My Feminist Fail

[msrisotto]

This is meant to be a light hearted thread!

I am a card carrying, soap box ranting, "This Is What A Feminist Looks Like" t-shirt owning feminist but......[small voice] I love watching America's Next Top Model. Shocker! I am embarrassed to admit it, I know how awful it is. Encouraging and celebrating the sexual objectification of women.

And I wear quite heavy make up when my skin is bad. But I don't think Feminism would blame me for that, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do to survive in the patriarchy!

Don't tell me everyone else is virtuous here! Care to share?

[LaurieFairyCake]

I'm talking about state marriage though which primarily benefitted men and the state. Gave men the control over children and property in the marriage. And that's 16th century.

From a religious perspective 'marriage' was a private choice with no ceremony in the first century, dissolvable when either party chose it. It was just a loose agreement to live together.

[LaurieFairyCake]

Sorry, to be clear. 16th century for state control of marriage in uk.

The religious aspect of marriage I'm talking about 1st century middle east - 'marriage' doesn't mean the way we describe marriage in modern language - no ceremony, just a loose agreement to live together. It's just the way we translate it.

[TadlowDogIncident]

That's very culturally specific, though, LaurieFairyCake. If you look at 1st-century Rome, for instance, it absolutely was a legal arrangement giving men control over children and property (to the extent that the paterfamilias was entitled to decide whether a newborn baby should be allowed to live).

[LaurieFairyCake]

Well,yes - I'm talking about MY feminist fail, and I have very specific view of marriage for me (not anyone else).

[BasilRathbone]

I don't think it was loose though.

It was binding.

For the woman, at least.

A man might have been able to choose not to be married anymore, but I'm not sure if that choice was open to a woman.

Don't know enough about it though.

[LaurieFairyCake]

Yes, in early Christian times women could also choose to dissolve the marriage and the women generally retained the children. Obviously the sexes lived more separately then though.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

I didn't know women generally retained the children - I thought it was the opposite? But maybe I am thinking a little later, dunno.

I think marriage is a difficult one for loads of us, isn't it? It is for me.

[LaurieFairyCake]

It has been the opposite in almost every society since.

Agree, marriage is a difficult one for feminists (and for feminist Christians like me). I've found keeping my own name, identity, documents, financial independence has helped somewhat.

[Matronalia]

This is from Wikipedia as I can't find the relevant book on my shelves (did my Masters dissertation on ancient Roman women and also have had several glasses of wine

During the classical era of Roman law, marriage required no ceremony, but only a mutual will and agreement to live together in harmony. Marriage ceremonies, contracts, and other formalities were meant only to prove that a couple had, in fact, married. Under early or archaic Roman law, marriages were of three kinds: confarreatio, symbolized by the sharing of bread (panis farreus); coemptio, "by purchase"; and usus, by mutual cohabitation. Patricians always married by confarreatio, while plebeians married by the latter two kinds. In marriage by usus, if a woman was absent for three consecutive nights at least once a year, she would avoid her husband establishing legal control over her. This differed from the Athenian custom of arranged marriage and sequestered wives who were not supposed to walk in the street unescorted.

Divorce

Divorce was a legal but relatively informal affair which mainly involved a wife leaving her husband?s house and taking back her dowry. According to the historian Valerius Maximus, divorces were taking place by 604 BC or earlier, and the law code as embodied in the mid-5th century BC by the Twelve Tables provides for divorce. Divorce was socially acceptable if carried out within social norms (mos maiorum). By the time of Cicero and Julius Caesar, divorce was relatively common and "shame-free," the subject of gossip rather than a social disgrace.[54] Valerius says that Lucius Annius was disapproved of because he divorced his wife without consulting his friends; that is, he undertook the action for his own purposes and without considering its effects on his social network (amicitia and clientela). The censors of 307 BC thus expelled him from the Senate for moral turpitude.

Elsewhere, however, it is claimed that the first divorce took place only in 230 BC, at which time Dionysius of Halicarnassus notes[55] that "Spurius Carvilius, a man of distinction, was the first to divorce his wife" on grounds of infertility. This was most likely the Spurius Carvilius Maximus Ruga who was consul in 234 and 228 BC. The evidence is confused.[56]

During the classical period of Roman law (late Republic and Principate), a man or woman[57] could end a marriage simply because he or she wanted to, and for no other reason. Unless the wife could prove the husband was worthless, he kept the children. Because property had been kept separate during the marriage, divorce from a "free" marriage was a very easy procedure.[58]

An emancipated woman legally became sui iuris, or her own person, and could own property and dispose of it as she saw fit. If a pater familias died intestate, the law required the equal division of his estate amongst his children, regardless of their age and sex. A will that did otherwise, or emancipated any family member without due process of law, could be challenged.[40] From the late Republic onward, a woman who inherited a share equal with her brothers would have been independent of agnatic control.[41]

As in the case of minors, an emancipated woman had a legal guardian (tutor) appointed to her. She retained her powers of administration, however, and the guardian's main if not sole purpose was to give formal consent to actions.[42] The guardian had no say in her private life, and a woman sui iuris could marry as she pleased.[43] A woman also had certain avenues of recourse if she wished to replace an obstructive tutor.[44] Under Augustus, a woman who had gained the ius liberorum, the legal right to certain privileges after bearing three children, was also released from guardianship.[45] The role of guardianship as a legal institution gradually diminished, and by the 2nd century AD the jurist Gaius said he saw no reason for it.[46] The Christianization of the Empire, beginning with the conversion of the Emperor Constantine in the early 4th century, eventually had consequences for the legal status of women.

[Matronalia]

The two paragraphs at the bottom should be at the top but my fingers slipped.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Ancient_Rome is the link.

[LaurieFairyCake]

That almost ties in with early Christian sects, the bit about freedom to own property, dissolvable because either party chose it - apart from the women kept the children.

Not bad for wiki

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

It's tricky though, isn't it, because freedom to instigate divorce or to opt out of marriage can co-exist with some of the most hideously misogynistic views of women and marriage.

I don't think that men and women agreeing to live together is the problem; the problem is misogyny and institutions leads to institutionalized misogyny.

[Matronalia]

Not bad for wiki

Yes, I'm wondering why I spent so much time in the library now tbh
I did mainly mainstream Rome and the Jewish diaspora, may have to dig out the books again and look at the sects as they sound very interesting.

LRD, yes, I think once money and emotion come into it, it all becomes much more complicated and oppressive.