She rolls the mile; makes you smile, all the while being true.
Don’t take for granted the passions that she has for you.
You will lose, if you choose, to refuse to put her first.
-Alicia Keys
Last week over coffee, a gal pal and I discussed current events, specifically the divorce of a certain rich golf guy and his (sung just like the line in Alanis Morrissette’s, “Ironic“) be-a-u-tiful wife. Now, I gotta tell you, I steer away from celebrity gossip because there is a fine line between fame and infamy that is often, and quite sickeningly blurred, but this topic wasn’t about fame and fortune for me, truly-it was about principle.
Underneath the Spanx, ruffles and chintz is a woman, at some point before the single ladies toss all dignity to the wind, and get down straight derby style for the bouquet, there is an agreement; a contractual obligation. Please highlight “obligation”, in the US there is a 65% chance you will come back to this line.
Marriage is a union “…that establishes a family: a social unit whose functions are to regulate sexual activity, to produce and raise children with a particular social identity and cultural skills and to constitute a basic economic unit”. (Heider, 2007) Historically, and to this day in some cultures women have been and are still maimed and murdered for marital transgressions: potential, real and imagined.
Following our lively discussion, my gal pal becomes entangled in the same discussion on the 4th of July, at grillside. The stench aroma of charred flesh, free-flowing spirits and men, this is not exactly home court advantage. She called me later to tell me of the men’s position, not surprisingly, they felt it wasn’t her money, that she didn’t deserve that much money.
Don’t get me wrong, I agree it is quite a large sum of money no matter which of the numerous settlement quotes you go with. To that end, it still befuddles me that hitting a ball can generate that kind of income, I digress. Part of me hopes she’ll start a fund for the wives of less fiscally fortuitous, fornicatin’ (insert alliteratively apropos expletive here). But the other, more serious part of me feels that even in the most simplistic tribal cultures, there is a price and a set of responsibilities which must be adhered when starting a family; a price that has led to genocide of female babies, and the inhumane treatment and murders of many women. These acts have been carried out as a deterrent, and as a means to protect marriage as both a sacrament and a basic economic unit.
Why then, when women here in the “civilized” US of A set out -in accordance with societal norms and legal governance- to do exactly that- is their worth in question? Is worth relative? Is only women’s worth relative? Is the big payout the cultural evolution of stoning, what say you?
