by: Brenda Wells
When one thinks of marriage, many come up with the idea of two individuals sharing an intimate ceremony. A ceremony that entails the promises of love and commitment to one another. The way marriage is viewed and upheld today, has come a long way. Currently in the United States, we have the freedom to choose whom ever we want to marry. A century or more ago this freedom was restrained from people in America along with other things too. Marriage in the past had been clouded with various inequalities, racisms, and political problems.
Men have put themselves on a pedestal of higher worth when comparing themselves to women. Women were seen as inferior to men and even today that idea is still held by some. Gender inequality was overwhelmingly noticed in the union of marriage. Men for centuries had viewed their wives as their personal slaves whom they could command on whim and use sexually. Women were degraded to individuals who lived only for the good of their husbands and baring his children. In colonial America, this ideology was held strongly and supported by most. Once a woman wedded her husband, she lost all the little rights she had. Through her husband she was represented if the case was needed. Men bore all the legal responsibility and were the ones who decided everything on all accounts. Woman were expected to acknowledge the superiority of her husband and were anticipated to approve the status of inequality between them. Thus, marriage was an institution that was more favorable to a man than for a woman. Men have always been classified as the protectors of their families and in turn women were the nurturers. The typical woman was expected to clean, feed numerous children because of lack of birth control, prepare dinner, cook, maintain the household, and then attend to her husband when he came home from work. Life was hard for a woman yet that went unacknowledged by men. It took years for women to shake off the inequalities men had created.
Today in the United States, we have the freedom to marry whoever our hearts desire. Meaning we can marry anyone regardless of religion, skin color, nationality, ethnicity, and sexuality (in some places). Not that long ago though, it was illegal for an African American and a Caucasian person to marry. When slaves were emancipated from slavery, the South made sure they still kept their claws on the lives of former slaves. Government bodies in the South strictly enforced that if African Americans or whites intermarried they would be imprisoned and be disgraced by any community witnessing their relationship. Thus, racism effected the intimate union many intermixed relationships could have had. Many whites thought intermixing with African Americans would contaminate the blood lines of whites and also lower the intelligence of individuals. Marriage between two African Americans was also tainted with corruption. When African Americans gained their freedom they were also finally allowed to marry and be recognized as a married couple. Thousands of African Americans were married soon after the Civil War because they were finally granted the ability to claim something as their own and not be torn apart like they were in slavery years. With the thousands that were being married, many pastors too advantage of former slaves. They charged expensive fees for their marriage applications and sometimes would not even document that the marriage would occur. Many African American couples received considerable fines and were sometimes imprisoned for not having the proof they were a married couple. Whichever way an African American turned when it came to marriage, they were kept from being able to appreciate the loveliness of marriage.
Being Chinese, Japanese, or newly immigrated to the United States was a status no one wanted to be when it came to marriage. Being part of the Asian culture was taboo also. During the Gold rush of California, prostitution was a reigning problem in the region. Many brothels were making a good amount of money since their was a huge disparity between the amount of men and women in California. Some of the prostitutes in California were Chinese and this had gained some attention. Chinese were newly immigrated people to the United States, thus not many colonial Americans have had much contact with the culture. Seeing that some Chinese women were earning a living as prostitutes many stereotyped that all Chinese women in America were doing just that. It had gained much attention that legislative action was taken to stop the supposedly massive immigration of Chinese to America. The government body passed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to reduce the immigration of the Chinese. They also set up standards people needed to follow upon immigrating to America. One of them was, men immigrating to America had to be married if they wanted to bring a woman along with them. A lot of Chinese men were able to go around that requirement by stating they had a wife being decided back home. The creation of picture wives started around the 19 century in regards to this restriction. Chinese men would receive pictures of a potential wife from home and he would correspond stating that he approved of the matrimony. When the Chinese picture wife immigrated to American, she would state she was the picture wife of so and so, and then be allowed into the country.
When World War II started, the marital roles of a man and wife were being redefined. An overwhelming amount of men participated in World War II, leaving hundreds of wives home to care for the household. Yet so many men had gone to war that companies providing supplies for the soldiers needed workers. Thus, finally came the age where it was expectable for a woman to take on the role of a working citizen and not just a household keeper. With the allowance of work, many women started to realize how much of their lives have been restricted so far. Many women started to push in being allowed to vote, redefining the allowances of divorce, obtaining citizenship, keeping their own salaries, obtaining higher schooling, being allowed to work in men stereotyped jobs, and much more. And after many years women were able to accomplish many of these things. With the accomplishing of all these goals, also came with the acceptance intermixing marriages.
The institution of marriage has changed dramatically over the years. Some still choose to have the male has the head of the household and while others equally share the role of superiority. The government no longer tries to define marriage of what it should be but rather allows the responsibility to be allocated to states. Government also does not try to restrict what races can and cannot marry and has made citizenship in America easier to receive with marriage. There is a long history of marriage in America and it took many key events to change views upon marriage. Today, marriage is a personal event between a couple but it might be needing to be redefined again with the resurface of polygamy from Mormons or cults. Upon reading Public Vows, ones perspective of marriage completely changes. This book gives a rich insight on all the dramatic twists and turns America took in trying to define what marriage should be between two individuals.
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