The Business of Marriage & Family

Charlotte Perkins Gilman discusses the lot in life of women in the 19th century based on their economic dependence upon men. She basically states that marriage is not like a business partnership. Yet she also states that men cannot produce wealth without the support of women. But then she goes on to argues that women do not "earn their keep" by the happiness, house service,  or motherhood they provide to their husbands. I think that Gilman's ideas are accurate for the women of 19th century, but views of gender roles and exactly what marriage is and should be have changed over time. Personally, I disagree with Gilbert - particularly that marriage is not like a business partnership. (She is also mistaken about her idea that the division of labor based on gender cannot be found in other animal species, but that is a lesser argument.) Gilbert limits her view of women's worth to economic exchange alone and I think this is not quite accurate.

I do think that marriages are comparable to businesslike partnerships. The couple acts like an mini organization with common goals and efforts to reach those goals. There is an exchange of goods and services based on the strengths and weaknesses of each partner,  and a network of support is created through the joining of larger family units. Even without such emphasis on purely economic exchange, there is an irrefutable social contact in place which delegates# delineates certain areas of management for each partner. A healthy, prosperous family unit is usually a main goal of a marriage and that requires management over the home and management over the economic direction of the family unit. When one partner is not holding up their end of the bargain for an obscene amount of time, divorce may be likely in which the businesslike partnership based on this kind of social contact then dissolves.

I can agree with Gilman's assertion that, "If we dare face or own thoughts,  and force them to their logical conclusion, we shall see that nothing could be more repugnant to human feeling,  or more socially and individually injurious, than to make motherhood a trade", but I also believe this is closer to the truth of the situation. Without shielding our eyes by our own sensibilities toward our animal nature, we avoid Gilman's limitation of accepting a less accurate picture.

I chose the following picture because it symbolizes the binding social agreement people enter when getting married.

The Anomaly of the American Dream (Sumblog5)

Harriet Martineau discusses her ideas of morals,  manners,  and anomaly.  To her,  morals are beliefs about behaviors which are dictated by authority and delineated to behaviors which are acceptable (prescribed) and which are to be avoided (proscribed) for all of society. Manners,  on the other hand, I thought she meant were more like behavioral casual events because she talked about associations. It made me think that behaviors are influenced by several environmental factors.  Overall, Martineau's morals seem to stand for the ideal values of society,  while manners are how a society actually behaves. Anomaly is a state which exists when a society experiences a large amount of conflict between ideal values and actual behaviors;  between what it ideally wants to represent and what it actually stands for in reality.

This concept of anomaly can be applied to the american dream and capitalist values. The american dream is supposed to hold values of an equal, free society where so long as you’re hardworking you have the opportunity to pursue your personal ambitions. Reality though does not necessarily reflect this ideology, and not everyone has the same access to opportunities which will raise their living conditions. Anomaly can be seen in capitalist values as well. Under capitalism, competition is a good thing and is supposed to create opportunity and more choice for everyone. In reality, companies merge and consolidate, gaining more and more control over the market and garnering power unequal to that of others. Choice, in the end, is rather limited even though it is not portrayed as such.

I chose the image below to represent the conflict between what an American, capitalist system ideally wants to represent, and what it actually looks like in the real world. The blue half shows the ideal, with everyone having opportunity to raise themselves up in society relatively equally. The red half shows the actual, with a few people at the top and a majority of people being squashed at the bottom, while holding everything up.

Ideology as an Iron Cage (SumBlog4)

Max Weber essential argues that man is subordinate to the desire for more and more money and the material goods which can be acquired. He states that "man is dominated . . .by acquisition as the ultimate purpose in life, " and that this type of subordination is "a leading principle of capitalism". He goes on to link this particular ideology to its moral foundation in religious asceticism, and declares it an "Iron Cage" for humanity. In other words, man is dominated, encapsulated, and incapacitated by capitalism; an ideology. Thus, any ideology would pose as an "Iron Cage". This is similar to the idea that religious ideology, for example, acts as a blinder. Moreover, as Durkheim claims in the Cultural Logic of Collective Representations, this tendency to cage ourselves appears as part of the human condition.

How can men be accepting of this, especially in America - touted as the land of the free? For what purpose would human beings be inclined toward such a thing?

Some would say this is what gives meaning and direction in life; that the ideological box, in whatever form we desire, provides motivation to advance ourselves. Ideology lays out a framework to operate under and suggests strategies for coping with life struggles. It gives reason for being. It is no wonder then that Durkheim finds Anomie proven to be an extraordinarily challenging state for humans to cope with.

As Weber frames it, Traditional authority and Rational authority are what lead men to submit to the capitalist way of life.

Today, there is a significant iron cage constructed through conservative media and individuals like Rupert Murdoch who monopolizes these media outlets. This type of system uses propaganda thick with fear tactics, and draws on individual’s faith in religion and patriotism in order to dominate and incapacitate masses of society.

I chose the following image because it highlights the purported desire man has for freedom, while also alluding to the human condition to crave and construct cages for ourselves.