Marriage Then and Now
Growing up, marriage for women just seemed like a big ol' sexist mistake to me. But my mom was a widow, who earned her own money and made all her own decisions and didn't do what was expected of her by re-marrying. You know, so a man could take care of her.
Instead, she took care of herself and us and didn't have to answer to a man around the house to do it. She went to work every day and used her holidays to travel pretty much around the world with a friend who remained single until she turned sixty (when she married a two-time-widower and inherited his double family of kids and in-laws, just in time to appreciate them). My mother lived a life so far removed from the mothers of my friends, that, well, I hate to break it to all the old guys out there reading this, but their loving wives would have traded their lot in life for my mom's in a heartbeat.
Meanwhile, my friends' Dads would note to me how hard it must be for my mother not having a man around the house. That always got my back up and, shrinking violet that I was, I'd always point out that when she needed something fixed, she saved herself the bother and hired a handyman to do it. And as soon as there was one, she'd hire a handywoman, instead.
Exept she'd say "handyperson" because the pendulum only had to swing to the middle to reach equal rights, in her opinion.
Meanwhile, the mothers of all my friends seemed to have to answer to men for everything. They had no independence because they had no money of their own (even when they had jobs, their money went into their husbands' bank accounts) and never travelled because their husbands didn't really want to go anywhere. And anything that they wanted, had to come through him, so it meant wheedling and needling until he'd act like he was doing her the favour of the century and buy it.
You know, like a new stove or fridge. Or a clothesline for hanging out their laundry because they liked the smell of their workpants dried in the breeze.
Anyway, I know it's different now, that because women can leave - and do - men have to try a little harder than they used to to keep the little ball and chain happy. And they do, I guess, except marriage still doesn't work in 50% of cases. In my opinion, it's because the set-up is so ridiculously sexist that it's almost always just a matter of time before a woman realizes it would be easier to do everything on her own, rather than trying to get the man onside first - and then doing it. Because that, to me, was 100% of marriage - trying to get the man to do what I wanted when I might just as easily have done it myself - EXCEPT - I was married and in marriage, women lose their independence.
Now, my mother would rather have been married to my father into their old age than to have been widowed as she was, but she certainly had no desire to re-marry, either. And she had a good reason for that - a whole and full life as an independent being, answering to no man.
