A Piece of a Woman's Mind

I would like to discuss the story told again and again in television and movie romantic dramas such as Bridgerton, Sanditon, Belgravia, Pride and Prejudice, and Downton Abbey. These dramas all take place in England in the 1800’s except for Downton Abbey which takes place in the first quarter of the 1900’s. In every case the theme concerns young, middle and upper class English women searching for a husband.

In viewing these dramas it is important to understand the historical context. During that time women were totally dependent upon men for all aspects of their existence and most importantly for their livelihood. Women did not have careers as we know them, and if they did something approaching gainful employment as in the case of the author of Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen, it was kept a secret. Austen published all her novels anonymously. Her lifetime earnings from her books were paltry.

As we all know, a woman’s greatest superpower (among many) is that she can become pregnant and produce children. From the time of the earliest human beings, women were responsible for perpetuating the human race by giving birth and raising children to adulthood. Along the way humans figured out that women were somewhat disabled and consumed by pregnancy and child rearing. Their social roles as mate, child caregiver and domestic habitation manger were determined by their special biological assignment. Men assumed the roles of mate, hunter/gatherer and protector (by use of weapons and violence) for the women and children. Their hunter/gatherer role meant that they became the givers of the food and shelter that they had procured. Their protector role fueled by testosterone meant that they could overpower and dominate women and children whenever they felt like it. Their roles were valued more highly than women’s roles because it gave them control over life and death for women and children who were largely defenseless. Never forget that this was due to biological assignment and not due to any inherent superiority on the part of men.

As time went forward from the establishment of the first human societies, the biological roles became accepted/enjoyed by men and tolerated/endured by women. One of the ways men cemented their power early on was the creation of the Marriage Game which became one of society’s most important institutions. The object of the Marriage Game was for men to gain and consolidate wealth, status, powerful allies and the means to produce children and perpetuate their genetic line. The role of a groom was to become a designated heir of his father’s family who would carry on the game through his offspring. The only role of a bride in the game was to produce heirs. In other words, women were nothing more than broodmares in the equation. They were treated as property. The wealth, status and allies came from the fathers and the other males in the family of the bride and groom, and those males treated the prospective bride mostly as an important piece of property to be included in the marriage bargain. In many cases the bride’s father actually looked upon her as a burden. She was an unfortunate accident of birth, an animal that had eaten his food and taken up space in his dwelling and had not necessarily even labored to increase his wealth. A man with lots of daughters was considered by other males to be unfortunate indeed. The bride’s father had to be careful not to appear too eager to get rid of her, or he might not get the price for her he wanted, the return on his investment in her. No matter how wealthy and important a man was or how much he loved his daughter(s), when he finally married them off, he heaved a sigh of relief. He had successfully passed the burden of caring for his daughter to another man.

By the 1800’s and early 1900’s in England, it was clear that the male and female role assignments could start to be amended if both sexes agreed to it. Men, however, had no reason to want a change in role assignments because they were in power and wanted to continue and consolidate their roles at all costs. You must keep this background in mind if you want to understand what is really happening and what is at stake in the romantic dramas I listed at the beginning of this post.

The dramas present the courting process as a glamorous whirlwind of balls and other social engagements during the designated coming-out season for all the females presenting themselves as eligible to be wed. These young girls/women (debutantes) are clad in the finest clothing to make them alluring to all the potential male suitors who, unlike the females, range in age from very young to very old. Keeping in mind the purpose of the marriage game, the debutantes should more fittingly have been outfitted in lacy underwear and wrapped in horse blankets. After all, the males were really searching for a fine mare who would produce lots of colts (preferred) and fillies (second best but acceptable in moderation).

The debutantes in general are unaware of their entire situation. They have been groomed by their parents to want to get married, and most understand that their father will have the final say on who they marry. They have also been groomed to be obedient to their fathers even if they don’t always agree with them. For a debutante who doesn’t understand that the process is a game, she can’t possibly know that the outcome of the game has mostly to do with what her father has to offer, and she is powerless to change his status. It goes without saying that a good name and reputation are must-haves. Hopefully there are some attractive family ties and relatives. However, the most important things are money and property, and sometimes those are in short supply.

In the case of Pride and Prejudice the father, Mr. Bennet, has to marry off five daughters. Bennet has not managed his inherited estate and money well and is no longer rich. He and his family are considered to be middle class.  More importantly, the property he is living on (Longbourn which includes a large house and a farm) will be automatically inherited by his cousin Mr. Collins since women could not inherit property. This means that unless one of the five daughters marries Mr. Collins, there is no incentive for Mr. Collins to take care of any of the Bennet girls after their father dies. Upon Mr. Bennet’s death, the house and estate where Bennet’s wife and five daughters live will disappear from under their feet. Since Elizabeth decides not to marry Mr. Collins, it is of paramount importance that all the daughters get married before Mr. Bennet dies. This situation could certainly be interpreted as desperate for the daughters and their mother who must be cared for in old age and widowhood.

In Downton Abbey, which takes place almost exactly a century later in 1912, we still have the same situation. Lord Grantham has three daughters and no sons. When he dies, his big estate will pass to a distant male cousin named Matthew Crawley. Everybody wants the oldest daughter Lady Mary to marry Matthew Crawley and produce a male heir so that the Downtown Abbey estate property and wealth will remain in the family. After much consternation, Mary decides to marry Matthew partly out of love and partly out of duty. Please note that these two stories (Downton and Pride) taking place a century apart show zero progress for women as far as their right to own property as well as a continuation of their status as broodmares in any marriage contract.

I want to return to the awareness or lack thereof on the part of the debutantes. Something most of them really had no idea about was sex. They did know that they had to be scrupulous about having a chaperone whenever they were with a suitor. If their reputation was compromised by one of the suitors merely by being alone with him for an extended period of time, they would be forced into a marriage with that suitor (the shotgun wedding of the upper classes) or become unmarriageable. Some undesirable suitors forced their way into a rich girl’s family by seducing her into a compromising situation. Then the broodmare was forced to marry the horse thief who stole her from the stable. The lack of knowledge about sex extended to the wedding night for almost all newly-wed brides. Their mothers or other female family members never explained about intercourse, and the groom, while almost certainly experienced in having sex, was not obliged to make the de-flowering of his new wife a pleasant experience. Therefore, the bride might easily have been terrified and/or essentially raped on her wedding night with the attendant emotional and physical pain.

Now that I have described all the pressures on the debutantes and the marriage game negotiations going on behind their backs, reflect for a moment on how these dramas depict the event for the young women. It is always presented as a huge win for the young woman who gets the man she and/or her family wants. She and her new husband are assumed to live happily ever after. The basic narrative is that the conniving young women chase the rich, powerful men in order to trap them into marriage so that the women can lead a life of idle luxury and blissful motherhood while the poor men have to support them by the sweat of their brows for the rest of their lives. It’s a romantic tale where the women triumph over the men. That’s why women love to watch these dramas.

Let’s take a look from a historical perspective at the real winners and losers among the Marriage Game participants in order to uncover the distortion in these romances.

–Groom and his family: Total winners. They get the bride’s dowry (money, property brought from her family), and important family status, ties and allegiances that are transferred from her family. The groom gets sex on demand without fear of venereal disease and if he’s lucky a male heir to carry on his line.

–Family of the bride: Winners unless the daughter is forced into a marriage with a scoundrel. Hopefully they get important family status, ties and allegiances from the groom’s family. Most importantly, they get rid of the financial burden of their daughter even if they also happen to truly love her.

–Bride: Big loser. It must be granted that getting a husband “saves” a respectable woman from a good family because she has little choice of what to do with her life. Viewed from that historical perspective, marriage was a sort of win. If a woman became a spinster like Jane Austen, she was reliant on her relatives for the rest of her life. She could of course become a nun and let the church take care of her. She could become a teacher or governess, but that was frowned upon as a suitable occupation for a lady from a family of means. She could become an artist or an author. However, it would be very difficult to get the required training, and even harder to display and sell her works before the public (see my earlier comment on Jane Austen’s career). Now to the even worse negatives of the bride’s situation.

Since there is no reliable birth control except voluntary abstinence (not likely from her husband), she will be constantly pregnant until she reaches menopause. If she’s lucky, she won’t die in childbirth. If she does, no worry. The groom can get a replacement broodmare and nursemaid. She may catch a venereal disease from her husband who is free to take other sex partners than herself. She has no wealth or property of her own and is totally dependent upon her husband for anything she wants or needs. Hopefully he is a good manager of his estate, will fare well in the marketplace and will generously fund his wife and children to live decently. If he is a self-indulgent fool, a gambler or a drunkard, he will spend through all his wealth, and she and her children will end up in poverty. If he is a cruel man, he can mistreat her and her children and will not likely be made to answer for his behavior in a court of law. She will spend her days looking after her ever increasing family and keeping house unless her husband is rich enough to hire a nursemaid, nanny and lots of servants. If her husband dies before she can produce a male heir and raise him to adulthood, she and her children will be thrown on the mercy of relatives. In the worst case she may be forced into a second undesirable marriage or into prostitution. (By the way, please take note that in 2021 many of the above outcomes for brides without a job or career are identical.)

The romantic dramas/comedies on television do not often take us into the fate of the debutantes who land a husband. Why is this? I believe that it is because the producers of these shows have a motive in addition to entertainment and profit when they make them. The entertainment industry, just like all other industries, is dominated by men. Every single show that is produced has to be greenlighted by a male manager at some level. I believe that they consciously use their power to decide what is aired and what is not aired to reinforce their view of the world and to mold the opinions and behavior of the viewers. It is very important for males to maintain their dominance in society, politics and business. In order to do that they must suppress women and minorities. They want to assign roles to women and minorities that define them in a certain way. If men can get the majority of the public (both male and female) to agree that women are defined by certain restrictive, constrictive characteristics, then that public will never promote or accept women to fill other roles that are reserved for men. All the roles that pertain to power and wealth in any arena must be played by men, and women must never be allowed access to these roles on their own merit.

One way to instill these role assignments/definitions and consciousness is by constant repetition of stories that depict women playing the same part over and over with the same outcome. As I pointed out, romantic dramas like Bridgerton, Sanditon, Belgravia, Pride and Prejudice and Downtown Abbey are clearly period pieces. Viewed from an objective, innocent standpoint, these shows are merely an expression of past times which have no relation to how it is today. I don’t believe, however, that these shows are merely a historical reminiscence. I believe they are intended to keep the eyes and concentration of women on obsolescent female roles from the past which are more pleasing and acceptable to men. The message for women in these dramas is the following:

1. Marriage is desirable and profitable for women.
2. Marriage allows women to have safe sex and to have children and to be able to stay at home and raise them properly.
3. Marriage gives women status in society.
4. Marriage protects women from all the bad things that life can bring because her husband protects her.

If women can be made to concentrate their attention and emotions on the past, they won’t spend so much time asking why men have kept us in the same roles two hundred years later in 2021 in spite of all the changes in the world that enable female parity. For example, if women accept the Marriage Game as depicted in these romantic dramas as a metaphor for 2021, this means that they are entering into dating and marriage viewing themselves as a defenseless underdog (a canine bitch) instead of as an equal party with a legal standing equal to a man. As ridiculous as this may sound, the behavior of some women and what behavior they are willing to accept from a man in 2021 cause me to believe that they are mentally and emotionally living in the past and don’t understand their current abilities, possibilities, rights and equality under the law.

Certainly even if they do understand, women are still at a disadvantage in 2021 because of non-parity in pay, underrepresentation in the legislatures and courts, lack of control over their bodies, and misogynistic behavior from men. My hope is that by becoming aware of the targeted, distorted role messages constantly being sent by the male-controlled establishment, women will ignore and overcome those messages and re-value themselves. This revaluation is what will aid them to defend themselves and improve their status in the world.

Finally, for the few men who bother to watch these shows there is another important message.

1. Women are cunning creatures who conspire with each other to entrap a man into marriage.
2. Women are responsible for all the stuffy societal mores that prevent men from being free to do whatever they want whenever they want especially in the area of sexual satisfaction.
3. Women and children are heavy balls and chains tied around the neck of a man that ultimately keep him from being all that he could be. If a man fails, it is partly because of a woman.

This narrative just adds to the already rampant misogyny in the world and is the male complement to the female grooming narrative. It states that it is not positive for men to enable women to improve and advance themselves because it means trouble for males and upsets the equilibrium of the male-dominated universe. These clever narratives make it appear as if women are preying on men rather than the other way around.

THE MORAL TO THIS BLOG: Beware of what you spend your time watching on television and other streaming devices. Watch analytically and always ask yourself if there is a grooming message for you as a woman intended to keep you in a place unequal to that of men.