Marriage
by Rukhshona Uktamova
What is marriage? Two love birds’ living together? Escaping oppression or walking into oppression? A form of punishment? A form of freedom? Liberation? A form of slavery? The novel/book Women Race & Class written by Angela Y. Davis brought up many good important issues and topics about women’s history. Some topics are legacy of slavery, birth of women’s rights, racism during the women suffrage movement, women’s education and liberation, rape, women’s role in housework and more. Women throught history has faced many unfairness, they had to fight in order to have rights to education and to get job outside of their homes. In the book Women Race & Class written by Angela Y. Davis, it states “Well – situated women began to denounce their unfulfilling domestic lives by defining marriage as a form of slavery” (Davis, 33). I respectfully disagree to some extend with this statement because slavery is just more than working for less to no pay it is when one person is treated as property with no rights. Slaves are not free, women are. In the text it said “They seem to have ignored, however, the fact that their identification of the two institutions also implied that slavery was really no worse than marriage” (Davis, 34). Slavery in my opinion was so much worse than marriage, being taken away from your home getting seperated from your family, forcing to work in difficult conditions for long hours less pay and less food, getting raped by white men, and getting whipped and chained for trying to escape cruel treatment is not same as marriage. Yes, marriage can be challenging, diffucult especially when the wife is a full time employee, full time mother, and also a house worker but at least you are at your own home with your family. You chose to get married, to have kids, to work outside of home, slaves did not chose to be slaves.
During slavery, White women and Black women couldn’t really get a long because White women believed they were superior than Black women when they were really not. They tretaed them poorly, Black women were maids, and nannys. When White women started working outside of home, they faced similar unfairs like Black women faced. Long hours of work but low pay. Because of the similar conditions white women compared their situation to slavery. Then they came together and fought for their rights. In 1833, Philadelphia Female Anti – Slavery Society was created and “…enough white women were manifesting their sympathetic attitudes toward the Black people’s cause to have established the basis for a bond between the two oppressed groups”(Davis, 34). You don’t know what somebody is feeling and going through untill you wear their shoes, so after experiencing similar treatment White women understood what Black women were going through. “….they learned how to challenge male supremacy within the anti – slavery movement” (Davis, 39). By helping others White women’s political involvemnet increased.
So, marriage is still not a form of slavery, it can be a blessing there are people who are out there who wants to have their own family, kids and loving parentners. There are women who are infertile, who can’t have kids and wanting to have kids. Taking care of your kids shouldn’t be a burden and shouldn’t only be the women’s responsibily. Men did take action in bringing the kids to life they shouldn’t say I am babysitting their own child or helping their wife when they are doing the home chorus. Because cooking and cleaning is basic life skills that everybody needs to learn and use. Women are hardworking, patient, strong individuals if they think marriage is a form of slavery because they are moms, wife, cleaning lady, cook, nanny, worker in factory all at the same time, they should look on the bright side. They are going to advance their multi-tasking skills, they can be role models for their kids, they can increase family income, enjoy their salary by spending on what they want they don’t need to ask for money. If they couldn’t handle this God wouldn’t give them all of this. God gave them all of this because he knows women are capable and strong enough to do all of this.
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Hi Rukhshona, I like how to start this by setting up some questions. It catches my eyes. You are doing great when you transition from idea to idea.
‘Some topics are legacy of slavery… rights to education and to get a job outside of their homes.’ I think you can bring up your thought in there a little bit. To let the reader know your point. Because when I read it I thought you want to speak up for some things. But your following point is the opposite.
I like how you used the quote to connect to your idea. I think you have a great layout!
Hi Rukhshona! I really enjoyed reading your blog post. The way you formatted your ideas was extremely informative and made me understand the idea you were trying to get at. The one part that was most attentive to me was where you boldly said “marriage is not slavery” and I agree with that comment 100%. We definitely live in a society where women are portrayed as such a strong viewpoint now and marriage shouldn’t define them as anything less. We women definitely play an extremely important role in marriage, kids, work, how we influence others and so much more. You definitely pointed that out through out your paper. Great blog!
Hello, Rukshona!
I really liked your topic and I agree with you in many ways. Marriage, in my opinion, is proof of a serious relationship between two people who are serious about being together, having children, and leading a common life. But slavery is a little different, it is when a person is forced to do something against his will, forced to work for free and at the same time, the person feels deeply unhappy.
Naturally, marriage between two people is a joint work, where both husband and wife have to work on their relationship, share a home life and not many couples cope with this, but still, marriage cannot be equated with slavery, because many people are happy in marriage!
Hello, Rukshona!
I really enjoyed reading your blog post draft, and I agree with your idea about marriage and slavery. In my opinion, the concept and significance of marriage are that two people who really love each other choose to enter the palace of marriage and each other’s lives when their feelings rise to a certain level because of love and because they want to take care of each other and give each other home and a sense of security. It’s a desire to integrate into each other, nothing else, just because of love. This is the original intention of marriage. However, slavery is that a person has no choice and opportunity and is forced to do what he/she doesn’t like or want to do. There is no concept of integration and joint assistance, only the meaning of individual being forced. So I agree with your idea that “Slavery was so much worse than marriage.” But there is also a situation that if marriage is not for equality, freedom, and love and there is no real principle of equality. Husband and wife do not have strong love, but for other reasons, such as marriage under the arrangement of parents. Then this marriage may become the tomb of love. So it depends on the situation.