Maddy Replies to Marriage (Fixed It)

If anything turns my lip it's these posts. How do you manage to stay married? You don't get divorced. Being married doesn't mean you are happy or even living with your spouse. Marriage does not indicate love. Sorry, folks.

I have family members and friends who have been married for a long, long time and see each other a couple times a year for public type functions. Otherwise, they just do their own thing.

Not a model.

Anyhow, for this post - if this couple has been married for 65 years, let's assume they got married in the 1940-1950s, right?

Remember, a woman's career was considered being married - she was not expect to go to college or work, she was only expected to find a husband. Let's check on a little timeline of why marraiges "worked so well."

• 1908 - Oregon limits the workday for women to 10 hours (That means no real income, women couldn't be single and live, they needed a man).
• 1940 - WW2, most men went to combat leaving women alone (No fights, no disputes, no contact)
• 1941 - Wonder Woman is introduced (Just like to mention this)
• 1940 - Marital conflicts were usually handled within the home and kept private (That's right. Private.)
• 1950 - Domesticity was idealized in the media, and women were encouraged to stay at home. Women who chose to work when they didn't need the paycheck were often considered selfish, putting themselves before the needs of their family. (This means, less options, less choice - more happy marriages?)
• 1950 - Sex was viewed as a key component of a marriage. Without an effective female-controlled contraceptive, young wives faced three decades of childbearing before they reached menopause. (Submit to your husband, stay pregant)
• 1974 - Equal Credit Opportunity Act passes in the US. Until then, banks required single, widowed or divorced women to bring a man along to cosign any credit application, regardless of their income. (That's right, women could not get credit or often have access to money without a man)
• 1978: The Pregnancy Discrimination Act is passed in the US. Until the law was put into effect, women could still legally be dismissed from their jobs for becoming pregnant. (Can't get birth control? Married? Pregnant? Get thee home!)
• 1980: Sexual harassment is first defined by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, although a court had heard the first case in 1977 (Up until this point, women could be openly abused outside the home.)
• 1993 - Marital rape becomes illegal. (That's right. 1993, it became illegal to rape women)

Infidelity, one of those things that tends to end marriage, if it was committed by the male was normal. Marital abuse was a private matter and women were raised that these issues were their fault as it was a woman's job to create a happy marriage and if that didn't happen, it was her fault. 

Experts suggested that wives consider whatever they were doing or not doing to cause their husbands to cheat, drink or abuse them. Women could not leave their marriages, they could not support themselves and "experts" easily told them it was their fault.

Husbands and wives of the 1940s began having children at a younger age on average. Therefore, most spouses learned to relate to each other in the context of parenting together early on. Couples had more children on average as well, as birth control methods were significantly limited. Imagine that burden on people today.

So, is this to say all people who have been married for 60+ years are unhappy or all the marriages of those times were unhappy? No. But, let's not pretend because time has past after a contract has been signed, everything is fantastic and we all need to learn a thing or two. 

Make you own decisions. Walk away when it's right to walk away. Ain't no shame in admitting a mistake, in leaving a bad situation or even trying again. Don't stay in any type of bad relationship because you think the length of time you suffer is a "good" thing. 

Be equal. Be smart. Be kind. Love.