Marriage and freedom are not mutually exclusive. But is “open marriage” or “total womanhood” the answer to wedded happiness? Here’s how to know if you are really on the freedom trail.
FIVE POINTERS FOR MARRIED FREEDOM
1. Freedom under any condition, within and without marriage, means knowledge. In order to be free you first have to make an effort to understand what kind of person you are.
2. When couples are in love they tend to idealize each other. That’s an almost necessary part of the courtship process. It’s important to understand this and to make an effort to see your partner in the most realistic way possible under the circumstances. Forcing another person into some kind of ideal mold into which he or she dos not belong curtails the freedom of both partners.
3. It’s important to avoid sex stereotyping. We have all been conditioned to expect certain feelings (or lack of them), certain activities, and certain roles for men and women. Even if you can intellectually admit that the sex stereotype is unrealistic, you may not be able to accept this fact emotionally. If you find yourself practicing male or female chauvinism you should examine your feelings as well as your ideas.
4. No one person can fulfill all of another’s needs. If you find yourself leaning exclusively on your partner, you should realize that what you are feeling is not love but an unhealthy dependency.
5. Even the best marriage has its rough spots. If you feel that you are losing touch with your partner, try to talk it out. If that’s not possible, you might think of getting professional help. Most marriage counselors agree that the earlier such help is sought, the easier it will be to re-establish intimacy in the marriage.
THE NEW VOWS
But most of us realize that it takes time (often more than a decade) for customs, myths and languages to catch up with reality. In 1976, the real facts are that more women are concerned about the personal, intellectual and professional freedoms they can maintain while still involved in a viable marriage. For instance, how many weddings have any of us attended recently in which the bride, as part of the wedding ceremony, promised to “obey”? On the other hand, how many weddings have we seen or heard about in which the young couple recited marriage vows they had worked out for themselves, in which they promised each other “room to grow,” “an acceptance of honest differences” and “the right of husband and wife to become the best person he or she is capable of becoming”?
According to the sociologists, psychiatrists, marriage counselors and couples interviewed, these new wedding ceremonies are not just a fad. They tell us something important about the way idealistic and thoughtful young people interpret the meaning that marriage holds for them. Freedom for both husbands and wives is both explicit and implicit in that interpretation.
CHANGING LIFESTYLES
Not only are young couples questioning the old, stereotyped marriage roles; husbands and wives in long-time, ongoing marriages are also frequently rebelling against the trap that the stereotype represents for both of them. More and more often we hear of middle-aged wives spending their days at graduate school, instead of with the garden club, in order to prepare themselves for careers. We also hear of middle-aged men going back to school and undergoing a complete career change, at considerable financial sacrifice, and of wives who enthusiastically support that change to the point of going to work to finance their husband’s re-education. Others decide that divorce is the only solution to the middle-age marriage trap. The national divorce rate is rising, especially among couples who have been married for 20 years or more. And for almost every man who is asking for his freedom, there now seems to be a woman with a similar goal.
Another interesting statistic comes from private-detective firms engaged in the search for runaway spouses, ten years ago their business consisted almost exclusively of wives paying to have their husbands traced. Now there are almost as many puzzled husbands looking for wives who have left comfortable homes to strike out on their own.
“Hardly any married woman any more takes her tomorrow for granted,” says author Natalie Gittleson in her book, The Erotic Life of the American Wife. “In almost every wife’s psyche…and even in some wives’ closets…a valise waits, packed. In the event of impending marital disaster, she prefers abandoning ship rather than to go down with it. Regarded one way, the ex-Mrs. Goodwife has acquired a lifegiving sense of self preservation.”
And as one psychiatrist to whom I read this paragraph puts it: “It’s about time!” In fact, most experts consider this new search for individual growth and fulfillments healthy and constructive.
LIBERTY FOR ALL
“I feel that only two free, mature individuals can have a truly complete marriage,” says Keith Daugherty, General Director of the Family Service Association of America, an organization that accredits professional marriage and family agencies throughout the United States. “The fact that women feel freer to question old stereotypes also frees men. A woman who has control over her own life, thoughts and actions will probably feel considerably less need to control her husband. On the other hand, a man, freed from the unbelievable responsibility of being the focus of another person’s life will also feel less need to control. Children who are no longer made to believe that either or both parents have invested their entire emotional capital in their future will feel freer to be themselves. Women’s liberation, men’s liberation and children’s liberation are really one and the same…a way for all family members to develop their fullest potential.”
“The whole concept of the ‘dependent woman’ and the ‘independent man’ is psychologically inaccurate and personally damaging,” says Dr. Ellen Berman, a psychiatrist who is Director of Training and Counseling Services at the Philadelphia Marriage Counsel, affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. “There are times when each person, male or female, feels insecure and dependent, and in a good relationship must feel free to depend on a loved partner. Where love and trust exist, such dependency can be admitted without shame and guilt. And if such personal harmony and honesty dominate the relationship, there’s much less chance that marital problems will arise…including sexual ones.”
Sally Green, a sex counselor at the same organization agrees: “People whose life is fulfilling in a general way have less need for gratification from one human being,” she says. “People who do not have much else going for them in life come to expect this and that’s what they hammer at. If someone has no options and feels powerless to change a life situation, he or she will feel that all gratification will have to come from the most important relationship in his or her life, which is usually the one with a spouse or lover. Of course it’s impossible for one person to do this all for another. But the person (usually a woman) who insists on having her life filled by her marriage or her love relationship will inevitably be disappointed and will take that disappointment out on the partner. The results are usually disastrous.”
Ms. Green emphasizes the importance of options as ends in themselves. “There are people who are perfectly happy to staple a widget to a gadget all day long, or to scrub the kitchen floor to a bright shine three times a week…” she says. “As long as they have chosen to do so, the situation will probably be fine.” The fact is, however, that most women don't choose this kind of option. Ms. Green has often combined specific sex counseling with a strong suggestion that the wife go back to school to prepare herself for a career, or, if she is already trained to do a job she likes, to go back to work.
THE MASCULINE MYSTIQUE
Dr. Warren Farrell, an educator, worries about masculine stereotypes as much as he does about feminine ones. In his book, The Liberated Man, he writes: “The breadwinner role creates one of the strongest pressures on men, by linking the male role to breadwinning we are indirectly saying, ‘The higher your achievement in that role, the more masculine you are.’ Like most pressures on men to achieve, this pressure also creates a simultaneous disrespect for women who do not achieve…The masculine mystique of earning has also inflicted a crippling sense of inferiority on our nation’s women. Men usually think of wage-earning as part of their protective function, but the power to protect implies the power to leave unprotected.”
Dr. Farrell’s worries are shared by mental-health professionals. Hey are concerned about what looks to them like a backlash to the women’s movement. “It’s often easier to be a serf than to live in a democracy,” says Keith Daugherty, in discussing the effects books like The Total Woman might have on troubled marriages.
In this book, former Florida housewife, Marabel Morgan (now a highly successful businesswoman, promoting her marriage mafic throughout the country right along with her bestseller), tells of the scene that motivated her to “reform” herself from a reasonably assertive human being into a non-person. At dinner, her husband informed her that they would be going out the next weekend with some business associates. She had invited some people to their home for that same evening. Her husband now announced abruptly: “From now on when I plan for us to go somewhere, I will tell you twenty minutes ahead of time. You’ll have time to get ready, we’ll do without all this arguing!”
“…My little world was crumbling all around me,” she said. “What disturbed me most at the moment was having only twenty minutes to prepare for any event. My own life would be a mystery to me!”
But instead of standing up to her husband’s clearly unreasonable demands, she devised a whole program which includes total submissions of wives to their husbands’ will (which she justifies by quotations from the bible), complete acceptance and admiration of everything he does, says and thinks, combined with the instant provision of any kind of sexual activity which he (but not she) may desire.
To any woman who is willing to become a serf, Mrs. Morgan promises all kinds of “goodies” (her word). She herself received a brand new refrigerator-freezer. Others have received nighties, rose bushes, a can opener, luggage and cruises to Nassau and San Juan. But more than that, “I do believe it is possible…for almost any wife to have her husband absolutely adore her in just a few weeks’ time,” she says.
“I can think of no better way to bring disaster on the wife and husband than to follow that kind of program,” says Betty Grossberg, a social worker at Family Counseling of Greater New Haven. Mrs. Grossberg has been counseling husbands and wives in disturbed marriages for almost a quarter of a century. “Even before it became popular, I encouraged women to be assertive, to consider their own needs as well as their families, to feel pride and respect for themselves as people,” she adds. Why has a retrogressive movement such as “Total Woman” and its companion piece, “Fascinating Womanhood,” apparently caught the imagination of so many American wives?
“Anything that promises instant success will catch on for a while,” Mrs. Grossberg says. “Just look at all those diet books that tell you you’ll lose 20 pounds in a week, while still eating all the fattening foods you like. Most reasonable people know perfectly well that that kind of diet won’t take off weight…but they buy the book anyway…just hoping. The same is true for any miracle system to save a marriage. The problem is that if the diet doesn’t work you’ll just continue to be your old overweight self. But if one of those happy marriage formulas doesn’t work, you may do yourself some serious psychological damage. The self-esteem you throw away is not easily regained.”
OTHER RECIPES FOR MARRIAGE
If “Total Woman” is this year’s formula, what about “Open Marriage,” which was the subject of marital experiments as well as intense cocktail-party conversation only a short time ago? This concept also started with a book by two anthropologists, Nena and George O’Neill. The idea of “Open Marriage” represents “a new and flexible concept allowing each couple to draw upon their particular qualities as individuals in developing a relationship that is uniquely suited to them.” Their book “explains how two people, accepting one another as true equals, can capitalize on differences in interest and temperament.” This sounds very much like what most of the experts say. But there is one subtle difference: Most couples took the term “open marriage” to mean they were free to become involved sexually, as well as intellectually and emotionally, with partners other than their spouses. The O’Neills had never actually spelled this out…but it was certainly implied by them.
No one has done a meaningful sociological survey of couples who “opened” their marriages, including those who practiced extramarital sex. But marriage counselors have seen as many “open marriage” dropouts as they now see “total woman” failures. “There are husbands and wives who were completely devastated by a partner’s sexual excursion outside of the marriage,” one psychologist reports. “What’s worse, they felt guilty about their pain. After all, aren’t they supposed to be liberated from jealousy, possessiveness, and other such negative feelings? Does the fact that they were so miserable show that they were really immature? Of course anyone who denies authentic feelings because he or she thinks they ‘ought to’ feel another way is in trouble. A relationship between two people who try to live according to a philosophy or a set of rules that goes against their nature will probably hurt him or her as well as others. That kind of relationship is certainly not ‘free’ or ‘open.’ I would describe it as masochistic.”
It’s only fair to add of course, that some couples have probably found almost any marriage fad helpful, whether the method was “total woman” or, at the opposite end of the scale, “open marriage.” Such couples don't come to see counselors. But it is clear that no system, be it ever so logical, and no method, be it ever so simple, works for everybody, all the time.
REAL FREEDOM
What, then, is freedom in marriage? According to the professionals, it has different meanings for individuals and couples in terms of behavior. Some women want and need to have careers. Others feel freer if they don't have to compete in the world outside their homes. The same, incidentally, is true of men. Some couples require absolute sexual fidelity from each other…some don’t. In some marriages the husband makes the day-to-day decisions; in others, the wife. It’s not just the behavior that counts, but the motivation behind it. If couples don't discuss before marriages what each means by the word “freedom,” there is bound to be conflict.
“Freedom is one of those abstractions that can be defined in almost any way an individual chooses,” says Dorothy Brubaker, another marriage counselor who has worked for many years to help individuals and couples recognize and accept their own true feelings. “If a couple doesn’t define that wording the same way, there’s almost bound to be a power struggle. And no one wins one of those.”
As it turns out, the young couples who are writing their own marriage commitments seem to have come closest to understanding that freedom is not only possible within marriage but that no good marriage can exist half slave and half free. When they promise to “allow each other to grow,” “to accept each other’s differences” and “to help each other to become the person he is capable of being,” they are really promising each other freedom. Whether these marriages are going to be more complete, more satisfying and more loving than those of their parents, we don't know yet. But they seem to be trying harder to truly love, honor, understand and respect each other. And that is a step in the right direction.
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