Marriage for better or for worse

Press, 13 June 1978, Page 12

Marriage for better or for worse

From an address given by MS PENNEY FENWICK at a recent seminar on solo parents held by the National Organisation for Women

His money in exchange for her cooking, cleaning, and sexual favours is the way a University of Canterbury sociologist, Penny Fenwick, sees the marriage partnership.

Small wonder, she says, that some feminists have dubbed 20th century marriage as legalised prostitution.

Ms Fenwick regards marriage in the last quarter of this century as more for the worse than the better — for women.

Twelve years ago Mervyn Cadwallader, writing in an American monthy, “The Atlantic,” shocked many people by defining marriage as an outmoded structure, a wretched and disappointing institution. Ms Fenwick sees “patriarchal marriages and families” as a trap for women. Why is marriage so often so bad for women, and what could be done to make it better? she asks. Women marry, she maintains, because of social pressures. “Marriage is the only state for a woman over 25 as far as popular ideology is concerned,” she said. “We are a married population in which the spinster, unlike the gay bachelor, is a deviant.” Women marry because they are forced to, according to Ms Fenwick. She talks about the pressure to “get a man.” of women’s psychological and economic dependence on that man, and the limiting of socially acceptable sexual expression to marriage.

Ms Fenw.ck sees the woman’s traditional role as the mainstay of the nuclear family, on which the capitalistic economy depends. Her theory is that the economic and power relationships in marriage are reflected in the economic forces in society: that each reinforces the other. A housewife does not “work” because she does not get paid for her labour.

Her financial dependence. said Ms Fenwick, gives men the psychological and decision-

making power in marriage.

“Our denial of the value of the housewife’s work obscures her very necessary part in our economy. She not only bears and rears the workers of tomorrow, but sustains them in a fit and healthy condition to enable them to work.”

As buyers of consumer goods, and voluntary workers women also make an indispensable contribution to the economy.

“Psychological dependence grows with financial dependence,” said Ms Fenwick. “Many women lack the autonomy, self-

identity, and selfworth either to rectify or leave an intolerable marriage.

“Women are encouraged to regard their unhappiness as a personal failing.”

The rising separation and divorce rate showed that many more women were not prepared to continue in unhappy marriages, she said. The largest increases in marriage breakdown were among women marrying under the age of 20, and men under the age of 21. “All the ugliness of the hidden agendas of marriage are revealed when marriages break up.” “Society has argued that men should go on supporting their wives, especially where there are children from the marriage.

“It would be fair to say that men have generally been reluctant to do so, as witnessed by the number of maintenance orders brought against them by women, and the number of men who default on payments.

"Not only do men acquire other commitments — de facto wives in particular — but they resent the loss of benefits received in the previous ex-

change: cooking, cleaning, and sexual favours which they now suspect may be going to another man, who, therefore, ought to b e supporting the woman.”

Separated or divorced women are generally badly off financially. And Ms Fenwick’s opinion of the equal shares division in the 1976 Matrimonial Property Act is that it could be less than equitable because working women usually also do ail the household chores. “Children are treated as negotiable debris from the marriage, not much different from the hi-fi set

or the family car. They are used as the stakes for both financial and psychological manipulation."

“While many men regret that they see so little of their children for whom they are expected to pay maintenance, their former wives are often bitter about the fun-daddy relationship that the father can adopt with his children,” she said. Ms Fenwick advocates a week or month-about system of custody as an equitable arrangement. Ms Fenwick is concerned that women are increasingly granted custody only as long as they adopt and live by the dependent female stereotype. The effect of the women’s movement on marriages remains controversial. Critics say the movement is breaking un mai ,-iages because it makes women dissatisfied with their roles. But Ms Fenwick argues that it

w a s women’s dissatisfaction that triggered the movement in the late 19605, and that examination of their roles is healthy for everyone. “We should be glad that women are helping other women to relieve themselves of the yokes of

their oppressive marriages,” sne said. “Women are coming together to define who they are as people, not Just being forced to accept being Bill’s wife or Sarah’s mother.”

“I know many feminists come from what are publicly termed broken marriages. Many of them have left those marriages because their consciousness was so aroused they could no longer tolerate their patriarchal oppression. These women are among the forefront of those who will make marriage for the better in the future,” she said. Ms Fenwick does not advocate doing away with marriage. She wants the institution improved. She urges society’s acceptance of a variety of living arrangements. The first step would be making de facto relationships equal to legal marriages. “We adopt far too punitive an attitude to both marriage break-up and alternative living arrangements. Marriage should be a relationship of mutual love and support between autonomous adults which may or may not produce, by choice.' children — whose rights as autonomous individuals are equally respected.” Any person could then have one or more “marriages” in a life-time, without trauma caused by legal proceedings in the courts, or by the church. “We need to make many changes in our society before such relationships are commonplace,” said Ms Fenwick. “The position of women must be elevated from dependence to autonomy. In short, we need women’s liberation.”