A Tale of the Times

As we battle on in the culture wars, trading barbs and op-eds back at headquarters, it is good to pause and find out what is going on at the front lines.  

I was struck recently by this report on a cohabiting couple by Sandra Parsons.  She writes about the experience of a thirtysomething woman of her acquaintance. 

I’ll call her Anna, who for the past ten years has lived with her partner, who I’ll call Harry. They have two young children. For years, Anna said to Harry she thought that they should get married, for the sake of the children if nothing else. Harry refused.

Well, that’s all right, isn’t it?  This is the twenty-first century, after all and women are free from the necessity of  depending on a man. 

Unfortunately it’s not quite that simple.  Let’s go on.

Anna had a job when they first got together but gave up work when she had her first child. This suited her; she wanted to be at home.

And it suited Harry too.  He gave his er, partner, $160 per week to cover the groceries and every other expense she might incur.

You might ask why Anna accepted this situation. The answer is because she is a gentle, fragile soul with no stomach for a fight. She pretended to herself for a long time that everything was all right, and then she went to see her GP, who gave her antidepressants.

Shall I go on?  Fueled by something, maybe the antidepressants,

Anna has now decided she has had enough. She wants to leave Harry. When she told him, his response was that it was his house, his money and his children.

Oh, and by the way, Harry would fight for custody, “using her depression as his weapon.”  Nice chap that Harry.

One of the things we are learning, in this age of independent, liberated women, is what the point of that silly little piece of paper, the marriage certificate, is all about.

It is to protect women—many of whom are gentle souls without the killer instinct—from their own gentle, loving instincts.

You can see that if society sets up a rule—say, no sex without marriage—then it protects a lot of gentle souls who just want to love and have a baby.

Because if a gentle soul cohabits with a man and has his children and settles down to raise them then she is not going to be in a very good situation when it’s time to trade her in for a newer model.  Especially if she is depressed because of his continual low-level cruelty.

The bottom line is that there is no such thing as an “independent woman,” any more than there is such a thing as an independent man.  When a woman gets in the family way, she needs help.  And not just help, but safety.  The safest thing for her and the kiddies, studies show, is to be married to the biological father of the children.

You could look it up.