Stephanie Coontz-- Marriage, A History

Introduction

For a long time, marriage was used primarily as a political and economic institution. However, in the 1950’s and 1960’s the male breadwinner / woman homemaker ideal became the most prominent form of marriage. In the eighteenth century love was seen as the primary reason for marriage. As the nineteenth and twentieth centuries came around, “sentimentalization” and “sexualization” of love based marriage became popular and widely accepted. Coontz makes clear one of her main points when she said: “As soon as the idea that love should be the central reason for marriage, and companionship its basic goal, was first raised, observers of the day warned that the same values that increased people’s satisfaction with marriage as a relationship has an inherent tendency to undermine the stability of marriage as an institution” (5).

My confusion with marriage as an institution is summed up in this one quote:

“For the next 150 years, societies struggled to strike the right balance between the goal of finding happiness in marriage and the preservation of limits that would keep people from leaving a marriage that didn’t fulfill their expectations for love.” (5)

I am completely dazed and confused by how people find a partner whom they find compatible and attractive, and manage to be satisfied throughout their many, many years (if that is what they want) together. (I realize that there are many people who do find this, I just haven’t yet so I have a hard time seeing how it’s possible).When we expect a person to be our lover, friend, business partner, companion, co-parent, mentor…the list goes on…how can we ever really be satisfied with this other person? We can not possibly be everything to one person…I don’t believe people work like that. We have different friends to fulfill different parts of who we are, to play out different aspects of ourselves. Then we get married and expect one single person to be able to handle all of those different sides? I can’t help but be skeptical of this kind of relationship. I think marriage makes sense when reviewing its historical transformation. Marriage as an economic choice makes sense, and marriage for love of another person makes sense. But today I feel there is a combination of all of these things it has been in the past. How can marriage live up to those kinds of expectations?

Chapter 1

Coontz starts off by quoting George Bernard Shaw’s joke about marriage: ‘“under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions. They are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part.”’ The main point being that historically love has not been the main reason for marriage. Coontz mentions how feelings for other person should not be put before other relationships (parents, siblings, cousins, neighbors or God) (16). Love has been seen as everything from a “derangement of the mind”, inconvenient, threat to society, disruptive, etc. It is interesting to think about how the definition of “love” has changed, and how it differs cross-culturally (i.e. in China love meant an “illicit, socially disapproved relationship” 16). Traditionally, people have looked for love and intimacy beyond the confines of marriage. Loving someone too much was considered “idolatry”. Endearing nicknames were seen as a threat to the husband’s authority rather than a sign of intimacy. Too much intimacy was seen as weakening a persons relationship to God. (…This makes me think about how the study of religion could be very important in this historical discussion of marriage). Some cultures, like that of the Fulbe people in Cameroon, don’t see love as a valid emotion. Love in marriage was not a necessity by any means. She quotes a common saying from early modern Europe: “He who marries for love has good nights and bad days”. I actually agree with this quote. Not that I don’t want romantic love in my marriage, or that I don’t think its possible—but I really think that marrying for reasons other than love is a good idea. I’d much rather have good days and bad nights with my best friend with whom I have no love interest, then good nights and bad days with my lover with whom I have no friendship. (Ideally a person can have both). I like that Coontz points out that there have been many couples who have been married happily but “have not been happy in our way” (20). In reading this chapter I am reminded of how powerful the prevalent norms are in our society. The fact that in some cultures a women sleeping with her husband’s brother is “normal and comforting” seems so completely strange to me. I realize I have been constructed to feel this way, but I can’t imagine ever being able to change my emotions if I were ever in a situation similar now. It is amazing that in Chinese marriages in was seen as “weak” to confide in your spouse, or even to share the news of your day (21). Sexual loyalty is new concept of modern day-- mutual fidelity has only recently become the norm. When a wife has sex with someone other than her husband it’s called “wife loaning”, whereas when a husband does the same it is called “male privilege”. Coontz brings up all these examples to prove that there is no universal ideal about how to have a happy and successful marriage. She explains that our most recent Western idea of marriage is to find a person who can fulfill not only your physical needs for sex and emotional needs for intimacy and affection. We have incredibly high expectations (that were never considered needed or wanted) for marriage now than ever before. She suggests that marriage as an institution is being threatened because of these new goals for marriage.

Chapter 2

Marriage has been known to be one of the most prominent social institutions throughout history, and if this is the case how can it be that it is so difficult to agree on one universal definition? Definitions range from what age is appropriate for marriage…to how many partners one can have…to if the marriage is about the individuals or families joining lives…to how much time a husband and wife should spend together or live together. On what grounds do we base the definition? One definition the Royal Anthropological Institute of Britain came up with is “a union between a man and a woman such that children born to the woman are the recognized legitimate offspring of both partners.” I understand the need anthropologists have to define marriage, but this one is so incredibly restrictive. Let’s think about who’s perspective is this definition representing…

She goes on to discuss the impacts of marriage on children. In Japan there wasn’t a word for bastard until the Meiji Restoration when they adopted Western ideas about legitimate children. Coontz gives other examples of relationships with food as the main distinction for marriage. If a man and a woman eat together then they are married, and if a woman cooks for a man that they are married. Some men and women can never eat together because if they do, it signifies sexual intercourse (30). She mentions that throughout history generally the two partners in a marriage have shared responsibilities and tasks. People have done this because it simply makes life easier if two people are both contributing and helping with mundane duties of life. Usually these tasks tend to be divided by gender- but not always. In one Native American culture individuals are paired by who does the invariably labeled “men’s work” and “women’s work”. It makes no difference who is doing the “work” they need to have one person doing the “man’s” and one doing the “woman’s”. I would love to explore this idea further. I think it is so interesting that although the work is gendered, it is not confined to the person of that same gender. Coontz says the most important function of marriage has traditionally been the relationships with family and community (31). It gives families and communities the opportunity to share resources and create relationships / alliances.

There are many similarities in marriage as an institution, despite the many differences Coontz has suggested throughout this chapter. Marriage usually gives us a way to determine “rights and obligations connected to sexuality, gender roles, relationships with in-laws, and the legitimacy of children” (32). It has also helped people figure out and define their place in society. It has been useful in passing down property to the next generation. She mentions that becoming ‘in-lawed’ has been one of the most important purposes of marriage. The fact that parents and relatives and stopped being so much a part of the marriage process has given the married couple more freedom to create their own marriage, which in general, has led to couple being much more satisfied with their relationship. However, it has contributed to the “crisis” in marriages today.

Chapter 3

Coontz reviews the male provider theory. This theory has been used to explain why women have been the homemakers and men the breadwinners. It also supports the general claim that women want “powerful, dominant men” and men want “young women who will be good breeders and hearth keepers” (36). But, women have also participated in the hunting and gathering—they would just carry the baby while doing these activities. Although women were restricted in many regards by child-rearing, this doesn’t mean women were dependent on men. Because of this independence, women were able to learn other skills that men were not. For example, they learned how to “gather, process plants and shellfish, manufacture clothing, trap small animals, and make digging or cooking implements” (38). This perhaps led to an even greater separation and independence between men and women. Teaching ones children became something for a couple to invest in together, a way for a couple to spend time together as well. Foraging and hunting became something communities depended on each other for, it wasn’t just a couples responsibility. Everyone provided for everyone. This started many traditions, rituals, dances, and festivals where community developed and connections between families occurred. Social interactions were important because they were necessary for survival. Sharing and pooling resources was a smart economic choice in these communities so they could be sure to never waste or be depleted of food. These societies were all about sharing and reciprocity. A hunter spent time hunting for the whole group, not just for his nuclear family. Coontz goes on to address the time of trading women or ‘spousal exchange’. In an aboriginal society in Australia some daughters were distributed in a way that would ensure the community had equal amount of connections to the land and resources. Marital choices have been influence by location of resources and access to hunting. Some argue that marriage originated as a way to exchange women. Coontz brings up the 70’s feminists view that the protective theory was more to oppress women rather than to protect them even though she doesn’t agree with the idea. In this oppressive theory, women were considered to be forced into marriage. Brothers traded sisters, fathers traded daughters for power in the community, rich men traded women in replace of their debt. She says that although marriage has served a number of very different purposes, it seems marriage did at one point change from being about the common wealth of the whole group, to being about individual’s gain of power, wealth and people. As greater economic differentiation occurred throughout time, marriage became more about status. Low-status could not marry into a higher-class, and as expected, the dominant kin groups became more wealthy and powerful, their options for marriage became more restricted: “The more resources were at stake in the marriage alliance, the more the relatives has an interest in whom their kin married, whether a marriage lasted, and whether a second marriage, which might produce new heirs to complicate the transmission of property, could be contracted if the first one ended” (46).

As marriage became more and more about status and property, men and women began to feel more restricted in the ways in which they were ‘allowed’ to act. Sexual behavior was supervised, as bloodlines became very important. Beauty also became criteria for marriage and a main differentiator between high and low class women. Because of all of this marriage became very political. And there was no room for the discussion of love between the couple when they were dealing with economic and political negotiations between families. It has been only within the past 100 years that women have had the right to choose their partner. Although there is a growing notion that pre-marital sex and divorce is okay there are still many who hope that marriage as institution keeps sexuality and gender roles in its traditional roles. She ends the chapter with the revisiting the question of how we categorize and systematize our “rights and obligations now that our older constraints are gone is another aspect of the contemporary marriage crisis” (49).