If you like to make a big deal of how happy your marriage is, does it not worry you that a lot of women are suffering within marriage?

[SolidGoldBrass]

Two women a week are murdered by partners or ex-partners and one in four women will experience domestic violence at some point in their lives.
If you yourself are in a wonderful marriage and like to talk about it and recommend the institution to other women, do you think you might have some responsibility towards those who naively think that love&marriage will solve all their problems and thereby end up in awful abusive relationships?

Yes this is a folow on from the sex work thread, I thought it deserved a thread of its own.

SolidGoldBrass now you've explained the motivation for the thread i.e. the other thread that asks "if the 'happy hooker' sex workers should take some moral responsibility for the fact that others are not so happy (ie coerced into it)" I understand the analogy you are making.

My reaction the OP is still of course not and my initial reaction to your analogy was that the two questions are for entirely situations and not comparable. I also thought that yes 'happy hookers' are in some way morally responsible.

However when I tried to justify why I thought this I can't. You've certainly made me think, and I now think that if I as a happily married woman am not responsible for unhappily married women then happy hookers shouldn't be responsible for unhappy hookers.

"entirely different situations"

Have not read the whole thread, but wanted to state, as a woman in a not very happy relationship, where there has been a few cases of hitting in the past, and things are very strained indeed, that if I hear about other people head over heels and happy and what not, it really makes me

Ok so I may be weird, but I look at it like this, if everyone else was in the same boat as me, then there really isn't any hope. If I knew that this was the best there is, that, tbh, would be the saddest thought ever.

I thought like this 10 years ago and deeply depressed.

From a relationship perspective, I wished I'd thought it through more, I wished I'd held out for better, I wish my self esteem was stronger back then. I hope it's strong enough for the future to come.

always nice to have your preconceptions challenged

I dont think "happily married people" should feel guilty about being married - however i do feel that society can make one feel "inferior' or on the fringes of society if single after a certain age. the pressure to be part of a couple is huge - so many, perhaps 'settle' for someone unsuitable.

Ajayjay thanks . Yes, that was what I was kind of after. There are, after all, a lot of parallels, for women, between marriage and sex work, and if it's 'irresponsible and wrong' for either individuals or the mass media to glamourise or speak of their contentment within sex work when it's unglamourous and dangerous for a percentage of those who do it, then (given the high percentage of marriages where there is abuse or at the very least where the woman is treated as a domestic servant) isn't it maybe a cause for concern that marriage/couplehood are so glamourised?

Marriage isn't a pre requisite to a violent relationship, the legal aspect has nothing to do with it.

A fairer comparison would be to compare all relationships between women and men to prostitution, surely?

So the question should read "If you yourself are in a wonderful relationship with a man and like to talk about it and recommend men to other women, do you think you might have some responsibility towards those who naively think that men will solve all their problems and thereby end up in awful abusive relationships?"

Or am I missing something?

Well I've been married for over 20 years, and can honestly say i have never 'recommended' marriage to anyone! They'd probably think I was barking if I did. It sounds like a phrase from a Jane Austen novel!

Neither would I bang on about marriage being wonderful - again, most people would think I was nuts!

I am one half of a happy, functional partnership. I'm not going to apologise for that. Yes, it's terrible that some people are in abusive relationships, but I don't think placing responsibility or trying to induce guilt in women who aren't, is achieving anything.

I really like this topic. Thanks, SGB, AJJ & others. I couldn't keep up with the prostitution thread; too many posts saying the same thing (with which I disagree).

I feel sad that not everyone is in a happy relationship but I don't feel guilty. What does anger me is popular culture (soaps and pop music being the greatest offenders) obsession with the allure of the bad boy. Apparantly they are 'interesting' and 'exciting.' Personally I think there's nothing interesting and exciting about being pissed off and badly treated by another person. It saddens and worries me that women anmd girls are still being this message.

I'm not married, never felt under any pressure to be and almost ever been asked if me an DP are ever getting married.

But I think that the opposite to the OP's scenario is more likely to be true. If a woman is in a shite relationship and hears about other women's happy, fulfilling, respectful, relationship she will at least know that not all men are bastards - as you could be forgiven for thinking sometimes...

isn't it maybe a cause for concern that marriage/couplehood are so glamourised?

Is it, i'd say the complete opposite actually, i'd be financially much better off without a husband and have more freedom, i fantasise about joint custody sometimes when friends have whole weekends to themselves
I would say that the normal, happy marriage/relationship is seen as going the way of the dodo tbh.

"Personally I think there's nothing interesting and exciting about being pissed off and badly treated by another person. It saddens and worries me that women anmd girls are still being this message."

Completely agree, even harmless looking JLS are at it :

If I died
Yeah would you come
To my funeral
Would you cry

Would you feel some regret
That we didn't try
Or would you fall apart
The same as I, I, I, I

Oh, and would it always
Haunt you baby?
That you missed your chance
To save me

Try any of that emotional blackmail on my daughter, i'd kick their arse into next week.

for me, personally, there are absolutely no parallels between a happy marriage and sex work

so the whole premise of this thread makes no sense to me

and my happy marriage isn't a "big deal"

The only person I know who rambles on about how wonderful her marriage is does in fact have a bloody awful relationship behind closed doors. Its a bit like the people who continually talk about their sex lives - they generally don't have much of a one.

Ooh I didn't know you weren't married bonsoir! I don't know why but I find that a bit surprising. But good :) And no I can't explain that either.

Should read the whole thread really but personally I've never met anyone I've wanted to marry so I haven't. And now I'm 45 I doubt I ever will. Doesn't bother me at all

I have never ever heard any woman rave about the institution of marriage, and I am ancient.

I know a few who rave about their husbands, as individuals, but not marriage

Very happily married, will talk about it, dunno if I'd recommend it TBH. We mostly got married so DH could move from the US to the UK more easily, if we both lived in the same country we most likely wouldn't have gotten married.

Still, it does confer certain legal rights and responsibilities that are pretty useful in a relationship with children, assets, next of kin stuff etc.

Oh and SGB, my father was married to my mum and not abusive. My stepfather never married her and was physically and emotionally abusive for decades. Pretty much disproving your whole supposition.

AF: GOod for you if your marriage is happy. Many are. These days, a lot of people do believe in trying to form egalitarian loving partnerships, life-enhancing etc. But tradtionally, historically, social-structurally, marriage and sex work do have a lot in common, it has just been a question of whether the man pays the woman by the hour or purchases her outright.

Isn't this a bit unfeminist? Blaming content women for the abuse other women suffer at the hands of men? Isn't it, gasp, the abusers who are to blame?

Many institutions historically and social-structurally were sexist. Doesn't mean they still are.

Neither partner purchases the other on marriage - at least not in 21st Century Britain which is where I live. I therefore see no need to apologise for the fact that I am exercising my right as an adult to marry, nor am I going to apologise for the fact that I'm happy.

nah, sgb, I just don't buy it

and he don't buy me

FWIW, I see your point about the woman being "purchased outright" as in the case of some cultures.

IME, DH was asked to give an amount of money to the bride's parents that had 2s and 9s in. E.g. £299 or £2.99 or £2299 etc. DH was quite taken aback by this, not because of the amount but he was appalled to think that he had to "buy" his wife as in the case of a prostitute/ slave etc and questioned this practice further.

In the end it wasn't so sinister. I'm Chinese so it is traditional to give red envelopes with money in them on special occassions. The 2 refers to the number in a couple and the chinese word for 9 is a homophone for the Chinese word for "eternity and longetivity".

Anyway, I can't possibly comment for others' experience but from what I observe in my own life my dh treats me as an equal and respects me. Prostitutes have many partners, a monogamous spouse has one. Legalised prostitution? I still can't believe it. Sorry.

What other parallels would you like to draw on?

Exactly AF! Not buying it!