Kiss the Bride
When I was a child, almost any narrative I imagined while playing with my friends was built around marriage, motherhood, or upkeeping my husband’s house. We pretended that our toys were our boyfriends and created a thousand scenarios of Ken falling in love with, marrying, or settling down with Barbie. In 2005, my kindergarten had mostly gendered toys. Boys played with soldiers and cars, and girls played with dolls, mockup kitchens, and picnic sets. I don’t remember balls, puzzles, or books; something we all could play with.
I heard other parents say to their daughters “No one will marry you if you behave like this,” “One day you will grow up, find a kind rich husband, and birth all these babies to make me and Daddy happy.” Even though my parents never said such a thing, the societal narrative was clear: the woman had to marry to be successful. In his turn, the man had to earn money.
I will wait for my amazing male writer friends to reflect on their side of this narrative, but for women, the story seems curious: why does the woman need to marry to fulfill societal expectations? If a marriage is a union between a man and a woman where the man usually takes the first step, why don’t we push him instead?
Before the 19th and even the 20th century, getting married was basically a necessity. When you cannot own property, work, or vote, having a spouse who can do all that is saving you from poverty and death. In exchange, you give him children – the male heirs to inherit the wealth and continue with the patriarchal nonsense.
If a woman had ambitions, she could only fulfill them through her husband. A wife would write a book, and her husband would publish it. A wife would create a recipe, and her husband would open a restaurant. I’m not claiming that all ideas were essentially female, but wives played a great role in the process. Take, for example, the famous case of Sofia Tolstoy and her husband.
When the first wave of feminism hit in the 19th century, women no longer technically had to get married. Society – or men, to be precise – had to support the existing narratives to force women into marriage. Unmarried women are defective as no one wanted to have them. Unmarried women will distract male coworkers. Unmarried women are a drain on the government’s money.
Again, these narratives are mostly about women. Older single men are seen as mature, desirable, free, attractive, and career-oriented. So what exactly changes when a woman and a man get married, and why does society need to force her into the union?
First, when a woman marries, she takes on 20 more hours of unpaid labor per week than her husband. Research shows that single men and women who live alone have approximately the same number of hours of unpaid labor per week. However, when they marry and start living together, the women’s workload increases, while the man’s decreases. The stats are similar even for couples who just live together without getting married.
Second, while unmarried women are poorer than their married counterparts, they live a longer happier life. Men, on the other hand, live a shorter and less happy life if they are divorced or not married. Most research sees the cause of the statistics in men’s lack of close friendships during their adult years.
Third, marriage is associated with child-bearing, and Western society desperately needs that. Even if men are involved during the pregnancy and the first years of the child, the woman more often takes maternity and sick leaves, breastfeeds the child, and, of course, gives birth. Pregnancy can be devastating to someone’s career, health, and even physical security, yet women are pushed to undergo at least one pregnancy before they are 25.
The problem with these statistics is that they are so hard to believe. When most fairy tales, kindergarten games, books, and movies end with a happy ending involving marriage or some form of love story resolution, it is hard to believe that the best thing a woman can do is to stay single.
It is human nature to long for love, connection, and being seen. However, love should not necessarily manifest into an unequal legal union between two people.