Goldman critiques of marriage (Essay Sample)

Goldman Critique of Marriage Student's Name Institutional Affiliation Course Name Professor's Name Date Goldman Critique of Marriage Marriage is a crucial stage in life where a woman and man come together to create a family. Love is the fundamental attraction point for both men and women who wants to get married and have a family or that atleast what most of us know. Moreover, it's what the holy book expects: two love birds shall fall in love and commit to each other for a lifetime. However, Emma Goldman had a unique view on marriage. This paper looks into the strengths and weaknesses of Emma Goldman's views on marriage and its relevance to contemporary society. Strengths According to Goldman (2020), marriage and love are antagonists. She also believes that love cannot be born from any marriage, but only love can result in marriage, and she believes there are very few marriages born of love. Furthermore, she also feels very few married couples continue to love each other in marriage life since marriage is an unequal institution meant to handicap a woman throughout their life. To her, if any marriage is born without prior love, it will not last. No matter how either couple tries to retain the institution, they only postpone the inevitable. In today's society, the notion that marriage cannot bore any love, but love can bore marriage is quite significant. Divorces are far fewer in the 21st century than recorded in previous years, while the rate of marriage is also decreasing at an alarming rate (McGurk & Soriano, 2021). People marry for love, but what is the passion that drives them? True love is abiding affection for each other by always wanting the best for each other regardless of what sacrifice they have to make. It is a bond based on character, not only appearance. However, today people fall in love with outward appearance and other material possessions, making marriage hard to survive. Only lust can be born out of it; when lust is contented, divorce knocks and the marriage institution dies immediately. Nonetheless, their few couples who date and get married with only true love as their motivating factor. These are the only marriages surviving in a world full of financial, social, and spiritual hardships. Goldman (2020) also believes marriage is an economic arrangement that acts as an insurance pact. She states, "In taking out an insurance policy one pays for it in dollars and cents, always at liberty to discontinue payments. If, however, woman's premium is a husband, she pays for it with her name, her privacy, her self-respect, her very life," Therefore, a woman has to take financial insurance from a man and give back her bearing her children, sexual satisfaction, taking his name and her self-respect. Goldman continues to point out that in doing this, women are rendered useless and sell their freedom to men. Goldman (2020) argues that the notion that a woman was born for a man's convenience is outdated and has no place in the current society. She argues that a woman has a soul and should not be subjected to mere marriage responsibility because she can also dream-like men. Therefore, Goldman argues that such superstitious beliefs are why women have been confined to marriage institutions but not to love. Societal forces have forced women into the institution of marriage, but as they are all gaining an education, they are slowly breaking these superstitious chains. The same argument holds in contemporary society, where women use their attractive bodies to get married to men of their choice. Even though today, unlike in traditional times, women have a choice of men they want to marry, they still feel confined to getting married by community pressure. Therefore, women married to weak men are seen as unnatural and disruptive of social order in the community (Harsanyi, 2018). However, they are still undervalued as lesser than men, and regardless of their status, they are still required to submit to a man in a marriage institution.  An institution of marriage between a woman who is more powerful financially than a man has been believed never to work (Cherlin, 2020). Therefore, women have had their parent decline any marriage proposal whenever they present a man who earns lesser than them financially. Providing for a family is usually expected to be a man's role. When they depend on a woman for finances, the expected stability in the marriage institution is broken. It is believed that when a woman has more money than a man cannot conform to the expected role of a woman in the community. Another notion is that women are free and big enough to learn the mystery of sex without the sanction of the church or state (Goldman, 2020). Women are expected to confine to the laid rules by the church or the state, and a woman who is unable to limit to these rules is seen as an outcast and unfit for marriage. However, Goldman argues that a woman should be allowed to determine how their sex life should be without anyone interfering with them. In life, church and state have been interfering and laying out the expected qualities of a good woman for marriage. Modern society also has characteristics of a woman who is suitable for marriage. Women are expected to maintain purity until the right man for marriage comes along (Galiè & Farnworth, 2019). Fornication for a woman is highly criticized but does not apply to men. A man can have numerous women but may not receive the same criticism as women. However, a woman having a couple of men before marriage is considered unfit. Women cannot have a normal relationship before marriage and still get a typical marriage without high-end critics. Goldman (2020) concludes that marriage makes a woman less capable of facing their life's adversity, makes them less conscious of her social life, and paralyzes her imagination. Then after limiting her in all these aspects, it presents itself as a form of gracious protection. Goldman believes this protection is more of a prison than real protection because it renders a woman useless and with nothing to offer. Therefore, Goldman thinks that marriage has nothing to offer to a woman.  A woman can have a dream, have children and still not get into marriage complications. A woman can have an independent life with children from a man she loves and still survives in society. Single mothers' life satisfaction has been identified to be higher in countries with supportive family policies and higher levels of gender equality (Kim et al., 2020). Therefore, women in countries supporting gender equality are experiencing single mothers who are more content with their lives. Weaknesses  The moral lesson is not based on whether a woman loves a man but on how much a man can arouse a woman. Goldman (2020) argues that women today have been programmed in a manner that a woman believes that only a man can have money and, therefore, they should be looking for men with wealth. Women have never been instilled with the belief that they are incapable of making money as men do and thus must find the best valuable men in society for marriage. However, this notion of marriage as the pathway to financial security is slowly fading. More women are becoming educated, and thus they are becoming far more financially independent than traditionally (Finlay & Clarke, 2003). Therefore women are no longer looking for marriage as a means of livelihood but rather a companionship and procreation purpose. Thus, the idea that women are looking for marriage as a gateway to secure financial freedom is slowly fading away. Today women are divorcing more frequently than before since more women are becoming more independent. Women have become more literate, which has shifted their purpose for marriage, and when their goals are not achieved, they are more than willing to quit it.  Marriage is seen as an institution that protects children. Goldman (2020) finds it hypocritical to say that marriage can help protect children because many orphans and homeless children succeed in life against all odds, even without family protection. The marriage is assumed that by sticking to married couples, children are protected from the hardship of life. They think parents will provide their children financial, moral, and physical protection. In modern life, a marriage institution only works when both parents can compromise with each other, and this is the only time that marriage will only give children the said protection.  Goldman (2020) adds that love needs no protection; it is its protection. Moreover, where love exists, nobody can leave their responsibility. No children will be hungry or lack the basics when love is the foundation. She also highlights that there are women who have had children out of wedlock with the man they loved and have enjoyed a far better life than their counterparts in marriage. Therefore, she believes that wedlock does not guarantee children protection, but love does. However, this is a few, with other research revealing that majority of women who are single mothers are not less happy, but the lack of a father figure in the setting can have negative impacts on the upbringing of their children. The report indicated that fatherless children have trouble with behavioral adjustment, primarily in social adjustments and friendships (Downs & Rindels, 2...