December 4, 2008

Married him for his wallet?

Another Glenn "follower":


Hugh Akston Says:

December 3rd, 2008 at 10:47 am
a feminist response to similar complaints from a man would be along the lines of "we deal with woman's interest go get your own movement."

"The first time she married for love, the second time for practicality." I like how you said that, it sounds much better then "She married the second for his wallet"
http://glennsacks.com/blog/?p=3009#comment-606637

Background:

The original letter referred to in this comment was from a woman (of unknown age) whose mother was married twice. Once apparently to her father (a gambler who did not provide for his family) and in that case because she (the mother) loved this man. The second marriage (after having 7 children between the two men - not mentioned how many were the offspring of the first man and how many were from the second man) was for "practicality." Now depending on when this marriage took place, we could have numerous definitions of practicality. Going back 4 decades, we were going through the hippy/free love era. People in this era were generally more forgiving of divorcees. Go back another 10 years and you will see the climate towards divorcees was significantly less forgiving. This letter writer (the woman writing to Glenn) who is of unknown age could very well be in her late 40's to early 50's. If this is indeed the case, I could see the "practical" marriage for several reasons. Women generally had a harder time finding work, most stayed home to care for children. Beliefs at that time were that divorced women were harlots or had done something wrong in that she could not keep her husband. Yet men who divorced their wives were offered all sorts of sympathy (oh you poor dear - she must have been some awful sort). I am in my early 40's and my grandparents and parents were in this generation and this is what I recall from them and their friends. Now a woman losing her husband to death was acceptable. Then she was regarded as a victim and a remarriage was not looked at like a divorcee's remarriage. This comment from Hugh Akston is yet another example of the misinformation and pseudo-hatred spread by MRAs.




NOTE: I just went back and noticed that the letter writer stated that her mother's first marriage ended in 1960. This would be right in line with my (and others) beliefs. In that era, divorcees were perceived as harlots, "less than" women.

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