Why marriage today takes more love, work - from both partners
For hundreds of years, marital advice books have been written for women rather than men, because women were responsible for making a marriage work. And over all that time, their advice to women could be summed up in a single word: submit.
Church officials in the 12th century declared that only God could own a woman's soul, but her husband had a leasehold over her body and she could not deny him its use. The tale of "Patient Griselda" was a staple of the marital advice industry in the 14th century. Its moral, one author explained, was that if a husband makes outrageous demands, do not refuse one's "ruler," for "greater good cometh by obeying." In the 16th century, ministers rebuked wives who used endearing nicknames for their husbands, because such familiarity undermined a man's authority.
A woman should be trained from girlhood for "docility," because "she will never be free to set her own opinion" above her husband's, wrote 18th-century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Indeed, a wife should "place herself, instead of running the risk of being placed, in a secondary position," recommended one of the most widely read advice experts in 19th-century Britain and America, Sarah Ellis.
Beginning in the 1920s, professional psychologists replaced physicians and ministers as advice givers, but otherwise little changed. The premier marital therapy association of the 1950s, the Institute of Family Relations, handled the popular Ladies' Home Journal feature, "Can This Marriage Be Saved?" The answer was almost always yes, but only if, after counseling, the wife allowed her husband "to feel, as she now feels, that he is the head of the family."
The "rules" for a successful marriage in the 1950s were clear-cut - and still directed at women. Marry early. Say no to sex before marriage, but afterwards, never say no to anything again. Act dependent and a little dumb. One prominent 1950s marriage therapist told wives to express an interest in their husband's work, but never act as though they were truly knowledgeable about it. If your marriage is in trouble, "pretend ineptitude" at tasks like balancing the checkbook and invent little tasks to make your husband feel needed, such as fraying a lamp cord to produce a short, so he can step in and rescue you.
Today we may find such advice appalling, but back then it actually worked. Until the end of the 1950s, girls with the most conventional views about women's roles and the least economic independence were the ones who got and stayed married. A woman who postponed marriage to pursue a college degree might never marry at all, and if she did she had a much higher risk of divorce.
But this rule, and most others like it, no longer applies. For females born since 1960, college graduates and women with higher earnings are more likely to marry than women with less education and lower wages. Men are much more likely than in the past to want a partner who is equally educated. And studies show that marriages in which wives are not afraid to ask their husbands to change and where men respond favorably to such requests have the greatest chance of turning into long, happy relationships.
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