Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/06/20/little-thirds.html
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No advice to take out a large insurance policy on your husband?
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There will be alternate advisors to the mistresses-at-risk advising just that
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even beat or kill mistresses to get rid of them.
Growth industry…
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This behavior isn’t much different with how women are treated as inferior in other regions of the world, but it’s interesting how that’s usually not thought of or discussed. This is horrifying that women feel compelled to stay in abusive or neglectful marriage, and if they were to divorce they have few rights or recourse, and that they’re seen as worthless? That’s monstrous.
What the hell.
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In the West, it was also the de jure norm until the early 20th century, and in certain communities in the West (esp. religious fundie ones) women trapped in crappy marriages to philandering husbands is still the norm.
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This is exactly why I get exasperated when people bemoan the current high divorce rate in the US, and especially when they suggest making the process of divorce somehow more difficult as a solution. It may not be an optimal state of being, but it’s a lot better than some of the alternatives.
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This is why Dianne Bentley, (soon-to-be-if-not-yet) ex-wife of ex-Governor Bentley of Alabama, is such a delight. You are going to screw around on me, after fifty years of putting up with your bullshit? Fine, dear, but it’s going to cost you everything.
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Why the mistress, why not cut out the middle woman and kill the dirt bag husband?
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Hmm, that does make me wonder if the status of widow is significantly higher than ex-wife…
I don’t know anything about property/material laws in China when it comes to marriage so it might not be as lucrative as in America.
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Anecdotally, my Chinese-American friends have told me that all around dating and relationships are comparatively weird in China.
One thing I’ve heard is that it’s not that unusual for your boyfriend or girlfriend to be dating a half dozen other people without your knowing.
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I always evaluate how bad statements are sexism wise by taking statements and flipping the genders.
Quite honestly counselling husbands to dress up, leave love notes for her to find, not lecture, and try to make their wife happy doesn’t sound like bad advice for a man.
The dynamic though is definitely unfair and misogynistic, and clearly benefits the men.
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The thing is that the advice is for a wife who knows the husband is uninterested in the marriage and may or may not have a mistress. And ends with the wife doting on the husband and doing everything to meet his needs, rather than focusing on the happiness of the couple itself. If the roles were reversed it would still be a highly dysfunctional relationship.
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Who will dispeller the dispellers ?
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Define “trapped” - are these women tied up in the basement? Perhaps all partners in a marriage, men and women both, would be better served by having the ability to support themselves in some fashion.
We come into this world alone, and we are sure as hell going out that way. Relying upon any one else to support you, financially or otherwise, is a surefire recipe for disappointment.
Seems like this is answered - trapped by social convention. This has been a common use of the word ‘trapped’ for a very long time - if society will treat you as an outcast for leaving - then your only choices are to stay or be destroyed - that’s a damn trap.
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And this in particular is the important bit. If the husband is the one making most of the money in the relationship then the wife has little recourse but to do everything in her power to stay in a loveless or abusive marriage, because divorce would ruin them while the ex-husband would arguably come out better than before. Yep, trapped.
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It should be harder to get married if a society wants to lower the divorce rates. It’s one thing Catholicism at least works on; having the couple attend premarital sessions with the priest. And why I’m a proponent of living together first. Nothing like coming back from your honeymoon to discover for the first time that he leaves balled-up socks all over the house and she gets toothpaste all over the counter and doesn’t wipe it up.
And then run off with the mistress and live a happy life free of men!
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I can give you an all-too-common example in the U.S.: women whose patriarchal religious fundamentalist cultures and families dictated that they marry young (often in arranged marriages) and pump out a bunch of kids for whom they (and not their husbands, who control the money) are expected to be the primary caregivers.
If that’s the only life one has known from childhood and if one’s community and family are putting heavy pressure (societal, spiritual, financial, kids, etc.) on one to stay in a marriage with a rubbish husband, with the alternative being total ostracisation, then “trapped” is a good description of the situation.
Some do leave, but in all the articles I’ve read and all the women I’ve actually talked with not one woman said that getting out of the marriage was in any way easy.
I agree with your premises, but not every woman in the world or even in The Land of the Free is a college-educated secular person brought up to be self-sufficient.
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Another “growth industry”.
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