Feminists have written about marriage and motherhood for centuries. During the women's liberation movement, feminist theorists continued to ask how and why society encouraged women to make marriage and motherhood the central -or only - aspects of their lives. "The Dynamics of Marriage and Motherhood" by Beverly Jones appeared in the 1970 feminist anthology Sisterhood is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings From the Women's Liberation Movement.
Resist Domination
"Let's get together," Beverly Jones writes, "to discover and fight the techniques of domination in and out of the home." From organized groups to protests, from consciousness-raising to the pro-woman line, women's liberation called for working together as a movement, rather than searching for individual solutions to "personal" problems.
Threatening Techniques
What were the techniques of domination? "The Dynamics of Marriage and Motherhood" begins with the threat hanging over a wife's head: divorce will catapult her into the world of the unmarried woman. A man tells his wife that if she goes someplace against his wishes, she may as well never come back. Beverly Jones calls this a recurring joke in U.S. society. Behind it lies a truly menacing idea, that a woman will be out on the street if she does not obey her husband's wishes.
The relentless pressure from society to find a husband took its toll, creating a fear of being alone. A woman may have been unable support herself without a spouse. Historically, women were not legally whole persons. In the 1960s, many women were unable to obtain the same financial credit, job opportunities or wages as men. Society seemed to make marriage necessary.
The second threat is actual physical force. The crude use of clenched fists and "wild" threatening motions, let alone the battery that might follow, should be recognized as despicable acts, but instead are woven into the fabric of many marriages. Eventually, Beverly Jones says, the woman becomes conditioned so that a mere "stiffening of stance" on her husband's part stops whatever she was asking for. Why would a woman be "more frightened of returning to an unmarried state than she is of being beaten about"?
Dissecting Shortcomings
The backlash describes feminism as "rejecting marriage." Many 1960s and 1970s feminists analyzed elements of marriage that oppressed women as a whole, as an entire class. Beverly Jones has been criticized for finding no value in marriage:
A relationship between a man and a woman is no more or less personal a relationship than is the relationship between a woman and her maid, a master and his slave, a teacher and his student. Of course, there are personal, individual qualities to a particular relationship in any of these categories, but they are so overshadowed by the class nature of the relationship, by the volume of class response, as to be almost insignificant. - "The Dynamics of Marriage and Motherhood"
However, she examines a "partnership" built on a power dynamic. Her point is to ask why a romantic relationship would be like master/slave, teacher/student or any situation with a clear imbalance of power. Dismissing women's liberation as "anti-marriage" ignores the nuances in feminist theory. Beverly Jones says dominating men are also playing a game in patriarchal society:
The husband, after all, is trying to protect and bolster his frail ego, not drive his wife insane or force her suicide…He wants to shed the endless humiliation of endless days parading as a man in the male world, pretending a power, control, and understanding he does not have. - "The Dynamics of Marriage and Motherhood"
The essay looks at small ways husbands exercise dominance, cumulatively establishing a position of power. For example, the familiar scene of men reading the newspaper at breakfast while leaving only a "woman's section" for their wives implies that men have "superior intelligence." The man is the one who needs the news and has to get to work while the woman has all day to read the paper.
Does she have all day, though, if her housework and child-rearing roles are so crucial? And why, Beverly Jones asks, do men also hog the morning paper on Sundays? "What we are describing here," she answers, "is pure self-indulgence. A minor and common, though nonetheless enjoyable, exercise in power. A flexing of the male prerogative."
The Tired Mother Syndrome
"The Dynamics of Marriage and Motherhood" describes the physical trial a new mother endures: increased workload, but more importantly lack of sleep. Enforced wakefulness is agony, a torture device, a "necessary precursor to serious brainwashing," and yet something the new mother is supposed to cheerfully submit to.
Housewives raising children in the 1960s were reminded how lucky they were to have modern appliances and time-saving devices. Beverly Jones tells her readers this is offset by having fewer people around to help raise children. Gone are the extended family households. The idealized nuclear family gives each woman the 24-hour job of continuous child care.
Self-Denial
Along with other duties in support of a husband's career and fulfillment, are these sacrifices on the part of women insane? "What else could such self-denial be called? Love?" Beverly Jones asks.
An individual woman could be in a happy marriage, but the aspects of marriage described in the essay were not happy or just. If women were being ruled by one or more men "for the benefit of all men," this was the inherent structure of patriarchal society that women's liberation wanted to change.
To Fight the Common Plight
Beverly Jones urges women to recognize common identity as an oppressed class, not search for "individual catharsis." Women must organize and work together. "The Dynamics of Marriage and Motherhood" insists that women be able to tell the truth about their marriage experiences without being called disloyal. The essay ends with a call for change in women's physical and social surroundings in order to free their energy, time and minds to build a better world.