(*Postscript: Someone near and dear to me is going through a separation, and obviously her trials have dredged up some memories!!!!!! Bitter, much? Maybe!)
There are folks in the Washington DC Blogosphere who refer to unmarried women over the age of 35 - - yes, 35, that's not a typo - - as "spinsters." I'm to the DC periodically on business, and have concluded the dating scene there is completely messed up. In the past I considered relocating to DC to further my career, but now I think I'll wait until they come out with a vaccination to prevent or reverse heterosexuality.
"So, if you're so wonderful, why are you still single?"
How many women out there have been asked this question? Are men ever asked this? Why is a single, middle-aged man an eligible bachelor, but a single, middle-aged woman is a spinster? Why is the spinster label an insult? Because she is unclaimed goods, unworthy of the exalted postition of some man's Wife?
The attitude is irrational, stemming from the wacky but common belief that a woman's worth is measured by her usefulness to men: Her ability to arouse the generic male organ, please the generic male gaze, fluff the generic male ego, and cheaply provide household and clerical services.
In other words, her usefulness as a servant to his "needs."
Granted, as a Hot Chick who enjoys sex and the company of men, I have the Generic Male Gaze pretty well trained on my ass. I really do like men, a lot. As for the rest of it however, i.e., my ability to serve one of them as his Wife? I need somebody to clue me in as to why I, or any thinking woman for that matter, should want the job.
Surely you must be joking?
I have been married before, so I know of what I speak. I loved my husband (still do, we're friends) but hated being The Wife: Glorified Domestic Servant. As The Wife, the minutae of daily life fell into my lap: The administrative details, the emotional caretaking, the shit work.
And I had a "good" husband. Still, we fell into bad habits based upon society's expectations and, perhaps, our own laziness. He developed an aversion to all things wet and dirty, leaving me the job of keeping the kitchen, bathrooms, and white (white! WTF!!) floors in our monstrous suburban wet-dream of a home spotlessly clean. We agreed to share childrearing duties; but more often than not, he left me holding the diaper bag. Meanwhile, thanks to my support, my husband's career soared. He spent 50% of his time traveling while I was handed the Mommy Track and told how "lucky" I was. Even to this day, years after our separation, his salary leaves mine in the dust.
When we separated, I told him I still loved him. This wasn't a firing, I reassured him: This was a layoff, as his husbandly services were no longer needed. But perhaps I was really just quitting: I was telling him, and perhaps the whole world, to "take this job and shove it."
Still, I'm not immune to the siren call of the mythical Marriage of Equals. Every feminist who is engaged to a man thinks her marriage will be different, right? (famous last words!) I might do it again in a moment of amnesia or temporary insanity, since I'm the Hedonistsic Pleasureseeker who tries to lock in good feelings in the hope that they'll last forever (they never do). Still, it would take one hell of a man, and one hell of a good bribe, for me to choose him over my autonomy.
10 responses so far ↓
LiveLife // April 8, 2006 at 4:12 pm
ah..its good you beat me to writing that postscript…
hedonisticpleasureseeker // April 9, 2006 at 1:17 am
Funny it feels just like yesterday, eh?
Antigone // April 11, 2006 at 11:56 pm
LOL. It always kills me when a) other people try to get in happiness wars with varying philosophies and b) people think the high divorce rate is necessarily a bad thing. If anything, I think the cause for alarm is the high MARRIAGE rates: I don’t think people realize what they’re getting into.
hedonisticpleasureseeker // April 12, 2006 at 12:00 am
I’m at come with a hold - - - no wait, that’s I’m home with a cold - - - and have a lot of time on my hands. I’ve got another screed in the works, on this very subject.
yeehaw9 // April 30, 2006 at 9:40 pm
Antigone hit the nail on the head. People are quick to the alter, then quick to the courthouse. they are never considering the “Big Picture” of Marriage. Granted, some circumstances cannot be averted, but people who don’t discuss what they want from their potential mates are headed for the courthouse and they don’t even recognize it. Blind leading the blind…
Freeman // May 4, 2006 at 10:36 pm
I have to admit, even my wife and I have problems with this. I’m naturally a slob, whereas she has normal human standards for cleanliness. I do my best, but truth be told, we still fight about this sort of thing.
hedonisticpleasureseeker // May 5, 2006 at 3:58 am
Many years ago I ran into a guy during a training class who announced - - quite out of left field actually - - that he thought Blacks should pick cotton because they were “better at it.” My jaw dropped to the floor! I took mental note that I WAS south of the Mason-Dixon Line, but still!
I asked him if he were joking? But no, he was dead serious. Back then I was too “sweet,” too “polite,” too “feminine” to shriek FUCKING ASSHOLE!!!!!!!! at him. But I wouldn’t hesitate to do it today.
Men who say their wives do most of the housework because they are “better” at it get pretty much the same response from me these days. It doesn’t matter if she’s neater; the bottom line is that if both parties work full-time, then both parties should be doing equal amounts of household shitwork. So, if you’re letting the “shit roll downhill,” you’re not a feminist; you’re an being an unwitting ass, because the fact that there’s a “downhill” at ALL means you don’t really consider your wife to be your equal.
(at least, to your credit, any assholishness on your part is probably unwitting. Still, food for thought.)
Hedonistic Pleasureseeker » Blog Archive » Or, Why Michael Noer Never Got Laid Again, Except By That One Girl Who Works at The Piggly-Wiggly and Cain’t Read so Good // August 25, 2006 at 1:39 am
[...] I’ve already made my opinions on marriage clear in an earlier post. Generally, marriage was invented by men for men’s convenience. Patriarchal society has concocted an elaborate ruse to convince women that men somehow do them this enormous favor by marrying them. Throughout history, men have treated woman as purchaseable commodities, believing women were put on this earth to have sex with men, bear their children, support their careers and pick up their shit. [...]
Milo Freeman // February 20, 2007 at 4:45 pm
This can be a sticky topic, as my own experience has taught me that the Perfect Marriage, as we seem to conceive it, does not exist. I certainly agree with some of the points the author makes, but I have to wonder if this issue does not go both ways.
I’m military, and part of a dual-income marriage. We have no kids; my wife works full-time, and I am deployed. Our marriage is susceptible to the pitfalls of any relationship, plus a few more as a military family, but I must admit, while I certainly understand and have seen examples of this kind of frustrating behavior from my fellow husbands, I can’t help but feel that the author speaks of the Male element as though we’re all just oblivious to the frustrations of our spouses. Perhaps I haven’t been married as long as some, but believe me, when my wife take issue with me, I know.
If, when at home, I do not mop as often as my spouse, or take out the garbage with as great a frequency, am I a poor husband, or simply a slob? Am I both? If our marriage is not the typical “Ozzie and Harriet” suburban wet-dream, with whom does blame lie? Perhaps I’m not the best person to talk about this, having left my wife’s side almost six months ago for Iraq, but if work takes me away from her, is it only she who suffers? What MAKES a “Marriage of Equals?” Is such a thing possible, on EITHER side of the fence of identity politics?
Personally, I think the very PHRASE “Marriage of Equals” carries a disturbing level of patriarchal subtext, and on this subject, I think the author and I agree. But is the institution limited to that? The hell with all the stereotypes, to hell with the institution, when it comes down to it, why can’t our marriage just be about two imperfect people trying to share a life and make each other happy? Can we hit those stumbling blocks together? Can it BE a shared burden? Sure, we might fight about bills and housework, but let it never be said that we don’t–both of us–try.
Perhaps I’m just bitter, but when I haven’t even seen my wife face-to-face in so long, I can’t help but feel a wave of resentment when someone tells me that I’m the harmful element in our relationship.
The Hedonistic Pleasureseeker // February 20, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Hello Milo and thanks for visiting my blog!
For what it’s worth, my husband and I had a wonderful, egalitarian marriage while we were child-free, and it sounds as though you and your wife do too. Unfortunately, for some reason when Bunny came along everything changed. I know a lot of women for whom this is true: When the babies came, the gloves came off and all of a sudden it was Leave it to Beaver whether the women wanted it that way or not. I think society shoves its sex-role expectations down our throats whether we like it or not, and sometimes it’s so subtle we don’t even realize its happened until we’ve backed ourselves into a corner.
And mine was a GOOD husband who “helped” a lot around the house, changed diapers, did laundry, ironed, cut the grass, kept the car working, etc. However, balancing work and family was MY job, not OURS. Our lives revolved around HIS career, HIS travel schedule, HIS time in graduate school, HIS gym time and weekend golf plans. He had a career while I had a job. Everything was about his priorities and I was the adjunct, the Biblical “helpmeet” despite the fact that neither of us are Christian or Jewish.
Maybe it was because he’s a Leo? I fought back in a way, probably not hard enough. When we separated I was ill, depressed, and out of energy and neither of us understood what was wrong. I took a second job (nights/weekends) to get of the house and emotionally abdicated the relationship until he found someone else to pay attention to him. Sad, really. It could have played out differently, if we had only known.
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