I was listening to the songs our 10 month old granddaughter was hearing. Beauty and the Beast, Snow White and the list goes on and on. They all end up marrying a Prince Charming,have a huge white wedding and live happily ever after.
They start indoctrinating them early. Once you've heard a concept five times, you're hooked. Whether it's that men are superior, that women wear dresses, people who have different colored jackets (skin) are bad, or whatever the case may be. One believes it after its communicated five times by someone of authority. Authority may be your class mates, parents, TV, movies, advertising, religion etc.
Getting back to our story. Prince Charming may not really be a charming prince, but rather a cantankerous man who is totally frustrated that he has to work so many hours doing something he hates in order to keep his Belle and the kiddies happy. More often than not he is in total resentment and seeks solace in alcohol,drugs or some other form of escapism.
Maybe we are getting ahead of ourselves. The story goes that there has to be a big white wedding with food, music, a dress to die for, all costing more than anyone in their right mind can afford. Secretly, we know that the wedding has to be better than our friends wedding.
Then comes the bills. Ouch, reality is setting in. Love walks in the door, and flies out the door once the bills come in. A truism from an ancient wise one in my family.
What are we to do? Think about these statistics for a moment. In the United States, 67% of all babies born today are to single mothers. 63% of us live on our own. What does this say about marriage and living happily ever after? Not too good. Scary really. Some of us are not paying attention to reality. Reality is the law of nature, not the law of man.
The Old Testament has no mention of marriage as does the first nineteen chapters of the Koran. The new testament, and the last chapters of the Koran are all laws written by men to suppress women and they did a good job of it. We are certainly second or third class citizens.
What about having children? If we didn't marry who would raise the children? Reality is that it takes more than two people to raise children. Hilary Clinton was right when she coined the phrase "it takes a village to raise a child".
I'd like to explore raising children in another posting and I want to read your comments on fantasy marriages. Scroll over the comments button to open up comments.
2 comments:
I agree with what you’ve said in your post – most particularly about the indoctrination of girls at a young age. We are taught by our mothers, as they were taught by their mothers, who were taught by their mothers…and back through the ages, that women are the “servers” of men. From a very early age we are brought up to believe that to be happy we must secure a good marriage, have children, be active in our communities etc. But in today’s world that just isn’t the case. As you sighted in your statistic more babies are born to unwed mothers than married. Most house-holds must have dual incomes to survive, completely negating the stay-at-home mom from today’s life style. Prince Charming lives in Disneyland and I’ll bet he’s never changed a diaper or scrubbed a toilet. It has been a struggle for a very long time for women to find their place, or rise to their place, in a male dominated society. Subjugation of women in too many cultures – keeping the little woman in her place – has made it very difficult for women to rise above the thinking that we are only mentally equipped to solve the problems of our households but never the problems of the world.
No, I have never seen a "Marriage Fantasy" come true! Nevertheless, necessities that were true for the past do not follow for today, especially when it comes to Marriage. You are so right about the craziness of societies which keep down half of the population. What a better world it would be if the reality of Marriage was accepted, and men, women and children's current needs were addressed by our goverments, religions and cultures.
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