone you care about, at all.
Here here!!!
Marriage is so very steeped in the patriarchal tradition that there is currently no way for a woman to entertain the notion of equality in the relationship. Ever.
Left to do it over again, I would never marry. If I would have had children (and I actually did, two great people), I would have raised them strictly on my terms.
A woman should decide on a pregnancy fully informed; she should understand she will probably be the only person responsible for the health and economic well being of the child, no matter what. (Mr. Kramer not withstanding.) Its out of our bodies into our lives.
Men do not/wish not to understand. None of them.
IBTP.
This is like reading a horror story set in the future. My future.
If I was the shoot-the-messenger type I’d be so pissed right now.
Spit the Dummy, I hear you. Every day I thank dog we don’t have children.
We really need the revolution.
Jezebella’s solution sounds workable.
Anyway, if I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t. But life is complicated, and here we are.
Despite having a “good one” as a partner, being married is all the things Twisty said. I’m afraid of having children and sinking deeper into the wife/mother role, even though I would like to participate in the raising of children.
Although that time I had a cluelessly entitled roommate was way worse (he seemed to think being gay and able to quote some feminist and queer theorists made him all feminist without him actually having to act differently from straight entitled idiots). Living with or depending on others for essential pieces of your life opens you up to domination, period.
Changeling has it right that all heterosexual relationships–including non-sexual friendships–are inherently unequal because of patriarchy. Marriage cements one relationship in a patriarchy-approved manner, allowing the participants less fear of the other one leaving and therefore more freedom to walk all over each other. In fact, since I’m the wage-earner I often blithely walk all over him in role-reversing patriarchy reenactment, not noticing until later how horrible that is. Everyone knows who to blame.
As for post-patriarchal child-rearing, I’m fond of Shulie’s utopian sci-fi scenario: ‘motherhood’ is eradicated; kids are not ‘raised’ but instead are allowed full independence in a cooperative of assorted adults; ‘childhood’ ceases to be sentimentalized or romanticized; kids receive fully human status; domination of children as possessions by neurotic parents who have reproduced for self-serving reasons (currently, nearly every reason for reproduction is self-serving) is a criminal act. Etc.
My parents have been divorced for years and I’m 20, so I’m not an expert on marriage. I’ll add myself to the chorus asking what everything looks like after the revolution.
For now, is it more feminist for two people who want a long-term commitment to each other - whether of the opposite sex or the same sex - to cohabit and be “partners” rather than “husband/wife”?
I’d assume that even in a post-patriarchy society people would still have children, although it wouldn’t be required or expected. It seems unfair to make the mother bear the entire financial/psychological/medical burden of pregnancy and rearing children alone, so would there be a way for the father (unless it was via parthenogenesis) to help out without slopping back into the oppressive marriage model? I mean, if the kid is half his, shouldn’t he have bear responsibility?
(Sorry if it seems like a stupid question or attracts a lot of MRAs/FRAs, I’ve only recently learned about the “marriage is oppressive” model and I’m very intrigued.)
Yep, so fucking hard to leave once children enter the picture. How can I live with my three-yr old on $16K/year (that would be a conservative estimate of my current earning potential, but I think I would be lucky to even make that) when I can offer him so much more with my husband’s three-times-as-much income? I can’t do that to my kid. And that’s only one of the minor reasons I won’t leave the marriage.
It’s easy to encourage someone to leave an unhappy relationship, but you can’t judge unless you know all the facts.
(Jezebella - love the duplex idea. However, I’d modify it so that the child’s bedroom also adjoined to both parents’ portions of the house - the kid(s) should be able to come and go as they please.)
(Or maybe no. Dunno.)
Ooh, this thread …. I’ve come over all Philip Larkin, so to speak.
“As for post-patriarchal child-rearing, I’m fond of Shulie’s utopian sci-fi scenario[.]”
I find it really attractive, as well, in part because I was raised by parents who were loving, but otherwise completely incompetent to guide my development. What I like about Firestone’s vision is that children could freely gravitate towards those adults who happen to be good at guiding the development of children.
I have been married since 1981, and I could not agree more with the proposition that marriage (like the monotheism that spawned it and continues to enforce it) should be avoided at any and all cost.
As for families, I think Clifford Odets said it shortly and sweetly (in the ’30s): “Abolish them all.”
Rainbow Girl siad: This is like reading a horror story set in the future. My future.
I wish I could lie to you and tell you it wasn’t. I was where you are now. I was young and in love and married to a great guy who “believed in equality for women”. It worked really well when we were both working, I was young and hardly noticed all the extra work dumped on me when we got married. Then we had kids and suddenly I was IT. I was at home and I was doing everything, from servicing the car to all the housework and cooking to being on call 24/7 for everything to do with the baby, isolated at home with no support network and still expected to “give him some space” at the end of his working day so he could unwind. We almost didn’t make it through the first two years after the first kid was born but it got better because I screamed loud and hard and called him a selfish prick and insisted he become a decent human being about it all.
He’s a great guy so he woke up to himself and became a helpful spouse - a great spouse compared to about 90% of the husbands I hear about regularly. But the truth is that marriage is great for him: as Twisty says, he’s a guy living in a patriarchal system set up to benefit him, while I’m a woman set up in a system set up to screw me over unless I’m willing to immolate myself as martyr for husband and children - and I’m not willing to do that. I want to be a person in my own right and so I do not fit into the current system. I suffer depression as a result, while I struggle to survive the label “wife and mother” that is strangling me.
I have no words for the mental shock it was for me to be a stay-at-home mother after years of working. As a menial worker in a government office I received bucket loads more respect and validation than I did as a stay-at-home mother. I used to yearn to go back to work so that I could feel good about myself, which should tell you heaps about how little regard is given to mothers on this planet. I’m currently retraining at university and the simple recognition for attending classes and handing in essays is water for my parched sense of self. The greatest horror for me in giving in to the patriarchal institution of “marriage and children” was that I almost lost me.
What reasons are there for having children besides self-serving ones?
Wordy word fuckin’ McWord. For as long as I can remember, the idea of being married has horrified me. I watched my mother stifle her spirit and talents, and sacrifice her earnings and retirement in her mistaken allegiance to a cultural ideal that put her at the mercy of a heartless drunk. I swore I would not marry, not have a child unless I could be completely financially responsible for her, and never give up my independence. My daughter is 12, her two dads are married to each other (whatever, it was a great party) and I am supremely happy that the only curly pubic hairs I have to clean out of the bathtub are my own. My mother is finally free to make her living as the artist she has always been. A partnership of equals? sounds great! Marriage? not to be confused with the above.
Crapola. My post upthread should say “$100″ for the marriage license. One hunnered.
Spit the Dummy, I’m glad to hear of your current activities. As soon as my little one is enrolled in all-day school, I’m'a going back to school myself, for the degree I should have taken the first time around. Yet another reason I can’t leave my marriage - I need someone to pay for schoolz.
Rainbow Girl - I’m sorry. It just sucks. Even if your partner stays “good” and doesn’t descend into patriarchal slovenliness, the daily grind of work, cook, clean, sleep can just wear you down, and it’s so hard to pick up and go, when and if you feel like it. I hope it can be different for you - keep your independence, fight for it tooth and nail, and don’t give a millimetre. The moment you give ground, even if it seems like the best decision at the time, then it all falls apart.
This describes my now blessedly defunct state of holy fucking matrimony to a P. Mr. Coyote was a depressive who leaned on me for his constant emotional support while directing his frequent rages at me. I was expected to make him look good, work, and produce children. When I became burned out from job stress and suffered a relapse of chronic fatigue, we split up. Two years later, I hear that he is still furious with me for not “keeping up my end of the bargain.” I wish I was joking, but I’m not.
Although I was trying to get pregnant when I got ill, I am now so releived that I did not have a child with that man, because it probably would have killed me.
So, now I have a sweet boyfriend who lives a long way from me. I’m planning to move to be with him (he has kids, so the move is more reasonable for me), but I don’t want to marry him or get back into what is essentially a business deal made in a romantic fugue. What should I do?
Thanks, Twisty. I was having this argument this other day, and my opponent suggested that my view was particularly harsh because I remain bitter about a divorce that happened 5 years ago. You’ve given me fresh ammo.
I spent almost 3 years trying to teach my ex-husband about delegation of responsibility in a relationship. It didn’t take, hence the divorce. I will never marry again because I know now that the number of human beings that can participate in the institution without defaulting to the patriarchal norm is about 9, and none of them live around here.
I did the single mom thing (pregnant by my college professor), then got married, had another kid, put my business on hold to raise him while my husband moved onward and upward in his career, got divorced, and now I’m working my ass off, doing all the child-rearing, and mopping up after the crap he pulls with our kid. I find myself thinking “I want a fucking divorce!”, but we’re already divorced. Kids, marriage is forever. You’ll never get the albacore off your back.
magickitty said: Rainbow Girl - I’m sorry. It just sucks. Even if your partner stays “good†and doesn’t descend into patriarchal slovenliness, the daily grind of work, cook, clean, sleep can just wear you down.
This is it exactly.
My husband is a great guy. I bet magickitty’s guy is, too. And yours. The trouble is the patriarchy will get you every time. It grinds you down, year after fucking year until you’re so tired and worn out that you get tired of the struggle.
The best you can hope for is some sort of attempt at equality within your own personal partnership living as best you can within the wider patriarchal shitpile, which isn’t easy because you will have to make compromises again and again and again just in order to co-exist with it. And guess who will have to pay for that compromise? Hint: it won’t be the guy.
It won’t be his fault - your guy or magickitty’s or mine - but they will benefit from our patriarchal society while we suffer the fallout, time and time again. That’s just the nature of the beast, of marriage, under patriarchy.
We know who to blame.
There are places that do not have marriage. Amazing as it seems, most of them are gone now. Some have changed like Japan. Japan in ancient times before Chinese and Korean influence, that brought confusionism and Buddhism Japan did not have marriage. They were a matrilineal, matrifocal and polygamous society. Men would visit the homes of the woman, or women he had relationships with. Women would have the man or men she had relationships with visit her house. If a couple was monogamous the man would just stay at the woman’s house living with her only and helping raise children and other work. But that ended with confusionism and Chinese influence.
However I know of one existing culture that still does not have marriage. The Mosou who live in south west china (formerly Tibet) live on Lugu Lake(in the yuan province). The mosou maybe one of the few matriarchies (matriarchies are still being debated if they exist or ever have) in existence. The mosou are matrilineal matrifocal society. In traditional mosou society there are no fathers. The biological fathers or other people who the mother has a relationship with have nothing to do with her children’s upbringing. Her brother is the one who will be the child’s adult male care taker. The biological father (or fathers, the mosou are polygamous) only visit the woman at night (when she asks them to) and leaves in the day.
Since the mosou’s land is now Chinese* territory they are subject to Chinese rule. And during Mao’s era the mosou were forced to marry but this ended with Mao’s death and thus the majority of married mosou got divorces.
I wanted to share with my fellow blamers what a world with out marriage might be like.
*the chinese group the mouso with the naxi, whom are their neighbors but signigicantly culturally diffrent. so sometimes information on the mouso is actually information on the naxi who are a patralinal patriarchy. just wanted to make that clear to anyone one who searches for info
“I mean an answer for a reasonably sane feminist. Not the Skye Lamont’s of the world. Those types become old ladies eating cat food in retiremnt.” skyscraper
Whoa! Somebody hold me back.
And, the answer is “No.”
Before I married my husband, I made sure he was a good guy. We’d been friends for 20 years. I saw how he lived. I carefully checked out his life and his apartment. I mean, I’m not stupid, OK? He lived alone. He kept his apartment clean (including the bathroom). He didn’t fuck with women. He respected and admired strong women. He cooked and cleaned and did his laundry and kept a decent, if difficult, job. He paid his bills.
As soon as we were married, he turned me into his servant. All of a sudden, he apparently forgot how to clean or do laundry–he still cooks occasionally. He quit his job and I was forced to be the responsible one (if you knew me, how you’d larf).
He spends most of his time sitting in the comfy chair, drinkin beer, smokin dope, and watchin movies on DVD.
I work three jobs and I’m responsible for the bills. I’m expected to do all the cleaning and laundry. And all the kin work. And all the emotional work in our relationship, which I refuse to do, so of course everything is my fault.
And no–it’s not the work I object to. It’s that I can’t stand being made into a servant. And I don’t believe that if you love someone, you turn them into a goddam servant. And then, you know, I do not feel like having sex with someone who treats me like a servant, because: Not. Sexy. So–no sex. No talking. Just good old fashioned icy WASP politeness. Joy!
But he’s a good man. He’s nice to me–no cheatin or beatin ferchrissakes. He never says anything judgemental about my personal appearance. And he’s kind, and good to our pets (that I care for and clean up after).
(Jeeze, Twisty, it’s so hard not to use ellipses–I feel a need for ellipses here.)
Anyway. It sucks. And it just happened. As every woman out there told me it would. I didn’t believe them, I wish I had.
But whaddya gonna do? Leave a good, kind, smart, gentle, funny man because he doesn’t do laundry? And it’s me that doesn’t want sex. You see what I’m saying here? You can’t just say, anywhere except here, “Hey. What am I, a servant? How did that happen? WTF?”
Another benefit of the sci-fi child-rearing scenario: without families, there would be no notion of carrying on the sacred family line. No one would be pressured into having children. Population down. Less draining of the planet’s dwindling resources. Yay.
I’ve been told I would be a good parent because I’m creative, energetic, etc. But I don’t want to apply those traits to ushering a child into adulthood. I have other shit I want to do. And people tell me it’s a shame when I say that, because I’d make such a GREAT parent. They don’t seem to get that this scenario limits me to two bad options: either become a neglectful parent who applies her talents elsewhere, or become a resentful parent who gives up her life for the kid and regrets it. Either way, I don’t want to put a developing human being through that hell. And, of course, ironically, that makes me selfish in some people’s eyes.
It is disquieting that the best marriage advice I’ve heard to date comes from blog commenters under amusing aliases.
Thanks for your advice, Spit The Dummy and MagicKitty. From what I’ve learned so far, you are right. Part of my willingness to get engaged was my conviction that as a feminist, unequal patriarchal marriage wouldn’t apply to me. Slowly, disturbingly, that has changed.
Now, the boundaries I selfishly set for myself now are often the only things that make me feel like I’m still an autonomous human being. And no, it’s not him. He really embraces the idea of an equal marriage and puts it in action. But the broader culture sets it up a certain way and you can’t avoid these problems. What I am left with is a situation where I feel like I’m battling him to set those boundaries, including such lines in the sand as “I shouldn’t do things that are totally wrong for me”. Our relationship is paying for cheques we never wrote!!!!
I am thinking about having kids down the line, but as thirty/thirty-five starts to look younger and younger every year I have huge worries about how that would play out. I hope we can come to an arrangement-I fantasize sometimes about living next door, or in apartments across the hall, or even going long-distance again as hard as that was. Good thing he likes alpha females, I would be in so shit-deep if I had pretended to be anything other than myself right from day one.
Women, as 101-ers so often point out, are blessed with modern day choices. But I don’t want to choose between. I want everything, just like men get to have, except without having an easy life buttressed by inequality. I want a fair and joyful life, buttressed by my/our ability to imagine and enact what a good relationship should look like.
anon for this one:
I thought my husband was a great guy. It took me a long time to understand why I was so profoundly relieved when he left. I just wish I hadn’t fried myself to a crisp trying to be a good wife and partner. I wish I hadn’t self-destructed rather than destroy the illusion to which I clung. He was’t worth the price I paid.
anon: “But whaddya gonna do? Leave a good, kind, smart, gentle, funny man because he doesn’t do laundry?”
Yes. Or, rather, no. Leave him because he doesn’t care about you, your life, your time, or your soul.
“You see what I’m saying here? You can’t just say, anywhere except here, ‘Hey. What am I, a servant? How did that happen? WTF?’”
That’s just the thing to say. How is he–or anyone–going to wake from their testosterone haze unless you speak the hell up? I think one of the things we’re doing here is hipping ourselves to the fact that the deck is stacked in their favor, and they will never even see it unless they have to. Change him, leave him, or let yourself die inside. Those are your choices.
I got married to improve my health insurance. Though I don’t have any data on it, I’d wager this is the reason a lot of Americans get hitched. I’d have happily gone through life cohabiting if my health didn’t depend on having a piece of paper saying I was someone’s property. It seems two practical steps toward keeping women out of the marriage trap would be universal health care and closing the wage gap.
Dawn Coyote, I appreciate that. You know, I’m actually being kinda sarcastic. I mean, I’m trying to say what I think, while including what I think other people will think. OK, never mind.
Long story longer, these days I think my husband’s kind of an asshole. I’m trying to figure a way out. Things are, of course, since this is the grownup world we’re talking about, complicated. We’ll see.
Patti:
Amen, sister. Even when the children are grown you will have to deal with the ex-spouse, and the ex-spouse’s new spouse, and their kids. It’s like having poor relatives that won’t leave your house.
And I must have missed the school lesson that mentioned “albacores on your back”. Did you mean “albatross”? I don’t even like tuna.
Bitey, thanks. I really don’t want to hijack this thread into a whole Thing About Me. I appreciate your kindness and wisdom, though.
I’ve basically gone on strike–I just refuse to do any of his work; I take care of myself and the animals. As in: I do my laundry, not his. If he wants clean clothes, I guess he can get up outta the comfy chair and wash some. So far, my strike has resulted more icy WASP politeness, not any noticeable increase in love or respect.
I can’t be bothered, actually–life is goddam hard enough as it is without going on some crazy crusade to fix my husband or this stupid marriage. I don’t care at this point. I have too much to do.
In fact, right now I have to go do a whole lot of freelance work, so a round tacos for everyone and I’ll see ya later.
“kids are not ‘raised’ but instead are allowed full independence in a cooperative of assorted adults … kids receive fully human status”
I have no idea if my local libraries (university/public) have Shulamith Firestone, but I’m not sure I understand. I assume someone would have to be patient enough to teach the kid potty-training and to change diapers, and take care of the child when he or she is sick. Does allowing kids “fully human status” mean that there are no age restrictions for certain acts/decisions, like driving, starting work, etc.?
“What reasons are there for having children besides self-serving ones?”
Maybe some of the mothers in this thread can answer it better than me. Also a lot of people who have kids don’t plan them. It’s theoretically possible that post-patriarchy two people of the opposite sex would have sex, choose not to use birth control/birth control fails, conceive and decide not to have an abortion (although I assume that birth control and abortion would be available to anyone who needs it).
“They were a matrilineal, matrifocal and polygamous society.”
There was a discussion about polygamy at feministe, and looking at most of the polygamous (well, polygynous) societies, I don’t think that polygamy is any more pro-woman than monogamy, if not less so.
My favorite marriage/kids arrangement is in Ursula Le Guin’s “The Dispossessed”. Without private property, the idea of obligatory cohabitation sort of falls away (in this situation anyway) and so does the possession over kids.
I’m not saying that private property = patriarchy, but they are intricately intertwined.
About twenty years ago, as a young blamer in a first-year philospohy course, I wrote a paper (the first of college! 6 pages!) expanding on the themes in point IV, above. (Got an ‘A’ from the crabby old dyke who taught philosophy to young blamers without ever, once, smiling.)
As an older married lady–yes, my Nigel is a lady also, and yes, I get the better of this deal by a long shot, as the party in the marriage often referred to as ’sir’ by strangers–I feel it even more strongly than I did when I was just starting out blaming: There is no relationship between two people, in this here patriarchy, that doesn’t succumb to its dom/sub paradigm somehow.
And yet I say it to my straight married friends whose Nigels are, at least, groovy enough to encourage them to hang out with me ’cause our kids are friends: I don’t know how you make these mixed marriages work. They seem so much harder than any connection between two people should have to be. And there’s no way around it. Guess who I blame?
“What reasons are there for having children besides self-serving ones?â€
Maybe some of the mothers in this thread can answer it better than me.
Ahhh, maybe not.
Honestly, most people are raising kids because they had sex. I’m raising a kid I adopted for self-serving reasons, and so is everyone else who adopted even if they deeply, sincerely feel otherwise.
Yeah, it’s slightly less self-centered that I refused to spend big bucks to create a little me to use more fossil fuels, when there were babies without homes around. There may be a mix of altruistic reasons sprinkled on the frosting over the cake of self-serving reasons, but nobody decided to raise a kid exclusively for altruistic reasons–the math doesn’t work.
“…the way I want to live my life is not compatible with marriage. And you know what? As a hetero girl, sometimes it’s pretty fucking lonely. But I’d rather be lonely than capitulate.”
Hey yeah!! I am really enjoying all these posts that critique marriage, but am I the only other single, hetero woman out here who is going to point out how rough THAT particular row can be to hoe?
I know a thing or two about marriage. I am divorced from a millionaire who was a sweet guy but had a very controlling uber-patriarchal family. My youthful good looks snagged him, it seemed like the thing to do, but I soon realized I was being groomed as a brood mare and left. My mama didn’t raise no mares.
I’ve enjoyed a lot of freedom and am lucky enough to have been able to travel and pretty much live it up. I remember visiting an Aussie friend on one of my carefree holidays. She had married when I did but stayed on and had two kids. Standing in her modest kitchen away from the men, with a screaming baby in her arms and a toddler clinging to her legs, she warned grimly, “Just never have kids.” We have a picture of the two of us on that visit. She’s puffy and exhausted; I’m chic and radiant.
But my current reality is another story: it is not easy to be a single woman over forty. Some of the woes are financial since we women earn so much less and have to survive on one income. I worry constantly about becoming the old lady eating cat food.
But the hardest part, really, is not having anyone automatically there. I broke my foot and it was a nightmare trying to get food up the stairs and the dog walked. I have to go alone to work functions where I know I am pitied and/or scorned. I do it and hold my head up, but it’s not easy.
Maybe the ideal would be feminist collectives, where we could find companionship and solidarity (and look after each others’ kids), without the bonds and binds of marriage.
Amen, sister. You know there are times I really wished I was a lesbian. I just sucks to crave male companionship when you’re a woman living in a patriarchy. It just totally sucks.
Bless you, Twisty. Like a few of the other folks who have commented on this post, I have been married for almost seven years to a “good guy,” and I agree 100% with every point you made. I feel like I’ve been a feminist my whole life, and despite that, in my early 20’s I fell for the marriage racket hook, line and sinker. And yes, “racket” is the word I use most often these days to express my attitude about marriage.
I was particularly thrilled by your point IV, about how love can’t hold up under the power differential inherent in marriage. You managed to put into words the ridiculously contradictory nature of two platitudes that are constantly getting bandied around: “I married for love,” and “Marriage is work.”
I’m going to stick with my good guy for the time being, but I am proud to say that I’m no longer terrified of the idea of ending my marriage if I ever reach a point where I feel I can no longer handle the aforementioned power differential. And instead of being scared of divorce, I’m grateful that it is an avenue that is open to me, because I know there are countless other married women in situations far worse than mine who don’t have the option.
I decided about a year ago that if I ever do find myself single again, there’s no way in hell I’m ever getting married again. It’s not for me, in large part because of the reasons you outlined above. I shared my decision with my Mom (herself a married feminist and one of my role models) and her response was music to my ears:
“Me neither.”
I just want to thank everyone that has commented here, and has shared stories and particulars about their marriage (something I didn’t do). Even two years after I left, I still question myself. I know I did the right thing for my sanity, and for my worth as a
human beingtaqueau. Sometimes I still wonder “Was it just me? Did I choose wrong? Did I fuck this all up?” But it’s not me. It never was me. I could have written half of these comments, word for word. That is how strongly I identify with these experiences. Thank you all for reinforcing that it wasn’t me. Doubt is evil, and you all have helped me a great deal. I can’t thank you enough.Random Lurker: “It seems two practical steps toward keeping women out of the marriage trap would be universal health care and closing the wage gap.”
Maybe. Let’s not hold our breath waiting for these, though.
Reading through all of these comments, I thought about all the readings I’ve done in feminist studies regarding the CR movements/gatherings. All of y’all are sharing your experiences and trying to figure out what to do now that you’ve Realized.
Great stuff that makes my heart turn.
Maybe there is a chance for revolution after all.
Although, we’re all the ones who have, in one way or another, sought out this particular website. There are still a lot of folks who don’t quite get it, in the “Wow, there are systems at play?” sort of way.
My cousin (age 22) became a wife two weeks ago. She took his last name. The wedding was extremely depressing for me because, as so many of you have shared, the dude does as little as possible while she has been doing EVERYFUCKINGTHING. A ring on his finger won’t change that.
I have been trying to ease into the conversation of breeding/procreating/having children, as I fear that would only turn out for the worse, but I have no idea how to broach it. She comes from a family of four children and parents who have been married since high school; the shit will be in her genes.
These people. How do we reach these people? Or do we leave them?
Here’s my 2 cents.
– Get married ONLY if you want to and ONLY if you have had time to enjoy being single, to establish a career, and to have lots of relationships with lots of different people. You can’t be afraid to be single.
– Do not have kids.
– Hire a house cleaner.
– Enter the marriage financially independent, with your education behind you, if possible.
– Don’t settle for anyone who isn’t perfect for you, a feminist, and comfortable with the idea of divorce.
These things aren’t possible for a lot of people, which is why marriage probably isn’t a good idea in general. I have a great marriage, but I think this is rare.
I got married to someone who I would have spent my life with regardless - and did it for the health insurance and moving expenses. He’s in the military, a fact that has led to some people telling us that it isn’t possible for either one of us to be feminists (we both strongly disagree with this). In any case, we have a marriage based on equality and it works.
I agree with Random Lurker - removing legal conveniences from the framework of marriage would subject fewer people to what is essentially an outdated institution, and make it possible for everyone to benefit from the ability to make health care and child care decisions together and on each other’s behalf, and to benefit from tax and estate planning advantages that are currently available only to married people. Also, of course, there has to be universal health care. If my coverage wouldn’t have been interrupted every time we moved, well, I might not be married, despite how awesome my husband is.
Sorry, I forgot to mention that I hate that some of you feel trapped and sad. I know lots of people in unhappy marriages, and they are consumed by it. For what it is worth, I think it sucks.
I’m ready for the revolution. And I’m bringing my daughters with me.
A “joke” that a male college professor told me:
Definition of “wife”: a device you screw on the bed that does the housework.
The fact that we all “get” the “joke” demonstrates everyone’s true, if buried, understanding of the institution. Straight women all know that marriage is rotten to the core - is rottenness itself - but it is baked in a pastry of romantic fantasy that is too delicious for them to discard, especially when they are starved for love and respect that they have never gotten.
– Hire a house cleaner.
I have huge issues with making other women clean my house. It just seems so exploitive to me.
Layla said: What reasons are there for having children besides self-serving ones?
What reasons are there for not having children besides self-serving ones?
Border Heeler, does your colleague still have all his teeth? If he does, I admire your restraint. I have acquired a reputation as a humourless bitch from my unimpressed reaction to similar jokes told in my presence, but the upside is that I hardly ever have to put up with anybody telling such a “joke” near me these days. The older I get the more I agree with Sartre: “Hell is other people.”
“They were a matrilineal, matrifocal and polygamous society.â€
There was a discussion about polygamy at feministe, and looking at most of the polygamous (well, polygynous) societies, I don’t think that polygamy is any more pro-woman than monogamy, if not less so.”
well, the mosou aren’t polygynous they’re polygamous that’s the diffrence. they also have large families, sisters and bothers all stay in the house as adults and the grandmothers. the children have many uncles and aunts and their mom and granmother looking after them. the point is their love life is separate from their family life. the men that the women are in relationships with are in no way conected to their finnacial well being or social standing. there is no money involved no social contract, when she doesn’t want to see someone anymore she doesn’t invite him over and/or she finds someone new, he doesn’t want to see her he doesn’t show up, he stays at his mother house or he finds someone new.
also polgyamy could be good for women or bad for women, its how its used. if we wanted to get rid of marriage we’d have to get rid of patralineal decent.
It’s so nice to have these sentiments expressed from a source not in my head. It helps me understand why I threw away my engagement to a generally lovely man. I think he hopes I’ll change my mind, but I look at the things that are driving me nuts now and I think “this didn’t bother me when we were friends, it’s gonna be worse when we’re married, so what the fuck?”
Tension levels in the house went down dramatically once I finally said “I don’t want to get married” out loud. Honesty is always the best policy.
Panic, word. I struggled with hiring a housekeeper. But I FUCKING HATE CLEANING. I realized that if I started eating lunch at home more often, I could afford it. And I’m not MAKING her clean my house, although her choices are clearly limited if that’s the way she’s making money. My lame rationalization: she makes the same hourly wage I do. She doesn’t get benefits or job security, but at least I’m paying her as well as I am paid.
I feel like a bourgeois asshole sometimes, but I also love having a clean bathroom without ever having to scrub it myself. I guarantee I will never, so help me, live with a man again if he won’t split the cost of hiring a housekeeper with me, or swear to do it himself as well as she does. Weekly.
It is exploitive. But so is buying anything made in China, eating animal products, wearing leather, and shopping at big-box stores. I’m aware of this. Until someone invents a self-cleaning bathroom, this is my solution.
Panic - you could hire a man. I get your point, though - but honestly, our house cleaner, who is a woman, has a flexible schedule, gets paid well and seems to enjoy the ability to work unsupervised, while listening to music and watching TV.
We would rather delegate and pay for housecleaning than find time to do it, as that takes away from time we can enjoy being together.
Honestly, housework seems to be a big issue in a lot of marriages. How about just taking it out of the equation, at least as much as possible, if you can afford it?
Jezebella,
I hear ya. I know people who do it also, though they have children and dual incomes and while they’re not well-off, they’re completely overwhelmed at times. For myself, I’d just not do it. Maybe I’m a proletariat asshole!
Funny thing, I hated cleaning before I got married. I was a bit of a slob, for sure. Then, living with someone who just expected me to clean and left messes everywhere, turned me into some raging anal crazy lady. I’m constantly swiping at crumbs, or drips on the counter. I clean my shower while I’m in it.
What makes me really nauseated about this behaviour is that my mother has these behaviours as well, but she’s exhibiting them at advanced stages of dementia. She has very little left, but what she has, is the years and years and years of cleaning up after my Dad and I. These are the behaviours she repeats, all day, every day. She can barely talk, but she’s still cleaning.
THAT is the patriarchy at work. And I’m going to cry about it now. Excuse me.
Spit The Dummy: Worse than him being a colleague, he actually was my professor when I was about 19 years old. About a year before I came out. (Hmmm…. but then, I don’t buy the gay male assertion that homo- and heterosexuality are biological/genetic/determined before birth/magically preordained. As long as we’re on the marriage subject, straight women should know: not all Lesbians toe that political line. And it is a POLITICAL line.)
My second semester of college I took a course that should have been called “I Blame the Nuclear Family.” This class is one of the biggest factors in my “awakening” to feminism. One of the books we read, “The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap” by Stephanie Coontz, was incredibly eye-opening. She has another book called “Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage” that I haven’t read. Has anyone heard of it?
I think this sort of exploitation of women is not limited to marriage, but extends to (almost) all relationships with men. I am not (nor will I ever be) married, however I am in a relationship with a man, and live with him, and have the same goddamn problems with who’s going to wash the dishes, care for the children and clean up after themselves.
Obviously household labour should be equally divided according to your abilities. My children belong to our house and contribute to household chores. Trying to get my partner to contribute ends up with me treating him like a child, creating lists and star charts etc. it’s wearing, and I shouldn’t have to do ‘teach’ him basic survival skills. We have now come to a mutual arrangement regarding household labour, however I had to fight to get there, and I had to leave him. I deeply resent the culturally inflicted slavery of women. I resent that I am expected to ‘care’ for someone as able-bodied as I am.
I fight against it, but it’s hard work opening My Nigel’s eyes to the inequity within our relationship brought about by his gender privilege.
I’m 19, in college, and don’t ever want to come within a mile of marriage. I tell this to people, and they say that eventually, my opinion will change. Maybe if my rent went up, and I was in some sort of “relationship” (the word itself makes me cringe since the current relationship model is all about giving up a part of one’s individuality), I might consider cohabitation, but probably not. But it’s not just marriage that seems to be such a huge trap. I’ve recently started working full-time at a job that is actually pretty great compared to most people’s (except for the pay) and in an area I love. And I still hate it. 40 hours a week doing nothing but helping someone else get richer. It doesn’t help me–in an individualist, transcendental sorta way–one bit. After a few weeks of this job, a friend of mine who’s also recently started working full-time called me and said, “Sean, could you ever imagine doing this for the rest of your life?” And both of our answers we’re a firm “No.” Marriage is even worse than this–a 168-hr a week job with no pay and no time off. I now plan on becoming an academic and doing whatever the hell I want with my life. But institutions like marriage and the 40-hr work week just make life seem so very shitty.
And someone mentioned two people making a “commitment” to each other. I have no idea what that word means. Does it mean I’m supposed to stay with someone for one second longer than I don’t enjoy it? Because if it does, I’d rather go read, write, hike, camp, bike, go to a concert, see a movie, visit an amusement park, travel, etc., than ever make a commitment. It’s probably possible to love someone without resorting to patriarchal bullshit, but the answer is never in a “committed relationship.” And I certainly haven’t found anyone yet who I’ve loved that doesn’t believe in such a relationship.
Thanks everyone, for being so open. It’s made me feel a little less miserable. (That’s why we need the forum back! We need to quit cluttering up Twisty’s space with confessions and commiserating.
Panic - when I can afford it, I get someone in to clean. I use a company that pays its staff well after they take their cut, and who provides some percentage of benefits - very hard to obtain for most cleaners, who work part time. They employ mostly women, but every so often they send a guy along on one of the teams - usually a non-english speaking family member of one of the regular cleaners. So they’re flexible about who they hire, and seem like they help families out when they’re in a spot.
So that’s how I chose my cleaners, and how I can live with “exploiting” other women. At least the company seems caring enough. And I know a few people who use independent cleaners, usually single moms and older married low-income women, who get paid under the table. These are women who have the basics taken care of, but just need that extra bit to get through the month with a bit of breathing space - and who don’t want to declare the income. As they’ve explained it, they don’t want to accept charity, but they’re happy enough spending two or three hours a week cleaning, in exchange for (upwards of) $25/hr.
How do I justify it?
My husband loathes working on his car, so he pays someone else to do it. I loathe cleaning, so I pay someone else etc. etc. If men can feel completely comfortable paying someone (a good wage) to do something they don’t like, then I refuse to feel guilty doing the same.
(However, IBTP that cleaners don’t get paid as much as mechanics.)
“And you know what? As a hetero girl, sometimes it’s pretty fucking lonely. But I’d rather be lonely than capitulate.”
No fucking kidding. I have actually tried to fantasize about women, and it doesn’t work. I do not even have the luck of having bisexual tendencies. I am doomed to being attracted to men and men only. So…what’s a het girl to do? Every time I crush