IDEAL MARRIAGE: THE IDEAL OF FUNDAMENTAL EQUALITY

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The ideal will be attained when men and women share the work of the world alike; when women, merely because of the few times when their function of childbearing is exercised, will not be excluded from a life of stimulating, purposeful activity; when girls and boys will grow up together with the same ideals of a vigorous, courageous, responsible, unpampered existence; when chivalry, with all its implications of superiority and inferiority, will give way to the courtesy of equality; and when neither man nor woman will be “head of the house” but marriage will be a genuine partnership.

Especially is it important that as soon as possible all women attain economic independence, not only because it will make men and women better companions when they both share the same responsibilities and interests but also because they will possess greater freedom and therefore be less constrained to endure the injustice or overbearing ways of men. Such freedom will create a wholesome fear that excessive peevishness or selfishness may mean the loss of one’s partner. Too much security is not good for anyone’s disposition. One can observe how much more irritable he himself is likely to be with his near relatives, on whom he can depend to stick by him regardless of his cantankerousness, than he is with his friends who will endure only so much and no more. It is a good thing to have to earn one’s way as one goes in matters of affection, and this applies to married life as well as to friendship. Thus again we see that freedom is the foundation of happiness in marriage, and that no genuine freedom is possible without equality and especially economic equality.

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IDEAL MARRIAGE: THE IDEAL OF FUNDAMENTAL EQUALITY The ideal will be attained when men and women share the work of the world alike; when women, merely because of the few times when their function of childbearing is exercised, will not be excluded from a life of stimulating, purposeful activity; when girls and boys will grow up together with the same ideals of a vigorous, courageous, responsible, unpampered existence; when chivalry, with all its implications of superiority and inferiority, will give way to the courtesy of equality; and when neither man nor woman will be “head of the house” but marriage will be a genuine partnership.Especially is it important that as soon as possible all women attain economic independence, not only because it will make men and women better companions when they both share the same responsibilities and interests but also because they will possess greater freedom and therefore be less constrained to endure the injustice or overbearing ways of men. Such freedom will create a wholesome fear that excessive peevishness or selfishness may mean the loss of one’s partner. Too much security is not good for anyone’s disposition. One can observe how much more irritable he himself is likely to be with his near relatives, on whom he can depend to stick by him regardless of his cantankerousness, than he is with his friends who will endure only so much and no more. It is a good thing to have to earn one’s way as one goes in matters of affection, and this applies to married life as well as to friendship. Thus again we see that freedom is the foundation of happiness in marriage, and that no genuine freedom is possible without equality and especially economic equality.*102\275\8*