So far, we've talked about American History through marriage. This week, we read about the rise of Modern America, through the lens of Modern Marriage. Do changes to marriage always parallel the mainstream narrative of history?
As a thought experiment, think about how you would construct a narrative of the United States without marriage, and then how that story is altered when you interject marriage into it. Does what we are doing illuminate the past, give new insights, or is it separable from real "History?" Just curious to hear your thoughts . . .
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3 comments:
I think that history is already constructed without the inclusion of marriage. If you consider the fundamental American history that is taught in high school, it is constructed around US military action. Until we actually take the time to examine social history do we start constructing one around marriage. It is almost ironic because the texts we have read (particularly Cott) indicate that the fundamental characteristic of the growth of America is the constancy of monogamous marriage.
In response to the first question, I think that the changes in marriage reflect a larger change in society and not the other way round. The militaristic history can be used to exemplify this. War pensions (one the earliest forms of welfare) came after the Civil War and lead to the welfare policies for women and children in the 20th century. WWII gave women the outlet to explore a larger job market, a move that resulted in a growth in women in the work force.
However, these trends didn't always translate into a drastic change. The Coontz article showed that in the 1950s, although more women were entering the workforce, they were also marrying at a younger age and having more children. I think that whatever the approach that one takes to looking at the development of the United States, the change is still apparent.
I think the social history has a lot t do with marriage, but I don't think it is necessarily marriage that dictates historical changes but rather historical changes that dictates marriage. The necessity for gender roles to change and grow is directly affected by the changes in the nation. For examples, as Coontz discusses,during war time, women have to enter the workforce in larger numbers thus making the nation continue to function in the absence of many men. However, afterwards when the men returned, women were expected to re-enter the home and take on the responsibility of housewife and mother more diligently than ever before.
Marriage is most definitely an important part of American history, especially in light of women's history and changing gender roles, but as ceh said, changes in marraige reflect changes in the larger society. Marriage does not change until the society it is a part of allows and demands it. Take for instance the gay marraige controversy. Until now, the society we live in could not even have imagined such demands being made upon the institution. Yet with greater social acceptance and the creation of same sex families these benefits are slowly being woven into our marraige script. However, it would be foolish to suggest that gay marraige would cure all the greater social prejudices. Marriage is a constantly changing, as exemplified through the period between the 20s and 50s, but it's changes only have more minor effects on the greater social sphere than society has on marital changes.
I don't think that the mainstream narrative of history and the changes in marriage parallel each other so much as the changes in social structures, stemming from the other aspects of history, are reactionary to political, moral, and economic occurrences. Marriage and the family can be seen to react to the state of America at a particular point in time.
For example, in our readings about the Jamestown colony, the group was constantly searching for women to bring into the community in order to balance out the ratio between men and women; this was mainly so they would be able to ensure the success of the colony by reproducing and creating children. However, until they were able to balance the population of the community, many single young men began to fill the roles of women (except for the having children part, of course).
Other examples of when marriage, or at least social relations between men and women, changed come in response to a large social or political movement: the notion of contracts and consent became a much larger issue during the rise of the abolitionist movement, and again in response to polygamy. Divorce laws began to be reformed and questioned after the Civil War because many women did not know if their husbands were coming back, or even if they were still alive.
During WWII was most likely the largest leap forward in adjusting marriage and social roles in such a short time period. With so many men out of the country, fighting in the war, women were required to step up and fulfill men's roles - the opposite of what we saw happening in the Jamestown colony. This dynamic, of where it was socially acceptable (even encouraged) for women to be the "breadwinners" for their families, could not have occurred were it not for the war. I think that the mainstream actions of history can be seen to cause the changes to marriage which we have been studying.
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