Category: Trending on the Web

During the Spring 2014 semester, I took a class called “The History of American Families.” One of the biggest trends discussed was the shift in perceptions and expectations of marriage. As a freshman in college with a serious boyfriend and plans to get married before I graduated – which I did – it was a compelling topic: what does marriage mean in 21^st century America, and what trends are people seeing for women in particular?

Earlier this week an Economist article from November 2015 popped up on my timeline: Most Americans would get married, if only they could find someone suitable. The article reemphasized many familiar themes: people are now more likely to marry for emotional reasons, less likely to marry young, and women (who are increasingly matching and even surpassing their husbands’ earning potential) are most likely to bear the brunt of household duties.

It’s a familiar dynamic: even as more women graduate college and find themselves climbing the career ladder, they’re bogged down with more domestic responsibilities than men. In addition to working full-time, women  are often expected to cook, clean, and make schedules for their spouses or families. The stigma around and feminization of “domestic duties” has placed unnecessary stress on women who are tasked with an increasingly complex work-life balance. Happily, increasingly diverse family arrangements have driven workplace policy towards the more inclusive, flexible side of the spectrum (woohoo, San Francisco!). This doesn’t alleviate all of the stress of an unequal distribution of household responsibilities, but it does increase a woman’s ability to manage work, personal life, stress, and career goals.

So what’s next for American working moms and spouses? Logic seems to suggest that the deterioration of traditional gender roles within the home will continue as women become more selective about their spouses. As the Economist article points out, marriage is essentially a market: “people buy in if the price is right.” Women capable of supporting themselves are going to marry for personal reasons – and men who bring something different to the table (perhaps a willingness to help with laundry or grocery shopping) are going to be the best-looking options. Over time, this will likely lead to a more natural, equal distribution of household duties and a general decrease in stress felt by working women. Because, after all: happy wife, happy life. No really – it’s a thing.

Psychology and history look at events affecting large numbers of people – psychology to understand behavior, and history to document it for posterity. A fairly recent convergence of the two fields comes in the forms of a study about how trauma can be inherited by the children of parents who experience it. The study (link to study) looks at how the trauma experienced by Holocaust survivors affects subsequent generations genetically – the idea being that these children are genetically vulnerable to PTSD, anxiety disorders, and possibly more.

While the science is complicated, the implications are even more nuanced. It raises a lot of questions, including how many generations could be affected (a case for slavery) and what the interplay is with race, socioeconomic status, culture, etc. With socioeconomically driven tension on the rise in America, what does this mean for how we understand generational disadvantages, social cycles of inequality, and neighborhoods characterized by violence? The emergence of this information, while still scientifically contested, raises more questions than answers; but the questions being asked seem to be ones that can challenge preexisting assumptions, structures, and norms – which could mean the kind of social progress and understanding we need.

At the end of my freshman year at CMC, my boyfriend came home from a 13-month deployment and proposed. It wasn’t a surprise, and almost all of my friends expected me to start my sophomore year of college with a fiancé. Yet even with this knowledge, many approached me with more judgment than joy.

What baffled me the most were the weird assumptions people started to make when I came back to school following my wedding. Instead of asking how my classes were going, people asked me whether I felt tied down, regretted my decision to get married young, and how I thought it would affect my success in the future. Instead of engaging with me about course material, people wondered if I had to learn to cook so my husband wouldn’t starve, and how soon we were planning on having children.

Many of these questions were asked candidly, out of pure and non-malicious curiosity. To be completely honest, they often showed me perspectives I hadn’t yet considered. I respect that. But mostly, they were incredibly frustrating. Instead of the strong, independent, intellectually curious young woman I perceived myself as, many of my peers made me feel as if I were a novelty, a little housewife with a completely different life and trajectory now that I had a wedding band on my left hand.

People seem to think that getting married means sacrificing your personality, individual self-worth, or independence. But that’s just not true. Marriage is a partnership – a team. I didn’t sign up to be a cook, or a maid, or an assistant. I signed up to hang out and have fun with my best friend for the rest of my life. Romance aside, it was pragmatism. We work well together and complement one another in ways I had never imagined possible. I’m a bookworm, by-the-book history nerd with a penchant for cooking, and he’s a comic book loving fireman-engineer in the Navy who can fix anything and is incredibly innovative. Everything just works.