Sleeper-Smith’s understandings on marriage between native women and fur trader’s complements with the study of the evolution of family law. It supports the idea of marriage as a means to create a family and the family is an economic unit (Briggs, 2016a). Fur trade was the major economic activity at the time (Briggs, 2016b). The native women, the author presented entered into marriages primarily for economic reasons and were seen as attractive to traders for economic reasons. To solidifying trade ties, partnerships, and later to enter the trade as independent traders through kinship network that comes out of marriage. The coinciding with how women with their own economic worth are able to subvert the patriarchy embedded into early society. Where husbands held all the power and authority in the family (Briggs, 2016a). Sleeper-Smith presented how native women were valuable, not just as property, or a means to legitimate procreation. Native wives as being an asset as a partner to their fur trader husbands because they controlled productive resources and increased access to trade goods (Sleeper-Smith 2000, p.429). Giving native women power in a relationship that they would traditionally have none or very little. …show more content…
Where there is a strengthening of the idea of love and companionship (Briggs, 2016b). That marriage should be based on friendship and a more intimate type of love. The capable women who were able to succeed in a “precarious male venture,” (Sleeper-Smith, 2000, p.440) that Sleeper-Smith presents contradicts the ideal women of the 19th century as being nurturing, gentle and in need of protection and support (Briggs, 2016b). Which reinforced the patriarchal model of marriage that native women worked hard to
All over the world, marriage is one of the main things that define a woman’s life. In fact, for women, marriage goes a long way to determine much in their lives including happiness, overall quality of life whether or not they are able to set and achieve their life goals. Some women go into marriages that allow them to follow the paths they have chosen and achieve their goals while for other women, marriage could mean the end of their life goals. For Janie, the lead character in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, who was married twice first to Joe sparks, and to Vergile Tea Cake, her two marriages to these men greatly affected her happiness, quality of life and pursuit of her life goals in various ways, based on the personality of each of the men. Although both men were very different from each other, they were also similar in some ways.
The contrast between the two groups of women was tremendous. Haudenosaunee women held prominent, decision-making positions in their matriarchal political system. They had the power to choose their clan’s chief, and their authority as clan mothers was respected by Haudenosaunee law. Spiritually, these women were viewed as being connected to Mother Earth and were responsible for leading various religious ceremonies, alongside of men. Haudenosaunee women also shared agricultural work with men, dealing with the work load on a communal basis. Not only did they have control of their own property, but women also had authority over their own bodies, including the responsibility of childbearing. This authority was developed in the Haudenosaunee matriarchal system of family in which children were considered members of the mother’s clan and husbands were brought into the wife’s longhouse upon marriage. Women had final domestic control; violence against women and children was not tolerated because wives had the power to kick their husbands out, ordering them to “pick up [their] blanket and budge” (Wagner, p. 47).
Human beings are not isolated individuals. We do not wander through a landscape of trees and dunes alone, reveling in our own thoughts. Rather, we need relationships with other human beings to give us a sense of support and guidance. We are social beings, who need talk and company almost as much as we need food and sleep. We need others so much, that we have developed a custom that will insure company: marriage. Marriage assures each of us of company and association, even if it is not always positive and helpful. Unfortunately, the great majority of marriages are not paragons of support. Instead, they hold danger and barbs for both members. Only the best marriages improve both partners. So when we look at all three of Janie’s marriages, only her marriage to Teacake shows the support, guidance, and love.
Mahin, Michael J. The Awakening and The Yellow Wallpaper: "An Intertextual Comparison of the "Conventional" Connotations of Marriage and Propriety." Domestic Goddesses (1999). Web. 29 June 2015.
Throughout history, women conformed to societal expectations of marrying for financial security rather than pursuing a strong emotional relationship. In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, the protagonist Janie struggles to find her autonomy through the ubiquitous scrutiny from others. While transitioning from adolescence to adulthood, Janie’s internal conflicts in self exploration heighten, forcing her to comply to other’s opinions. Once wedded to Tea Cake does Janie finally comprehend her cause of happiness: love. Through Janie’s maturation, Hurston conveys Janie’s deviation away from monetary stability as a source of happiness, but instead finds fulfillment in ardor, which reveals no amount of material wealth ensures a jubilant life.
As stated before, Aboriginal women played an essential role not only as bed partners, but in the fur trade industry as well. Without the help of their intelligent skills and diligent hard work ,the fur trade would not be such a success. The fur traders of this time married Aboriginal women. These women put in tons, and tons of work at the posts. They often went with their husbands on fur-trading trips and acted as guides. They were far from lazy individuals. They worked with their husbands and men in general to maneuver the canoes and they also helped to carry the heavy loads a...
A History of Marriage by Stephanie Coontz speaks of the recent idealization of marriage based solely on love. Coontz doesn’t defame love, but touches on the many profound aspects that have created and bonded marriages through time. While love is still a large aspect Coontz wants us to see that a marriage needs more solid and less fickle aspects than just love.
According to Smith, sexual violence “is not simply a tool of patriarchy, but also a tool of colonialism and racism” (Smith 2005, 8). As a result, women are being forced to suffer abuse, which damages their identity. Because of colonialism, Native women often find themselves forced into silence around sexual and domestic violence in their communities. By staying silent about sexual and domestic violence, Native communities are “able to maintain a united front against racism” (Smith 2005, 1). Accordingly, Native women are constantly being marginalized in patriarchal discourses regarding racism, colonialism, and white supremacy discourses. Historically, it is mentioned that sexism is the inability of both patriarchy and white supremacy discourses,
Robson, Ruthann. "The Reader's Companion to U.S. Women's History: Marriage." Houghton Mifflin Study Center. 19 Nov. 2005. http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/women/html/wh_022200_marriage.htm.
Warren Farrell is a well educated man who focuses his attention on gender. In his essay “Men as Success Objects,” he writes about gender roles in male-female relationships. He begins, “for thousands of years, marriages were about economic security and survival” (Farrell 185). The key word in that statement is were. This implies the fact that marriage has changed in the last century. He relates the fact that post 1950s, marriage was more about what the male and female were getting out of the relationship rather than just the security of being married. Divorce rates grew and added to the tension of which gender held the supremacy and which role the individuals were supposed to accept. “Inequality in the workplace” covered up all of the conflicts involved with the “inequality in the homeplace”(Farrell). Farrell brings to attention all ...
Beginning in the early 1800’s men, their wives and children made the voyage across to America, yet women might as well have been viewed as not a wife but another piece of land, just in a new country considering women’s duties were the same in both the east and the west. In both locations men and women were believed to be apart of “different spheres.” Barbara Welter elaborates on these spheres through her essay “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860” (1966). Welters describes the male sphere was focused around the world of the work force, ...
Welter, Barbara. “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860.” The American Family in Social Historical Perspective. Ed. Michael Gordon. New York: St. Martin’s P, 1978. 373-392.
In her essay, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, Margaret Fuller discusses the state of marriage in America during the 1800‘s. She is a victim of her own knowledge, and is literally considered ugly because of her wisdom. She feels that if certain stereotypes can be broken down, women can have the respect of men intellectually, physically, and emotionally. She explains why some of the inequalities exist in marriages around her. Fuller feels that once women are accepted as equals, men and women will be able achieve a true love not yet known to the people of the world.
In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen shows examples of how most marriages were not always for love but more as a formal agreement arranged by the two families. Marriage was seen a holy matrimony for two people but living happil...