Times Of Swaziland: FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY

FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY
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The Editor on 29/06/2018 02:50:00


Sir,
The evil genius of patriarchy is breathtaking. They have lulled women into a
false sense of security, comfortable with her knowledge that her moral
obligation to honor her sacred vows could at any time be instantly dissolved if
she utters the three magic words, I am unhappy. A lasting marriage does not
always signal a happy marriage.
Plenty of miserable married women are still with their abusive husbands for
children, religion and other practical reasons. A sustainable marriage is not
just about staying together but it should also be meaningful and satisfying. The
notion that the best marriages are those that bring satisfaction to the
individual may seem counterintuitive. After all, isn’t marriage about putting
the relationship first?
The traditional idea of a marriage seems to treat women as tools for their
husbands’ self-expression and personal growth and if they are no longer a
means to that end they should be divorced or worse abandoned. It just seems
keeping the wife is only good until she has career problems or mental health
issues or falls ill at which point she will be abandoned. It seems like a vile
way to treat women.
It is still hard for couples to come to an agreement with the fact that a
relationship, where the partners act like equals and negotiate who plays what
role in the relationship, is a fertile ground for breeding happiness for the
whole family. My at-home parent status does not give my husband a licence to sit
on the couch and get a daily dose of the news while I scrub myself silly!
The household grunt work is still everyone’s responsibility just as it would
be if the women worked outside the home. Thumbs up to feminism that exhausts
marriage in the sense that home-based caregiving, while unpaid, is a job like
any other. Feminism upends traditional expectations to everyone’s benefit.
A married woman can choose to keep her maiden surname rather than being forced
to accept her husband’s. If children come along, the wife will continue to
work and they will both take off the same amount of time from work, so the
concept of equality, rejection of ownership and independence are all positives
for a successful and happy marriage.
Women who are treated as work-horses, punching bags and semi-happy wives will at
often times be heard saying they are holding on for the sake of their children
who will be traumatised and feel abandoned if their parents go theor separate
ways. Those mothers are doing their daughters no favour by teaching them
tolerance; that a married woman should accept such treatment. All women have the
right to their choice of birth control, when to have sex and what to wear.
Women should demand their reproductive rights because every time we go down the
route of sexual freedom it becomes an edgy version of what men find sexy. We are
deeply troubled by a modern trend of undetermined origin, where women are
trapped working like men. They don’t simply work to entertain themselves but
instead are tricked into having to work to support their family, sometimes even
to support her husband’s family financially.
The reality is, regardless of who it does or does not bother, certain aspects of
‘traditional’ marriage are inherently misogynist. While it doesn’t do
anyone any good to act like we should forbid traditional things like a woman
taking on her husband’s identity by trading her original surname for his, it
doesn’t stop being sexist just because the person doing it isn’t bothered.
N Mbuli