CHAPTER 2 INDIVIDUALISM, MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE

Chapter Two, will focus on the Individualism thesis, how the American Ideals of Marriage have been spread in the Western Cultures and how they've been adopted. It will talk about the significance of technological developments and globalization and expansion to a broader world, and how these have affected marriage, through an increasingly individualized society. 

 We can not ignore the importance of history and how our ancestors have lived this institution. What we are told today is that every individual is different, and therefore, every relationship and marriage will be different; something that in the past, as we have briefly outlined, was unthinkable, in fact, the aim of every individual was to be in accordance with the Society mores and the rest of the community. There is an evident disregard or lack of education in the matter, and that ignorance makes it very difficult for young people to understand how marriage could be integrated in today's fast paced world and new and dynamic generations.

  This is the period of the biggest technological, scientific and medical discoveries. The universal acceptance of romantic love arose from an hedonistic and individualistic culture, a society where the self’s happiness was the man’s goal and purpose in life. Such culture was of course born in the Western Nations, after the Industrial revolution and the birth of modern capitalism.

 "(Capitalism) dissolved all traditional relations, and for inherited customs and historical rights is substituted... 'free' contract..." Friedrich Engels

It is important to analyze the factors that let romantic love take place, and to do so, one must look at the politic and economical developments of America that came with the Enlightenment. With the end of totalitarian states and the resulting free-market society, people witnessed for the first time in history the possibility of a liberated human mind that could take control of all material existence. For the first time ever, humans were truly free to choose their own commitments and path in life, they had discovered the concept of individual rights. Along with the economic freedom, came the intellectual freedom. Therefore individualism, and this drastic evolvement in society’s mentality, affected enormously human’s relationships.

 “The United States created a context in which the pursuit of happiness on earth seemed natural and normal and possible.”

(Branden, N., (2008) The Psychology of Romantic Love. p.22)

 Generations that thanks to the incredible advances of modern technologies and the improvements in the quality of life, have become more and more individualistic and selfish. Not having to rely on family or close friends to find an adequate match ( which was previously basically restricted to your own neighborhood and place of work ) thanks to internet and the huge variety of global communications that in recent times allow any person to make friends and social connections that reach all over the World, the transformation of Marriage as an institution and its significance, has been of such depth as to make it a very different institution in all senses as it was only a couple of generations ago. Not to mention that the number of potential candidates has increased exponentially. And so have the temptations that surround men and women in our society now.

There are two important factors and stereotypes I would highlight from the American dream, or American ideals of love:

On one hand, there is the wild freedom of choice, which implies that getting married is not even a must, or the correct choice anymore. This evolution in Western societies has placed marriage from being a life priority to one in multiple choices of lifestyle, replaced by career ambitions and job opportunities, amongst others… 

“The individualization thesis estates that “as a result of the weakening of traditions in contemporary societies, individuals are freer to make their own life choices … Jane Lewis (2001) carried out a study of commitment in the UK ... She found that the older generation felt they had no choice at all about cohabiting - it was too socially scandalous - but they also had no real choice about marrying because it was such a strong social convention.”

I do believe that we do not yet fully understand the consequences of what this individualism and independence have had on marriage. Perhaps another factor we have to take into consideration is that our modern western societies provide the individual with such an enormous array and variety of services that not surprisingly, we can affirm that never before men/women have enjoyed such a fantastic quality of life.

If we look at the figures, that show how one out of three marriages ends up in Divorce in the UK, and how one out of two divorce in the United Estates, we can clearly see that Marriage has lost all its force and probably much of its significance and meaning. We are standing in a completely different and new ground where new norms should be settled for marriage to succeed. One cannot help but wonder, whether this era of selfishness will work in the future for a long term or it will be interrupted by a general change in society's attitudes and believes towards sharing a lifetime with a partner. Because that is another thing, life expectancies now are to live up to 90 years. Committing oneself for life has a very different meaning if we expect to live together 20 or 30 years than if we expect to live 50 or 60 years together!

 "Marriage is meant to mean love and happiness forever ,till death do us apart. Allow me to mention that in the Fifties, life expectancy was around 60 years. Life expectancy will acquire an important role in the times to come and very importantly in the evolution of Marriage."

Miguel Ortiz Valderrama 2012

What I am certain about is that these dramatic changes in the roles of men and women already have consequences on the young generations. As I analyzed in the very beginning of this dissertation, marriage was once, meant to be the pillar from where to start a family, children being the main purpose of it. Today, in many cases, children are nothing but a complication that stands in between a couple, they are not the priority anymore. A couple that may or may not get along, a couple that may or may not desire a stable relationship, a couple that may or may not fight for their children's custody... The bottom line is, and without focusing on the children too much, because that is a different story, that when those children become adults, they will have a completely different perspective and concept of marriage of the one his parents were taught by their grandparents. The decision making process of those kids in the future, will be based on a completely different point of view; what he has to make sure of is to do exactly the opposite of what he's experienced with his parents, to make his own marriage work. And that  is the complicated task young generations have to deal with today, being pioneers in a new agreement that will allow them to have successful marriages; something they, many times, have not lived before or, if they have, it was most times under different conditions (ie. the son of a mother who was a housewife, his father responsible for bringing the money home, marries now an independent woman who does not need his economical support; the old example he received at home of share of duties may not be applicable anymore). 

"A word of caution is necessary when trying to understand trends in relationships, especially when the changes in Western cultures since the 1950s have been dramatic and statistics on the decline in marriage, the rise of cohabitation and the increase in divorce can be combined to give the impression of chaos and instability. The first problem with over-interpreting change is that we have to choose our baseline carefully." (May, V. (2011) Sociology of Personal Life. p.78)

 It is always difficult to say when looking at the present statistics of divorce, whether marriages were more successful or not in the past, because we have no evidence due to the lack of means to divorce or women's inferior status then. A commonly used argument and explanation to the number of Divorces today, apart from the evident choice that was not a possibility in the past, is because in the present people put less effort to make marriages work, due to the present culture, that rejects the idea of sacrificing ourselves for another person. I will emphasize the word Sacrifice because it has been widely spread amongst our younger generations that "loving someone should not be a sacrifice". And that is I believe, where a major problem lies, people have to differentiate very clearly between being in love and making a marriage successful, because that requires concessions and yes, sacrifice and selflessness. 

 "Perhaps as a counterattack to the submission of women to men, as a rejection to arranged marriages and the vulnerability that both women and men have suffered from marriage in history, the future generations are taught not to sacrifice, quite the opposite, they are taught that their own happiness is above everything else."

Miguel Ortiz Valderrama 2012

Is this American ideal what is ruling the Western concept of happiness? Self satisfaction?

I do not wish to be misunderstood here, of course there are some individuals who are more giving than others, and yes of course, there are still many life time partners. I am not criticizing people so much as I am being critical about the education, that the new generations, us, receive about marriage. Unfortunately, our previous generations cannot teach us much about it. Marriage´s main purpose is not to have a family anymore, not necessarily, marriage is not a vehicle for women to find men's economical support and protection, not necessarily, and marriage is definitely not, a lifetime compromise, any more.

We aim to create a new concept of Marriage based on Love, Trust, friendship and Common Projects and closer in fact to its new reality. And I feel that we all want to believe in this new idea of marriage that our great grandmothers once dreamed of and some fought for, however, like any new concept, there is no prove that this new type of Marriage will work, unless  every individual that chooses to marry understands that, as modern as we get, Marriage will always imply a huge compromise, and every compromise has its sacrifices, and as long as we do not accept this simple fact, this lifetime promise will never succeed in our contemporary, individualistic Western Culture.

 Of course there are many factors we would have to consider, specially now that gay marriages have been accepted and legalized in many Western Nations something that to traditional spirits is totally abhorrent, but that have been completely accepted and even assumed as natural by the younger generations and therefore become one more option in our lives nowadays .Another important consideration has to be given to the fact that the protection of procreation has ceased to be a reason for marriage and finally, perhaps we should consider other options, like "term" marriages, which funny enough were practiced by the Incas in South America many centuries ago, under the name of "Servinacuy", that is marriages arranged for a trial period of one or two years, after which, the man AND the woman, would decide if they wanted to make it definitive. Or perhaps it has finally(!) come the time, due to the overpopulation of women in some societies to reintroduce the Polygamous marriage again, in Australia for instance, due to the population disproportion of 8 women to one man, and accordingly, Polyandrous marriage in those societies with an excess population of men, like China today. Just a theoretic consideration as alternatives to the present fragile and undefined state of the matrimonial institution.

WOMEN IN MARRIAGE AND FEMINISM - P.2

The words marriage or matrimony, derive from the latin maritaticum or maritatre which derive at the same time from the expression matris munium, which means mother and care, “Mother’s care”, since it was considered that the mother was the one who mostly contributed to the children within the marriage. Another possible root could be matreum muniens, meaning the mother’s defense and protection, implying therefore the man’s obligation to protect his children’s mother. In many romance languages, the concept of marriage is a valid contract under the Roman Law, which was fundamentally based in the idea that the possibility of becoming a mother must be within an established family. In contrast to this Western concept, the Arabic one could be mentioned, since the word marriage could be translated as "coitous contract" or, as the most common word is used to express this institution (zaway) that literally means "union" or "partnership".

 This analysis of the etymological meaning of the word marriage within the Western culture is very relevant here as an introduction to this second part of this chapter, to highlight the importance of the woman's implication not only in the term, but also the concept of marriage. Having previously analyzed the earliest history of marriage in the first part, it is therefore primordial to give a brief background on the history of the woman's evolution, achievements, and the circumstances which led to feminism and how it developed. 

Elizabeth I, Queen of England, is definitely an outstanding historical character in the History of Woman since she, was a pioneer in achieving the respect and admiration only a King would have had, regardless of her sex. Known for being a very cultured, confident, intelligent and courageous Queen who prided and inspired many of the women of her time, she was herself, ironically, not of any help, or support to other women who aimed to become like her, wise and educated, at all. With no intention to motivate women to be like her, she did show them, the possibility to become wiser and educated. However, she enjoyed the privilege she had as a Queen, to be better than the rest of women;

"Her (Elizabeth's) famous speech to the troops at Tilbury (in 1588) made a sharp distinction between her role as woman and as a monarch: 'I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and a king of England at that"

(Walters, M., (YEAR) Feminism - A Very Short Introduction. p. 17)

 From the Elizabeth Era onwards, a slow but steady fight of women began, with the purpose of gaining the same legal and social rights as men. With no right to vote, no right to own their property, no right of their children's custody, no right to travel alone, not even the right to choose who to marry, (because of course they had to marry)... Women felt that they were complete subordinates to men. This era brought hope, and because of the beauty in Literature and Art of this particular era, women began to have more interest and access to these arts, in particular to writing and reading. Female writers began to publish their opinions, and their arguments in favor of an equality in rights for women as for men. 

 A movement that had not yet been defined, slowly began to expand, in novels, and literature, women began to express themselves publicly, speaking openly about their frustrations and claims, especially for married women, who then had less rights than the unmarried ones. What could in the first place seem like just 'some women's pointless begs to gain more value in Society', a movement that no men gave any credit to, soon took full form until the first feminist associations and committees appeared during the first half of the eighteenth century.

From the earliest years of this period of time, one must mention "Mary Astell (1666 - 1731), who was actually one of the earliest true feminists, - who - refers to the subordination of woman to man, in one of her books, Some Reflections upon Marriage (London 1700) "She (Lady Mary Wortley Montague) admitted, rather reluctantly, that marriage was necessary to propagate the species, but insisted that a wife is all often simply 'a Man's Upper Servant' " (Walters, M. Feminism, A Very Short Introduction p. 28)

 Men had complete control over women, not only politically, since there was no place for woman's word or opinion on anything that involved independent thinking, neither they had any social or personal right, since every woman's destiny, power or reputation was upon her father's or husband's will.

 Historians like to separate the different movements of Feminism in three waves. And I would briefly go through these feminist movements which achieved an equality between man and woman in Society, and transformed completely, the role of women in marriage and therefore, the whole concept of marriage.

 The first Wave Feminists (late 17th - beginning of 19th century) were fighting for an independence from Men; the right in fact to be considered as individuals and entitled to the same rights in marriage, freedom and to own their own property. And secondly, to be given the chance to receive the same education men did, arguing that "if women are more stupid than men, there should be no harm in letting then give it a try". If women did not have the same facilities as men, they would never be able to compete against them, or test their capacities.

 It was not until this point in History that the Traditional Marriage was seriously challenged for the first time. Giving women the same rights as men, would mean that no men would have any sort of control over their wives, apart from the financial power in the family.

 With Industrialism, came a period full of controversy. While freedom and individualism were accepted values, the pressure of social conformity was still enormous. However in an industrialized context, intellectual values gained more importance than physical skills, and this permitted women to gain, in a slow fight against religion and politics, an economic independence. Now, marriage became more a civil commitment than religious, and divorce became possible.

 From the 19th Century, some men spoke publicly as well, speaking on women's behalf, like the case of John Stuart Mill who "felt his duty to make a 'formal protest against the existing law of marriage' on the grounds that it gave the man 'legal power over the person, property and freedom of action of the other party independent of her own wishes and will"

(Walters, M. (year)Feminism, A Very Short Introduction p. 45)

 Mill presented the first women's petition for the vote in 1860, it was not until 1918 that woman in the UK, and only over the age of 30 were given the right to vote; only on equal terms with men from 1928.

 What is sometimes termed 'second-wave feminism emerged, after the Second World War, in several countries. In 1947, a Commission on the Status of Women was established by the United Nations, and two years later it issued a Declaration of Human Rights, which both acknowledged that men and women had 'equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution'

(Walters, M. (year) Feminism, A Very Short Introduction p. 97)

 The other crucial factor in this transformation of our societies, as we have already mentioned, is the sexual revolution that was produced by the discovery of the pill and other contraceptive methods that gave women a liberty of choice unparalleled ever before. For the first time in History, including periods like the Roman Empire in which the women from the aristocracy enjoyed enormous freedom and the sexual mores were extremely relaxed, women of all social classes and backgrounds were free to enjoy and decide over their sexuality in any way they pleased. Sex and procreation were separated and women had as much as if not more capacity to decide over this factors as men.

 This last fight, of sexual freedom should be attributed to the women of the Second Wave of Feminists of the 1970s.

"(Lee Damsky) Women in my generation were born in the 60s and 70s with the sexual revolution and the feminist movement, but we grew up with a mix of socio-sexual contradictions: the conservative blacklash and the AIDS epidemic, the queer movement and genderfuck. We got divorced parents and 'family values' homophobia and lesbian chic, 'just say no' and 'Ten Ways to Drive Him Wild'.

(Henry, A. (year) Not My Mother's Sister. p.89)

This passage refers to a very particular time of transition in history. It is interesting because it reflects with total honesty and transparency, the situation which many women went through during the eighties, there had been so many huge changes in their role in society and youth in general that it was impossible for them to find a rational balance between the good or bad, the old and new... There were only the two extremes, and it was their role to find a meaning to it all, whether to choose their parent's role of marrying.  The achievement however, or success of that fight, should probably be granted to a new generation of feminists who emerged in the 1990s in the US, who are being called the Third Wave.

"Third-Wave feminists see their sexual freedom as a fundamental right, much like the right to vote."

(Henry, A. (year) Not My Mother's Sister. p.90)

 The increased sexual and economic autonomy, are in any case the true material pillars of the success of western feminism, being that the reason why on societies in which those achievements are not possible, the role of women within matrimony and marriage itself continue to be of the traditional type.

 Add to this transformation in Western Societies, the enormous influence that cinematography exerts over men and women in the 20th century and the idea of love and marriage, romance and marriage, love as the main reason to get married, marriage as a decision that only involves man and woman, as the IDEAL of marriage and modern marriage enters the scenario, after the II World War.

SHORT INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF MARRIAGE P.1

This chapter will aim to give a brief introduction of the History of Marriage to provide with the knowledge,  of what Marriage meant in other times, to be able to analyze the present situation of marriage in the following chapters.

 In primitive Societies, sex, reproduction, protection, cooperation, survival and economics were the motivating forces that induced our first ancestors to unite themselves in its multiple forms. The main forms were Matriarchy and Patriarchy, with most sociologists accepting today that it was the former the original form of organization. From this primitive forms, marriage evolved until it adopted monogamy, from which modern marriage comes. Modern in this context means between 2 and 3 thousand years BC.

Marriage has been the angular stone over which traditional Western Societies were built and its main purposes were the procreation of children, the continuity of the family and its patrimony (in the upper classes) and the definition of the roles, men and women played. The man had to work and produce the income to sustain his family; the woman bore the children, raised and educated them and was in charge of the domestic economy of the family.

The strongest cultural and historical force on the Western world was Christianity, based on the teachings of Jesus Christ and which through the Roman Catholic Church, was built on the organizational and administrative structure of the Roman Empire. With the rise of the profound religious influence in Europe in medieval times, women lost all the respect and rights they had gained under the Roman Empire. At least women from the Aristocracy and upper classes. They became absolute subordinates to men. There was no space for an equality in marriage or shared values or reasons to marry for men and women where religion stated that woman was a man's property. This subordination that many women writers have referred to from the earliest centuries has carried on unchanged, with little steps forward and back, for centuries until the Industrial Revolution.

 " St Paul enjoyed self-enforcement and discretion upon women; he based the subordination of woman to man upon both the Old and the New Testaments 'For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man ... And in another place: 'For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the Church..." (de Beauvoir, S., (1950) The Second Sex. P. 129)

 There was no linkage whatsoever between romantic love and marriage. In fact Romantic Love was discovered or acknowledged, many centuries later. Usually marriages were agreed between the parents or families of the man and woman involved. We have to understand that our societies were much, much smaller than the one we live in today and the number of people of the opposite sex and the adequate social, religious and economic background was very limited. This does not mean there were not cases in which the couple involved were not in love or did not fall in love, but that was not the norm nor was it even meant to be or even necessary.

 In fact it is probable, by all indications, that romantic love was the creation of the Troubadors in the Medieval Courts in southern France, between the 11th and the 13th centuries. The Ladies of the Court were the objects of love of the chevaliers and noblemen, but it was romantic love, pure, idealistic love with no sexual implications (at least apparently) whatsoever, and men accepted that their wives were the objects of admiration and LOVE of other men. But no man made his wife his object of love, that would have been considered ridiculous and a totally unacceptable behavior.

 During the eleventh century, this new concept of romantic love first emerged, this is the courtly love and it is the closest concept in history of romantic love as we regard it today. Marrying for love was and still is, regarded as the condition under which marriage could become equal. The old fantasy and present common reality of marrying for love would mean an equality for which to settle a contract between man and woman. Far from it, the ideal of courtly love involved passion and love between a chevalier and his Lady. There is evidence to support that this type of love  was only part of the poets and troubadors fantasies and that it was far from matching the society’s reality; As we can find in most of the literature and tales of the time, ie. Tristan and Isolde, the stories mostly ended in shame, guilt or despair. These stories were written not to encourage romantic love, quite the opposite; they were written to spread moral values in society, and to show the awful consequences of marrying simply for love or marrying and loving someone else. Then again, with the unsuccessful courtly love in real life, we saw marriage failing to provide a fair estate for both women and men. Despite the strong influence of literature at the time, passion, love and marriage were still regarded as incompatible. Particularly because of the situation of women, in a time were they were still their father or husband's property, women's role in society was meaningless unless they found the right man to assure them a good place in Society.

 From the Renaissance (from the 14th to the 17th century), during the Elizabethan era, there was an evolution in love relationships. Church power decreased with Protestantism however, the antisexualism and antifeminism in the Western cultures was still untouchable. Once again, only in literature, like that of Shakespeare’s plays, love was an important precondition to marriage. Though the Puritan Culture remained, and despite their efforts to make sex and love become acceptable in marriage, they failed. Despite the cultural, political and later on scientific advances of the time, women's situation remained the same, or even worse. Women, had no right to own a land, nor to inherit anything from her family or husband. In case of the husband's death, all his goods and land would go to their children. Of course divorce was not allowed, however, if the husband did not want his wife any longer, or wished to marry someone else, he could ask for an annulment, which, was nothing but a relief to women who after being repudiated by their husbands, had little if no place in Society after such a shameful event, entering the Church as nuns one of the very few options available, the other one being unfortunately, to become prostitutes or beggars. If they had any children, they would only be raised by the father, who had power of life and death over them.

Romanticism, a movement that began as a style of literature and art in the 19th century,encouraged freedom of form and emphasized imagination and emotion. Yes, emotion and amongst emotions, love was the most significant one. It is important to note that the name they adopted comes from Romance, which means, stories of heroic deeds, love, adventures and love affairs.Romantic love continues its evolution and its definition.

Not feminist?

'When I recently asked some women in their early 20s - some of whom were university-educated, others working, and all, clearly, beneficiaries of earlier battles for women's rights - whether they considered themselves feminists, or indeed had any interest in feminism, most of them replied, flatly, no.'
p.4
'Perhaps these younger women will feel differently in ten years or so, when they find themselves juggling family, housework, and a job; perhaps they will find that they need to re-invent feminism to suit their own experience. But in a way, I hope they will not need to.'
p.5

Feminism: A very short introduction

By Margaret Walters

We have to bare in mind that the word feminism has been distorted over the last decade, and it is these negative connotations of such great movement that have let future generations (us) reject it.

Feminism is not for man haters, feminism it's not about lonely women, it is, or at least should be, about equality of rights, full stop.

If you like to have permission to leave the country without your father's or husband consent, if you like to have a say in politics and have a vote, if you like to have a say about your children's education and have the right to see them if you divorced your parents... If you have, any of the above, you should be grateful to those women that fought hard, back in the day for a fair and sensible society...