I finally finished reading Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert. I began a discussion about it a few months back in the post titled Should We Come with a WARNING Label? While the title may be explanatory it might make sense to revisit it.
I liked the research done about the topic of marriage. The different points of view of what marriage is and what makes it survive varied from country to country, but the one constant was the work that went into it. I believe that marriage should never be taken lightly and neither did Elizabeth.
There were many points in the book that I jotted down, but what I’d like to discuss with you today is what you think about marriage. Do you feel that marriage is giving up a piece of you?
‘…Robert Frost wrote that “a man must partly give up being a man” in order to enter into marriage – and I cannot fairly deny this point when it comes to my family. I have written many pages already describing marriage as a repressive tool used against women, but it’s important to remember that marriage is often used as a repressive tool against men, too. Marriage is a harness of civilization, linking a man to a set of obligations and thereby containing his restless energies…’ Pg 197
In all honesty, this idea of marriage being a repressive tool saddens me. I am not married yet. But I do not want to feel repressed and I do not want my husband to be to feel repressed either. I love his restless energies. I would hope that we could have a 50/50 relationship, where the responsibility of a marriage is not carried more by one person than the other. I know that we have our strong suits and I feel confident that we work as a team on virtually everything except for picking a restaurant. I do feel that the times have changed significantly, enough to say that the husband and wife no longer have assigned roles. What say you?
What are your thoughts on marriage? Do you disagree with marriage being a repressive tools for both sexes? Are aspects of this statement true? Let me know your thoughts below!
Until then,
