“Marriage is primarily an economic arrangement, an insurance pact.“
February 14, 2019 10:25 AM Subscribe
“The defenders of authority dread the advent of a free motherhood, lest it will rob them of their prey. Who would fight wars? Who would create wealth? Who would make the policeman, the jailer, if woman were to refuse the indiscriminate breeding of children? The race, the race! shouts the king, the president, the capitalist, the priest. The race must be preserved, though woman be degraded to a mere machine, — and the marriage institution is our only safety valve against the pernicious sex-awakening of woman. But in vain these frantic efforts to maintain a state of bondage.” - Anarchist agitator Emma Goldman, “Marriage and Love.” 1914
Always enjoyed reading her perspectives, definitely a sign of times in 1914 as the article makes mention but I particularly liked this quote:
"Love needs no protection; it is its own protection. So long as love begets life no child is deserted, or hungry, or famished for the want of affection. I know this to be true. I know women who became mothers in freedom by the men they loved. Few children in wedlock enjoy the care, the protection, the devotion free motherhood is capable of bestowing."
posted by hadal at 12:44 PM on February 14, 2019 [4 favorites]
"Love needs no protection; it is its own protection. So long as love begets life no child is deserted, or hungry, or famished for the want of affection. I know this to be true. I know women who became mothers in freedom by the men they loved. Few children in wedlock enjoy the care, the protection, the devotion free motherhood is capable of bestowing."
posted by hadal at 12:44 PM on February 14, 2019 [4 favorites]
the care, the protection, the devotion free motherhood is capable of bestowing."
A lovely sentiment, unfortunately similar to the long standing belief that all mothers in the animal kingdom were always kind and protective to their young.
posted by sammyo at 12:50 PM on February 14, 2019 [2 favorites]
A lovely sentiment, unfortunately similar to the long standing belief that all mothers in the animal kingdom were always kind and protective to their young.
posted by sammyo at 12:50 PM on February 14, 2019 [2 favorites]
I'm not sure what terrible animal parents have to do with this. "free motherhood" is referring to motherhood that is chosen freely by women. Literally the concept of Planned Parenthood.
Idk, as a queer divorcé, I feel like the opinions Goldman shares here have aged pretty well.
Henrik Ibsen, the hater of all social shams, was probably the first to realize this great truth. Nora leaves her husband, not—as the stupid critic would have it—because she is tired of her responsibilities or feels the need of woman’s rights, but because she has come to know that for eight years she had lived with a stranger and borne him children. Can there be any thing more humiliating, more degrading than a life long proximity between two strangers?
posted by libraritarian at 1:03 PM on February 14, 2019 [19 favorites]
Idk, as a queer divorcé, I feel like the opinions Goldman shares here have aged pretty well.
Henrik Ibsen, the hater of all social shams, was probably the first to realize this great truth. Nora leaves her husband, not—as the stupid critic would have it—because she is tired of her responsibilities or feels the need of woman’s rights, but because she has come to know that for eight years she had lived with a stranger and borne him children. Can there be any thing more humiliating, more degrading than a life long proximity between two strangers?
posted by libraritarian at 1:03 PM on February 14, 2019 [19 favorites]
I wish more folks thought about the economic & legal nature of marriage, and while I think this position is overstated (at least for the modern time) it would do people well to stop assuming love and marriage must go together. Certainly in the years before I got married I fell in love with folks who would have been horrible life partners more often than not.
This, though,
Marriage is primarily an economic arrangement, an insurance pact. It differs from the ordinary life insurance agreement only in that it is more binding, more exacting. Its returns are insignificantly small compared with the investments.
I can't speak to a hundred years ago, but the returns on marriage when you view it as a package deal? More than insignificant. The amount of paperwork and contracts you'd have to execute to reproduce the various legal benefits you get automatically with a marriage contract? They'd be prodigious, and many of them would be a much bigger hassle to exercise. The medical powers of attorney, for example, that folks in a hospital would have to be shown if your spouse needed you to make decisions for them. If you're a spouse they'd just know you have that legal right. If you bust out a piece of paper to show them it's undoubtedly something they haven't seen recently if ever.
Yeah, there's costs involved with these 'privileges,' but that's the nature of a contract - it can't be entirely one sided and still be legally binding.
posted by phearlez at 1:48 PM on February 14, 2019 [3 favorites]
This, though,
Marriage is primarily an economic arrangement, an insurance pact. It differs from the ordinary life insurance agreement only in that it is more binding, more exacting. Its returns are insignificantly small compared with the investments.
I can't speak to a hundred years ago, but the returns on marriage when you view it as a package deal? More than insignificant. The amount of paperwork and contracts you'd have to execute to reproduce the various legal benefits you get automatically with a marriage contract? They'd be prodigious, and many of them would be a much bigger hassle to exercise. The medical powers of attorney, for example, that folks in a hospital would have to be shown if your spouse needed you to make decisions for them. If you're a spouse they'd just know you have that legal right. If you bust out a piece of paper to show them it's undoubtedly something they haven't seen recently if ever.
Yeah, there's costs involved with these 'privileges,' but that's the nature of a contract - it can't be entirely one sided and still be legally binding.
posted by phearlez at 1:48 PM on February 14, 2019 [3 favorites]
Literally the concept of Planned Parenthood.
the unspoken thing in the essay which would've been very obvious to period readers is birth control, which even publishing information about was illegal in various places at the time or under various regimes.
"Anthropologist Kristen Ghodsee’s newest book is meant to be provocative. Just read the title: “Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism.”But it also explores a very serious economic question: What would our intimate personal lives be like if we all — but especially women — had more secure finances?"Episode of Season Of The Bitch interview with the author. Cockblocked by Redistribution: A Pick-up Artist in Denmark As infamous pick-up artist Roosh himself admits in “Don’t Bang Denmark,” Nordic social democracy doesn’t support his kind. (Dissent) previously
posted by The Whelk at 9:22 PM on February 14, 2019 [3 favorites]
the unspoken thing in the essay which would've been very obvious to period readers is birth control, which even publishing information about was illegal in various places at the time or under various regimes.
"Anthropologist Kristen Ghodsee’s newest book is meant to be provocative. Just read the title: “Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism.”But it also explores a very serious economic question: What would our intimate personal lives be like if we all — but especially women — had more secure finances?"Episode of Season Of The Bitch interview with the author. Cockblocked by Redistribution: A Pick-up Artist in Denmark As infamous pick-up artist Roosh himself admits in “Don’t Bang Denmark,” Nordic social democracy doesn’t support his kind. (Dissent) previously
posted by The Whelk at 9:22 PM on February 14, 2019 [3 favorites]
Iceland I think has the closest to this free motherhood, it's very appealing. I think I would have been much more inclined to have children in Iceland as a young woman.
posted by fshgrl at 11:21 PM on February 14, 2019
posted by fshgrl at 11:21 PM on February 14, 2019
« Older About 500 miles away and mainly to the south | And a marginal contribution of prostatic... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by Windopaene at 12:14 PM on February 14, 2019 [1 favorite]