Women And Marriage
...in special kind of social and legal dependence for the purpose of founding and maintaining a family.
Every thing in life is a contract, marriage as well. People marry when a (conscious or unconscious) comparison of costs and benefits makes marriage look lucrative. Costs are not always simply financial or material and benefits can be psychological, social or spiritual. They depend on the value a person attaches to alternative uses of time, and can include, for instance, the value of the hours a person is unable to devote to reading books because of marriage. Becker and other sociologists have used the term "marriage market." What does it mean? Marriage markets consist of markets for spousal labor supplied by wives and husbands. Individuals participating in these markets act according to cost-benefit analysis and try to maximize their own value, which can also include social and spiritual aspirations. Individuals make decisions about their willingness to supply services that can be of use to a spouse, supply labor services in the regular meaning of the term, and acquire goods and services, including services from spouses. When my mom married my father, their parents sealed their marriage contract. As the man of the house he was expected to go out to work and bring money to the family, and my mom was expected to quit the army, skip college, and be a good wife and a mother. For a while this arrangement seemed so natural. We used to come back home from school and see my mom either doing the laundry, or cooking dinner, and I remember one day we came back home and it was a mess. Nothing was ready, or clean. My oldest sister asked my mom then how come she didn't make us dinner, and my mom answered I just didn't feel like it anymore. Suddenly the contract that we all knew as a family was broken. That was the first time I saw my mom as an individual who has needs...
View Full Essay
