My Insights on Education, Literature, Politics, Philosophy, Religion, and Life
SHE wonders:
HE reacts:
2000
Total Households 105,480,101 (100.00%)
According to this statistics (Census Scope http://www.%20censusscope.org/), we as a society are headed towards a predominantly elderly populace, since less and less women are willing to produce babies. In fact, such is the trend for other countries with 1st world status.
Do you have any concerns with this trend?
Question: Who are to be blamed for the modern women’s “anti-domestication” stance, as they overwhelmingly restrain their reproductive organs? Is it A, B, or C?
A) Men, who for centuries have underappreciated or exploited domestic wives’ human dignity in general, compelling women to seek psychological/intellectual validation outside her traditional enclave (home and her children).
B) Women, who innately having “Eve’s syndrome” to thwart “Adam’s God-ordained authority” over her, have ingeniously made some strategic political strides over the years, such as: the 20s suffrage act (1st wave feminism), the 60s civil rights’ movement (2nd wave feminism), and the 90s women-of-color consciousness and post-colonial transnationalism (3rd wave feminism).
C) Other: Your insights as to why.
All of sudden, men (factory owners & politicians) preferred women of the following sizes:
Women today are encouraged by the society to have it all—generally, all simultaneously: money, travel, marriage, motherhood, career, and etc. However, doing things sequentially—pursuing/fulfilling a career, education, or various roles one at a time—is the wisest way to do each thing well in its due time and seasons (p 18-19). If a woman work on her various tasks or dreams sequentially, then one day she will have it all.
So, all of you out there, don’t pressure your woman to sing all the verses of her milliard different songs at the same time because she will CRASH!!
Source: Faust, J. E. (1986). A message to my granddaughters: becoming great women. Ensign, Sep, 18-19. http://lds.org/
Rivalry relation between
Jane in Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre” and Bertha in Jean Rhys’s “Wide Sargasso Sea”
Adrienne Rich in “Jan Eyre: The Temptations of a Motherless Woman” articulates that “Jane Eyre, motherless and economically powerless” has successfully resisted “certain traditional female temptations” with dignity (470). Rich quotes from Phyllis Chesler’s essay called the “Women and Madness” to explicate what she means by “motherless woman”: Rich explains that women for generations “have had neither power nor wealth to hand on to their daughters [because] they have been dependent on men as children are on women” (470). Therefore, Rich says that for a woman to secure herself financially, she is left with one option: women must learn to “pleas[e] and attach themselves to, powerful or economically viable men” (470). In Rich’s opinion, what makes Jane Eyre so different and admirable is the fact that she does not “please and attach” herself to a powerful or economically viable men in order to fare well. Though she is an orphan, who is in need of financial support, Jane never compromises morality, self-respect, and dignity.
Adrienne Rich further lists four major temptations in Jane’s life which she courageously overcomes: (1) the temptation of victimization; (2) the thrill of masochism; (3) the temptation of romantic love and surrender; and (4) the deepest lure for a spiritual woman. First, Jane’s “temptation of victimization” occurs when she lives with the Reeds (her Aunt), “a hostile household, where both psychic and physical violence are used against her” (471). Though the insults and abuses she suffer from them are enough to diminish “her very spiritedness and individuality,” she manages to come out of this situation with her self-respect intact. Secondly, “the temptation of masochism” springs from Jane’s deep affection and respect for Helen who is religious, forgiving, and ultimately masochistic. However, Jane soon realizes that “the thrill of masochism is not for her, though it is one of her temptations” (474). Thirdly, “the temptation of romantic love and surrender” comes to Jane at Thornfield, as she falls in love with Rochester and decides to marry him. On the wedding day, however, it is reveled that Rochester has a living wife—a mad woman, Bertha. Not only is it against Jane’s high moral to become Rochester’s mistress, but more implicitly, she flees from the risk of “becoming this [mad] woman” herself by marrying him (476). Lastly, Jane’s final temptation which comes from St. John is the “most confusing temptation,” because it is “the deepest lure for a spiritual woman” (480). As St. John offers her marriage without love which is instead filled with a spiritual sense of “duty and service to a cause” in India as a missionary couple, Jane, upon serious contemplation, rejects this offer (480). Rich ultimately believes that it is Jane’s strong sense of morality, self-respect, and dignity that saves her from the usual trap and temptations of a motherless woman.
Although I agree with Adrienne Rich on most of her points about Jane Eyre, I take issue with her concluding comment of her essay, in which she states that “In Jane Eyre,…we find an alternative to the stereotypical rivalry of women” (482). Rich believes that the women in the novel are supportive to one another, and they are “not…points on a triangle…as temporary substitutes for men” (482). Though it is true that Jane and many of the women in the novel is supportive to one another, what Rich is neglecting with this comment is that she is completely overlooking the fact that the relationship between Jane Eyre and Bertha Mason is a relationship of “rivalry,” and these two women are the “points on a triangle” with one man— Rochester. If Rich assumes that Jane’s relationship with Bertha is non-rivalry because that is how it is depicted by Bronte, then, she is complicit with Bronte for grossly misrepresenting and symbolically oppressing the women of color in Eurocentric literature written by feminist of the first world.
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak in “Imperialism and Sexual Difference” critiques that the feminists of the first world—such as Bronte and Rich—are complicit with the racist masculist of universalism, and asks that the female writers and critics to stop perpetuating the “racism within feminism” (347). Spivak states that a novel like Jane Eyre commits “translation-as-violation,” because Bronte writes about woman of the third world (Bertha Mason) when she is “total[ly] ignoran[t] of history and subject constitution” of that world and its women (344). Spivak says that such ignorance on the part of the first world feminist like Bronte is not only insensitive and arrogant—in that they assume their feminist paradigm is universal—but is also misleading because the distorted representation of the women of color, often as lunatics (like Bertha), becomes a generalized stereotype on the minds of their readers.
Spivaks fear of “translation-as-violation” committed by the first world feminists must have been comforted by Jean Rhys, who sympathetically reconstructs Bertha Mason in her novel, Wide Sargasso Sea, as a character who is victimized by Rochester. While Adrienne Rich convincingly depicts the motherless Jane Eyre as an exceptional heroine who has resisted moral temptations in the world of patriarchy, Jean Rhys in her novel sympathetically reveals how Bertha not only became motherless, but why she became, fatherless, husbandless, childless, friendless, and penniless under the patriarch Rochester—the man Jane wins as a reward for her high morals. Thus, though Adrienne Rich exalts Jane’s high morality and dignity, Jean Rhys novel, Wide Sargasso Sea, which is written from Bertha’s point of view, helps us see that these two women are the “points on a triangle” with one man, Rochester, and thus are rivals to one another.
Works Cited
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Imperialism and Sexual Differnce.” Falling into Theory. Richter,
David H. 2 ed. Boston:Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2000.
Rich, Adrienne. “Jane Eyre: The Temptations of a Motherless Woman.” Jane Eyre. Charlotte
Bronte. New York: Norton & Co., 2001.
Rhys, Jean. Wide Sargasso Sea. New York: Norton & Co., 1999.
The Consequences of Forfeiting One’s Comfort for Morality in Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders, Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews, and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice
In Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders, Moll writes in her Memorandums than she was “Twelve Year a Whore, five times a Wife (whereof once to her own brother), Twelve Year a Thief, eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv’d Honest and died a Penitent” (2). However, many of these circumstances could have been avoided if Moll had chosen comfort over morality. The word “comfort,” in her case equates to “security,” which she desperately needs and seeks, but only with “moral” conscience.
Moll’s first emotional battle over “morality” versus “security” is well captured in the event of her first marriage to Robert. For instance, when the elder brother encourages her to accept Robert’s offer—though she being an orphan knows marrying Robert will not only give her the security she needs from the harsh world, but is also the only option she has to guard herself against being homeless—she does not immediately take this offer. Rather, she is disgusted with the idea of marrying the younger, when her virginity is taken by someone else—the elder. She feels that she is morally bonded to the elder brother, though they are not legally married. She feels that she would be a prostitute in her heart if she marries the younger brother when she is in fact in love with the elder. She therefore demands moral clarification from the elder about their relationship, as well as making her own enunciation about woman’s chastity: “Will you Transfer me to your Brother? Can you Transfer my Affection?…whatever the Change of your side may be, I will ever be True; and I had much rather, since it is come that unhappy Length, be your Whore than your Brother’s Wife” (34). However, manipulated by the elder and pushed to no other alternative by the younger, Moll marries the younger brother, Robert, and attains the most needed security a young orphan girl needs—a family of her own. Nonetheless, her initial resistance to Robert’s offer deserves much credit to her high morals holding up against the temptations of security.
Unfortunately, for Moll, the security gained through her first marriage does not last long, nor does she try to hold on to it as a widow. The security of a married woman ends as her husband, Robert, dies after five years of marriage, because she gives up the basic financial necessity and emotional security that she could have pursued and have as a widow of a prominent family. Instead, she quickly decides to leave the site of her first love because she feels she is loosing the moral battle against the imaginary incest. Moll, in her own word, explains the situation: “his Brother being so always in my sight…was a continual Snare to me; and I never was in Bed with my Husband, but I wish’d my self in the Arms of his Brother…In short, I committed Adultery and Incest with him every Day in my Desires, which without doubt, was…Criminal in the Nature of the Guilt” (49). Thus, bothered by her conscience throughout the marriage with Robert and after his death, she straight away sends her two children to live with Robert’s parents, so she can claim back her clear conscience, even if that entails forsaking security and facing danger of being all alone again.
Similarly, her third marriage to a plantation owner who is later revealed to be none other than her half brother becomes another situation that compels her to choose morality over security. Moll marries her half brother inadvertently, both she and her husband with mercenary motives, mutually mistaking that the other party had great fortune. In light of finding out that each other has been misled into the marriage, they decide and move to Virginia where the husband has his family and plantations. For a while, the whole family get along well in America, and Moll enjoys the financial and emotional security and “th[inks] herself the happiest creature alive,” until one day she realizes that her husband’s mother is also her mother and that their marriage has been incestuous (70). Whereas with Robert, if incest was imaginary, this situation with her half brother is real enough to make all parties viscerally sick. Since she “loath[s] the Thoughts of Bedding with [her half brother],” Moll once again gives up her security for the sake of morality, and returns to England to face uncertainties and poverty (73).
Moll forgoes her security over morality again in the case of her unwanted pregnancy by Jemy. After she parts with Jemy, she realizes that she is pregnant by him. Much to her dismay, her pregnancy means that she cannot in her right conscience marry the banker who offers her the security she so desperately needs. However, abortive thoughts in regards to the life of a child—though her governess offers her help to miscarry the child—never cross her mind. Moll articulates this event to the reader: “if I was willing” she says, “[my governess] could [have] give[en] me something to make me Miscarry, if I had a desire to put an end to my troubles that way; but I soon let her see that I abhorr’d the thoughts of it” (133). In a word, rather than pursuing the security that would come by marrying the banker, she chooses the life of a child. Considering the fact that she had received offer to help her miscarry the unwanted child, Moll’s insistence in choosing the child’s life is, then, a courageous moral act on her part. Luckily, however, the banker remains devoted to Moll long enough, so the consequence of holding fast to her maternal conscience does not cost her the marriage/security itself, but the heartache of parting with the child with the “Country Woman” who shows “many a Tear,” in gratitude for receiving the child (140).
Similarly, in Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews, Parson Adams suffers the consequences of substituting his comfort for moral duties. Unlike Parson Trulliber, Parson Adams is an epitome of Christ-like charity. Although his charity exposes him to inconveniences and harm, he volunteers to help those in need, namely Joseph. For instance, when Joseph injures his leg he falls into the care of the innkeeper’s wife. However, her husband berates the hostess and Joseph “for wasting Hog’s Puddings” (145). Adams being an active Christian is unable to bear such inhospitable manner of the host, so he “deal[s with] him so sound a Compliment over his Face with his Fist, that the Blood immediately gushe[s] out of his Nose in a Stream” (144). The host strikes back at Adams “with so much Gratitude, that the Parson’s Nostrils likewise began to look a little redder than usual. Furthermore, the hostess, too, ungratefully returns Adams’s heroic intervention by throwing “a Pan full of Hog’s-Blood…into the Parson’s Face” (144). Thus, because Adams chooses to referee when situations seem unjust for Joseph, he himself must suffer the injurious and humiliating consequences of being a moral parson.
Parson Adams’s another example of choosing moral duties over personal comfort occurs when he rescues Fanny from being raped. While he is almost being lectured by a gentleman who claims to be brave, he hears Fanny’s shrieks. Ironically, however, it is not the self-claimed courageous gentleman but Adams who respond to the scream and saves Fanny: “Adams, who was no Chicken…exert[s] his utmost Force at once, and with such Success, he overturn[s]” the rapist (161). Then he “call[s] aloud to the young Woman, [and says]…‘Be of good cheer, Damsel,’…’you are no longer in danger of your Ravisher” (161). Though he did not know that it was Fanny who was in trouble, his unfeigned concern for all human beings, not just the selective few, makes him react and rescue victims without any moral hesitations.
Although, Parson Adams’s fearless and selfless kindness is inauspicious to him, his goodness is constant. His unvarying kindness is evidenced by his willingness to help Fanny and Joseph while traveling together with him. Though he himself is poor and has been robbed of what little he had, he is willing to share all that he has with them, whether it be money, food, or clothing. Because he is genuinely charitable, he believes others would likewise help him in need, and he does manage to procure help when in need. Unlike Parson Trulliber, then, Parson Adams not merely preaches charity, but lives it, and expects the same from others. Thus, Parson Adams’s continuous moral examples radiate to all those around him, though they cost him countless troubles.
Finally, we see Parson Adams’s unflinching moral character when he stands up to Lady Booby on behalf of Fanny and Joseph. Being a woman of influence, Lady Booby orders Parson Adams not to publish the “Banns” for Fanny and Joseph, but he is undaunted by her command. Instead, he dares to counter-argue Lady Booby. He argues that he “would obey [her] in every thing that is lawful; but surely [he says,] the Parties being poor is no Reason against their marrying” (280). Furious by Adams’s protestation, Lady Booby threatens to “discard [him] from his Service,” but he is undeterred. In essence, Adams’s unwavering morality stands as a bulwark for socially inconsequential young people like Joseph and Fanny against social injustice from people like Lady Booby, and thus deserves utmost “respect” for being a true man of God.
In Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, one’s “comfort” signifies one’s social “establishment” and one’s “morality” equates to “love” that is unfeigned. The novel’s predominant issue is marriage, especially from women’s point of view. Its female characters’ only means to gain social “establishment” is through marriage with the right man, with or without true “love.” The novel’s protagonist, Elizabeth suffers consequences of not compromising “love” for “establishment.” Although the social norms at the time expects young woman to settle more for a reasonable comfort—than true love—in a marriage, Elizabeth does not want to forsake true affection in relationships.
An example of Elizabeth’s unwillingness to sacrifice true affection for comfort is seen in the case of Mr. Collin’s proposal to her. Because Mr. Collins would inherit her family estate, he would be an ideal match for both her parents and herself to secure their present financial status. Mr. Collins makes the offer to marry Elizabeth, and she is pressured by her mother, Mrs. Bennet, to accept his offer. By implication, Mrs. Bennet’s attitude also mirrors social expectation of women in her era, which weighs the groom’s social establishment heavier than true affections exchanged between the couple. However, Elizabeth defies social norms and ignores her mother’s demands, albeit there is that risk of Mr. Collins being her first and last chance of being married. Concerning what is at stake, when Mr. Collins finds her refusal unbelievable, she steadfastly makes certain that he understands that she is not the average girl of her time: She tells him that she is “not one of those young ladies…[and that she is] perfectly serious in [her] refusal” (93). She further shamelessly articulates her point clearly by foretelling Mr. Collins that “[he] could not make [her] happy” (93). As this scene suggests, Elizabeth is adamant about not settling for mere comfort in a marriage. Instead, what she expects and searches for in a relationship is unfeigned love, not financial establishment.
Elizabeth’s affection for socially dubious Wickham while rejecting well suited Mr. Collins is another examples that illustrates her innate tendency to value love above men’s social recognition. Although it is only their first meeting, Wickham tells her of his misfortunate status, especially due to—as he claims—Mr. Darcy. Elizabeth nonetheless falls for him all the more, out of empathy. Irrespective of Wickham’s social standing and his personal problems with the socially formidable Darcys, she finds him sympathetic and attractive. In fact, she defends him at every turn until her high regards for Wickham is proven wrong by Darcy’s revelation about his disreputable past. Nonetheless, Elizabeth’s initial respect and loyalty shown towards Wickham reveal her honorable side—the side that can never be diluted or tempted by man’s favorable social status.
Finally, Elizabeth’s courage to resist Darcy’s first proposal attests to her virtue—the fact that she is least concerned with Darcy’s immense social status than she is about true love and respect between the couple. Later when Darcy proposes to Elizabeth for the second time, he admits how surprised he was to have her reject him the first time, but thanks her for teaching him “a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous, [because it]…properly humbled” him (308). Because Elizabeth never compromises her virtue, she is given a second chance from Darcy. For it is Elizabeth’s resolute self-respective manner towards Lady Catherine that Darcy is encouraged to propose to her for the second time. Knowing Elizabeth’s “disposition,” Darcy knew that if Elizabeth has “irrevocably decided against [him], [she] would have acknowledged it to Lady Catherine, frankly and openly” (306). For Elizabeth, it is only when the truth is revealed about Darcy—his fairness and generosity in the matters of “Wickham and Miss Darcy” and “Wickham and Lydia,”—she is able to dismiss her prejudice against him. Because she is proven wrong about Darcy’s character, she is able to love him. For Elizabeth it is man’s character—not his establishment/status—that she attracts her. Thus for Elizabeth, not only that Darcy is “violently in love” with her, but that she, too, is with him is an unnegotiable factor in her romance. (305).
In the three novels—Moll Flanders, Joseph Andrews and Shamela, and Pride and Prejudice—the common factor among the three protagonists, Moll, Adams, and Elizabeth, is that they are not hypocrites, but are characters who hold firm to high morals at all costs (except Moll who sometimes is just as immoral as she is moral). All three characters risk comfort/establishment for morality/love and suffer the due consequences. For intance, Moll often risks her security to choose what is morally right in her mind. Similarly, Parson Adams jeopardizes his physical safety and finances to help those in distress, namely Joseph and Fanny. Finally, Elizabeth likewise never considers what comfort or social establishment she may be able to obtain by marrying a certain men, but rather painstakingly scrutinizes whether mutual love and respect can be traceable in her relationships. Thus, Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, and Jane Austen, by giving a happy ending to their respective protagonists in their novels impart a moral lesson: that whether it be “security” for Moll, “respect” for Adams, or “love” for Elizabeth, their ultimate reward were gained by withstanding the temptations of “comfort” that comes in various forms.
Sullivan’s versus Wilson’s Argument on Same-sex Marriage
The issue of same-sex marriage is an ongoing, heated debate in the discourse community. In support of same-sex marriage, Andrew Sullivan in his essay, “The Conservative Case,” challenges the traditionalists’ denunciation of homosexual marriage as something that undermines the natural function and sanctity of matrimony: He believes that regardless of one’s spouse’s gender, any intimately committed couples help stabilize human society on an emotional level and thus, on this ground, gay relationships should be deemed sacred and deserving of public respect and legal rights. Yet, a traditionalist James Q. Wilson in his essay, “Against Homosexual Marriage,” unequivocally articulates that same-sex marriage will indeed destabilize the very cornerstone of our social structure: the heterosexual families that are endowed with the power to procreate and thereby contribute to nation-building in a very literal, physical sense. It is obvious that the fundamental conflict between Sullivan and Wilson lies in their dichotomous interpretations of the function/purpose of human matrimony. While Sullivan believes that the primary function of matrimony is to fulfill a “natural law” (457), which he defines as “every man’s entitlement to a caring companionship regardless of one’s partner’s sexuality/gender,” Wilson’s interpretation of marriage is grounded in a more traditional mores. To Wilson, the foremost function of a marriage is to procreate and rear future citizens, and thus argues that the fact same-sex couples cannot on their own (biologically) produce children is an indicator that not only is same-sex marriage “unnatural,” but a “threat” to our predominantly heterosexual social order. However, Sullivan and Wilson’s subjective moral debate based on their conflated notion of “human companionship” versus “marital procreation” lead to no practical solutions as it is; what we need, instead, is a shift in focus to objectively and civilly address legal issues pertaining to gay couples, such as their “monetary” (e.g., property, tax, inheritance) or “instrumental” (e.g., issuance of proxy) rights.
Sullivan in his essay, “The Conservative Case,” articulates his support for same-sex marriage. He avows that homosexuality is not inherently bad. He further challenges the logic behind the fear of legalizing same-sex union—the publics’ concern that it would undermine the heterosexual families. He argues that since conservatives (unlike prohibitionists) acknowledge the involuntary, biological nature of homosexuality in some of our societal members, “they must also concede that these persons are already part of ‘heterosexual’ families” (446). In other words, homosexuals are intrinsically part of “us,” and thus they should not be set apart as “others” who pose as a threat to the heterosexual, social order. Sullivan not only believes that same sex marriage is harmless to heterosexual society but he, in fact, encourages it for the very same reasons we encourage heterosexual marriages: That is, if heterosexual marriage improves its participant’s psychological, physical, financial, and legal aspects, then, the same is/should be true for the homosexuals, ultimately contributing to the larger, national stability. Hence, Sullivan pronounces that in any given society, citizens should be allowed “to combine a celebration of the traditional famil[ies] with the celebration of . . . stable homosexual relationship[s]” (450).
Contrary to Sullivan’s supportive stance, Wilson, on the other hand, opposes same-sex marriage. Although he recognizes that not all marriages are perfect, he believes that they are, nonetheless, an institution that deserves our unqualified support, since procreation of our future citizens depend upon it. He states that in terms of raising healthy children (our future citizens), “after much experimentation—several thousand years more or less—we have found nothing else that works as well. Neither a gay nor a lesbian couple can of its own resources produce a child; another party must be involved” (459). He then begs this question: “What do we call this third party?…There is no settled language for even describing, much less approving of, such persons” (459). He deems “homosexual as a group [is] not ‘normal’ and “have tendency to be promiscuous” (460). Wilson thus insists that we must preclude the possibility of some children being born into and raised by such potentially harmful, “radically different” (460) homosexual parents. Wilson points out that if the notion that homosexual unions will destabilize heterosexual marriages cannot be proven on a literal level, neither is there any assurance that it will not on a psychosocial level of our future citizens.
Although Sullivan and Wilson have opposing views on the issue of same-sex marriage, they do seem to acknowledge the sacredness of marriage as an institution. In other words, as an institution, Sullivan and Wilson both praise marriage as something that foster responsibility and commitment. What they differ is in deciding who deserves to partake of this sacred, institutional benefits and what should be the ultimate function of such a sacred institution. For Sullivan, the ultimate function of a marriage is that it should endow the benefits of what he calls “natural law” (457)—that every man should have the care and support of other people. He disagrees that the sacredness or psychosocial benefits of marriage are saved exclusively for the heterosexuals and demands a re-evaluation and/or re-contextualization of the biblical rhetoric against homosexuals. For example, he argues that the passage in Leviticus, “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death” (456) is historically out of context. Though Sullivan concedes to the sanctity of matrimony, he objects to the traditionalists’ employment of the religious moral code to condemningly use it against the gay community.
Irrespective of the gay community’s objections to the biblical moral codes, Wilson maintains that in terms of marriage, one fact—the fact that only heterosexual couples can procreate—is irreversible, timeless, and hence “the most natural,” biological infrastructure of humanity. He reasons that although “Societies differ greatly in their attitude toward the income people may have, the relations among their various races, and the distribution of political power, they differ scarcely at all over the distinctions between heterosexual and homosexual couples” (458). That is, that people naturally and “overwhelmingly prefer [heterosexual marriage] over the [other]. The reason, [he] believes, is that for most people, “marriage is…an institution created to sustain child-rearing” (459). Although not all marriages produce and rear children, “its function,” Wilson says, “remains what has always been” (459). Thus, according to Wilson, since homosexual marriages cannot procreate future citizens, it is inherently unnatural and thus should not be encouraged, let alone be legitimized.
In regards to same-sex marriage, both Sullivan and Wilson, in my opinion, focus too exclusively on the issue of morality rather than civility and practicality. If we look at it from a civil point of view, it is not too difficult to see that law should be impartial, regardless of one’s sexual orientation. That is, same-sex couples should be entitled to the same legal rights as any other citizens, especially, in terms managing their private assets and health. For example, instead of only acknowledging direct family members as having the rights to inheritance, people of homosexual relationship should be able to become heir to the property of his/her other partner, if that is so desired by the giver (an example of one’s monetary right). Likewise, a terminally ill partner of an affectionate homosexual relationship should have the proxy rights, in terns of issuing guardianship of his/her own frail body to be taken care of by his/her same-sex partner (an example of one’s instrumental right). First, however, since the notion that “same-sex marriage is wrong” runs deep in our cultural psyche, I believe that a compromise of some sort is in need to ensure their rights to manage both monetary and instrumental issues. This compromise, in my opinion, is in the term “marriage.” The term, “marriage” should not be applied to homosexual unions, simply because this word, for thousands of years, has been exclusively designated for heterosexual matrimony. Instead of hopelessly trying to erase this age old mores, I suggest a different term for same-sex cohabitations, perhaps even calling it a “civil union” of the same-sex. By ascribing a separate terminology, heterosexual marriage will not be offended nor be threatened by the homosexual unions demanding the same type of legal benefits of residing together, sharing financial, health, and other responsibilities as committed couples. To rephrase it in legal context, regardless of whether our society approves of same-sex marriage, being mindful of the fact that homosexuals have the same civil rights as any other citizens can help us redirect our debates into something that initiates practical laws that protect (not exploit) their monetary and instrumental rights.
Although Sullivan and Wilson have opposite views on the issue of same-sex marriage, they similarly believe in the sacredness of marriage as an institution. The fundamental difference lies in their contradicting interpretation of the function and/or purpose of human matrimony. While Sullivan believes that the function of a marriage is to fulfill what he calls a “natural law”—a right to a loving companionship that is indiscriminate to one’s sexual orientation—Wilson believes that a marriage is an exclusive entitlement for heterosexual couples who contribute to nation-building in a physical sense, the procreation of our future citizens. However, such subjective moral disputes can only lead to inconclusive arbitrations at best, and thus call for a more practical approach in order to find implemental resolutions in terms of gay couples’ civil rights: While our society may not validate a same-sex cohabitation as a legally binding matrimony, we can confer them certain legal measures which afford them the prerogative to manage their monetary (property, tax, inheritance, and such) and/or instrumental matters (e.g., the issuance of proxy in lieu of one’s same-sex partner, especially in times of sickness). Perhaps by re-inscribing the term “marriage” which is imbued with heterosexual connotations into something less territorial and incendiary like “civil union,” per se, for homosexual relationships, we might be able to mitigate this polarized issue towards a tangible resolution. However, before we can discuss any such tangible measure, our discourses on the matter need to shift its focus from morality to civility.
Works Cited
Sullivan, Andrew. “The Conservative Case.” Contemporary Moral Issues in a Diverse Society. McDonald Julie M. Wadsworth: Belmont, 1998. 446-450.
Wilson, James Q. “Against Homosexual Marriage.” Contemporary Moral Issues in a Diverse Society. McDonald Julie M. Wadsworth: Belmont, 1998. 454-461.
The Cost of Communalism: Individual Autonomy and Growth
in Maxine Hong Kingston’s No Name Woman and Rigoberta’s I, Rigoberta Mench
Patricia Hill Collins, in Shifting the Center, articulates that “Without women’s motherwork, communities would not survive, and by definition, women of color themselves would not survive” (643). According to Collins, this communal project, however, “extracts a high cost for large numbers of women” (643). The cost, she says, is that “there is loss of individual autonomy and there is submersion of individual growth for the benefit of the group” (643, emphasis added). Similarly, in Asian and Native American culture, for the benefit of the community, women’s individual autonomy and individual growth are often submersed as well. Maxine Hong Kingston’s unnamed protagonist, in No Name Woman, and Rigoberta, in I, Rigoberta Mench, both sacrifice their individual autonomies and individual growths for the benefit of their communities. Their seemingly self-sacrificing ego-dissolutions, however, are not some conscious, individual choice they make; rather, they are unconscious choices owed to their cultural upbringings and the social systems they are born into. Although, their willingness to lose their egos is highly noble, they are simply abiding by the powerfully effective, unstipulated moral laws operating within their communities for generations.
For the women of color, more specifically, women of older Chinese generation and Native American women, communalism is not a choice, but a way of life they are born into and must hold on to. For Rigoberta and Kingston’s unnamed aunt, therefore, individual autonomy and growth are not alternatives they consciously deny. Both protagonists are oblivious to other ways of living. To them, communities are the only support system they know. They believe that a good life is attained only through strict adherence to their ancestral customs. As an option, if self-autonomy was offered to Rigoberta and the unnamed aunt, they, most likely, would have rejected it for a wise reason. For any woman, who has never known other culture nor crossed over communal boundaries, to defect her own community would be deemed suicidal and self-destructive. It can translate to death, if not literally, then psychologically. It is not surprising, therefore, that regardless of the severe hardships Rigoberta and the unnamed aunt encounter, they do not think to venture out of their communal boundaries; for them, communalism is not only the safest but the only way of life.
Due to social and cultural conditioning, the sense of communal identity for Rigoberta and the unnamed aunt eclipses their sense of self identity. In Rigoberta’s case, her communal identity starts to formulate while she is yet in her mother’s womb. When her parents make the birth announcement to the people in their community, she becomes their collective asset because her parents promise the people that her baby “belong to the community and [that the baby] would…serve it when [he/she] grew up” (49). In Rigoberta’s Indian culture, even the personhood is a communal asset – every person is owned and shared by one another. On her tenth birthday, her communal identity is further reinforced. According to her Indian traditions, she makes an oral, yet official promise to her community that she will “do many things for the [them]” (49). Her parents make sure that she repeats the vow in front of every single person in the community. Corollary to such cultural and social inculcations, Rigoberta grows up with a peculiar sensibility and conscience; she feels and thinks of her community before she does her selfhood. Likewise, the fact that Kingston’s unnamed aunt, wields no significant, individual power over her life, casts her as someone lacking self identity. Kingston articulates that Chinese, patriarchal culture and customs are responsible for her aunt’s lack of individuality. According to Kingston, “women in the old China” (310), would naturally be more community conscious than self conscious, because her life is controlled by forces other than herself (emphasis added). For instance, she “did not [have the right to] choose” (310), “not even the biggest event of one’s life – marriage” (310). Kingston continues to speak for her aunt: “When the family found a young man in the next village to be her husband, she…promised before they met that she would be his forever” (310). In other words, her aunt’s course of life was dictated more by community customs than her individual will, thus weakening her selfhood. Her life is owned by patriarchal authorities and maneuvered by communal customs. Psychologically and socially, she is so repressed that she has no room to forge an identity of her own. Thus for both Rigoberta and the unnamed aunt, the fact that their communal identities are more dominant over their individual identities is a result of social/cultural construction.
As in the case of Rigoberta and the unnamed aunt, once their minds are culturally/socially constructed to abide by the communal ideologies, then, any inklings of individuality are deemed eccentric, problematic, and antithesis to communal solidarity. In other words, individualism and communalism are considered to be mutually exclusive, and thus cannot coexist in one person’s mind. In the minds of Rigoberta and the unnamed aunt, the collective, communal identities are so deeply ingrained that a concept of individual pursuit and growth is almost non-existent. If they have any sense of self-identity, then, it is sure to be culturally suppressed and submersed, until they no longer crave it nor recognize it. These two women’s main preoccupations and anxieties deal only with issues concerning communal values and their personal conformity to them. Rigoberta’s elder sister echoes this notion of cultural conformity when she tells Rigoberta to “accept life as it is” (49). Her sister exhorts Rigoberta that “[they] shouldn’t become bitter or look for diversions or escape outside the laws of [their] parents,” (49). Likewise, according to Kingston’s mother, back in her (and the unnamed aunt’s) Chinese hometown, not only every woman in the village shared a common will, they even looked alike: “All the married women blunt-cut their hair in flaps about their ears or pulled it back in tight buns. No nonsense” (311), she say. In fact, Kingston’s mother continues, “a woman who tended her appearance reaped a reputation for eccentricity” (311). Thus, for Asians and Native Americans, then, apparently, the community’s ultimate goal is that everyone blends well with the whole; no one should stand out; everyone should merge harmoniously with one another. Under this politic of communal solidarity, individual egos must be sacrificed to sustain this utopian ideology of “oneness.”
Interestingly, in a well-ordered community, there are unstipulated, moral laws which heightens this oneness in a perverse way because if any one member violates the law, then, that person becomes the common enemy of the entire community and receives severe punishments. Rigoberta says that in her community, their common “enemy is someone who steals or goes into prostitution” (57). She says that in her community, laws are formulated orally: “this is how we make our pleas and…promises” (57). Although Rigoberta realizes that her law making customs “[do not] reflect so much to the real world” (57), she asserts that this is “[her people’s] reality” (57). Furthermore, if a member of Rigoberta’s community endangers the lives of other members, “although it hurts us,” she says, the people “would have to execute [that person]” (146). Likewise, in the unnamed aunt’s village, there are unwritten moral laws, too, that are more powerful and effective than any written state laws. If in Rigoberta’s village, a prostitute is the villager’s common enemy, in the village of the unnamed aunt, an adulterer is. Kingston tells us that her aunt became the villager’s common enemy because the people believed “that her [aunt’s] infidelity had…harmed the village” (313). The villagers demanded that she tell the name of the impregnator, but her aunt did not disclose it, thereby paying the ultimate price of being private, for keeping “the man’s name to herself ” (312, emphasis added). Kingston confirms that the ultimate reason why “the villagers punished her [aunt],” (313) was because she “act[ed] as if she could have a private life, secret and apart from them” (313, emphasis added). The villagers “ripped up her clothes and shoes and broke her combs, grinding them underfoot…‘Pig.’ ‘Ghost.’ ‘Pig.’” (309). After the villagers left, however, her own family members exacerbate her misery. They relentlessly rebuke her, too, for being an unfit, dishonorable member of their family who has acted singularly in an infamous way: “the family broke their silence and cursed her…Death is coming. Death is coming. Look what you’ve done. You’ve killed us. Ghost! Dead ghost! Ghost! You’ve never been born” (314). Her family, unable to accept her disgraceful eccentricity, disowns her, and her place in the community thus altogether disappears. Although she is not what Rigoberta describes as someone “guilty of endangering a member of community,” she, with her newborn infant, self-executes both lives by drowning in a well. Thus, in such a tightly-knitted community where “all [in] the village were kinsmen” (313), those who become the common enemy of the villagers by breaking the communal law, can/will suffer ignominious punishment. The unnamed aunt literally, and perhaps heroically, loses her ego to soothe the villager’s collective shame, superstitious fear, and indignity.
If the unnamed aunt’s death is a literal dissolution of self in an attempt to lift her sexual curse from the village people, Rigoberta’s self-sacrificing decision to not marry is also a form of mental, self-dissolution for the sake of her community. Rigoberta genuinely feels that any form of individual growth and autonomy, namely, even marriage on her part, is a selfish act that betrays the communal vows she made as a girl. As a female bound by such communal vows, however, she admits that she, too, had her share of struggles and temptations in terms of personal aspirations:
As I said, I was engaged once…I came to all sorts of conclusions because I loved this companero…Well, there I was between these two things – choosing him or my people’s struggle. And [community] that’s what I chose, and I left my companero with much sadness and heavy heart. But I told myself that I had a lot to do for my people and I didn’t need a pretty house while they lived in horrific conditions. (225-6)
Seemingly from pure altruism, Rigoberta devotes everything she has/is for the cause of her beloved community. Her message is unequivocal: “my primary duty is to my people and then to my personal happiness” (225). It is clear that Rigoberta’s individual autonomy and growth are the dear price she willingly pays to live up to her communal expectations.
The stories of both I, Rigoberta Menchu and No Name Woman illustrate that a woman born into a communalistic social structure has no room for individualism. One of the key concepts of communalism is that each member in the community is inextricably weaved into the whole, as one big family. Every one thus share one, all-inclusive identity that eclipse any individual identities. Both the unnamed aunt and Rigoberta, mentally and literally, dissolve their sense of selves into the larger, utopian “us” concept for the sake of their communities. Also, what these two stories have in common, is that in a sound communal system, there are unstipulated laws – though not written – govern its members more powerfully, effecting the choices and shaping the conducts of its members. As Rigoberta’s thoughtful responses to individual autonomy and growth reveals, women who are ingrained into communal ideologies and committed to communal solidarities will willingly give up their egos and autonomies for the sake of the collective, communal good.
Works Cited
Collins, Patricia Hill. “Shifting the Center: Race, Class, and Feminist Theorizing About Motherhood.” The Longman Anthology of Women’s Literature.
DeShazer, Mary K. New York: Addison-Wesley Educational, 2001. 638-653.
Kingston, Maxine Hong. “No Name Woman.” The Longman Anthology of Women’s Literature. DeShazer, Mary K. New York: Addison-Wesley Educational, 2001. 308-315.
Menchu, Rigoberta. I, Rigoberta Menchu. Wright, Ann. New York: Verso, 1984.
Women’s Spatial Mobility under Patriarchy
In Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea
Virginia Woolf, in “A Room of One’s Own,” speculates that “if a woman in Shakespeare’s day had…Shakespeare’s genius” (39), but not given an artistic arena to channel out her creative energy, then, she would have died on some winter’s night, and found “buried at some crossroads where the omnibuses…stop” (39). In other words, Woolf is claiming that women’s “room of their own,” and more abstractly, “a space of their own,” is directly reflective of how they fare psychologically, intellectually, and even physically. Succinctly, she is implying, figuratively and literally, that if a woman is not allowed a space to intellectually grow and physically move about, she will wither and die. In Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, “a space of women’s own” – which, from here-on-after, for the purpose of this essay, will be called “spatial mobility” – reflects the level of freedom and independence the female protagonists are allowed under patriarchy. In Jane Eyre, the fact that the protagonist, Jane, is an orphan works to her advantage because she has no patriarchal allegiances that restrict her from maneuvering her various spaces, different dwellings, to enhance her self-preservation and independence. On the other hand, in Wide Sargasso Sea, the fact that the protagonist, Antoinette, has numerous patriarchal authorities (Mr. Cosway, Mr. Mason, Richard Mason, Daniel Cosway, Sandi Cosway, and Rochester) who, in one way or another, restrict, malign, and stifle her spatial mobility, forestalls her self-preservation and independence. Thus, while absence or escape from patriarchal authority allows spatial mobility that preserves Jane, too much of its presence – too many controlling men – confines Antoinette into a fixed space that kills her.
For Jane, albeit, moving from one home to another causes tremendous amount of anxiety and insecurity, each spatial movement, nevertheless, leads her to a higher level of independence. Her first spatial movement to Mr./Mrs. Reed’s home provides her the basic shelter, food, and protection from the harsh world. Her second movement to Lowood Institution not only satiates her yearnings to be literate, but more importantly, equips her with employable skills that enable her to be self-sufficient. Her third relocation to Thornfield as a governess had required a permission from a guardian, which she gains effortlessly due to the absence of paternal authority in her life; in place of her deceased uncle, her aunt, Mrs. Reed, permits “that ‘[Jane] might do as [she] pleased, [for] she had long relinquished all interference in [Jane’s] affairs’” (76). Her fourth movement, a flight to St. John’s abode proves to be quintessential in her life; it not only frees her from Rochester – a potentially threatening, patriarchal authority – but more significantly, links her to a loving and admirable extended family, which one of whom (her uncle) makes her a wealthy woman, a turning point in her life that cements her self-preservation and independence. In fact, her final movement, a return to Rochester in Ferdean, is, in effect, a cardinal moment in her life where she makes an important pronouncement of her independence. This final movement is profound, not only because it frees her from St. John – another potentially abusive, patriarchal authority – but because it is a choice that she deliberately makes, as Jane informs Rochester as “an independent woman” (370). Bewildered by her new aura and claims to independence, Rochester asks for explanation: “‘Independent! What do you mean, Jane?’” (370) Jane gives him a stunning answer that not only informs him that she now has money of her own, but her subtle word play also implicates that she intends to keep and manage her own money: “‘Quite rich, sir…If you won’t let me live with you, I can build a house of my own close up to your door, and you may come and sit in my parlour when you want company of an evening’” (370, emphasis added). Indeed, for Jane, each “spatial movement” dramatically enhances and fortifies her self-preservation and independence.
Although, Jane, an orphan, out of necessity moves from one shelter to another, “moving” or “going away” is imperceptible for Antoinette, whose family is deeply-rooted in her home town with a lineage of patriarchs, from her birth father to step-father, her half-brothers to a step-brother. In terms of spatial mobility, Antoinette exhibits timid and stagnant mentality when she comments about her mother’s importunate pleadings to Mr. Mason to move away from their town: “I [also] knew that we were hated – but to go away … for once I agreed with my stepfather. That was not possible” (19). Antoinette seems to have been inculcated by patriarchal dogmas of the day about how woman should be – helplessness and immobile, always needing to stay within her boundaries. The fact that her family estate is so deeply-rooted in her home town doesn’t help either; it seems to make it inconceivable and imprudent for her to even think about relocating herself to a different home or a town – the privilege of “not being an orphan,” a daughter of a prominent man in town. Her birth father, Mr. Cosway, therefore, is Antoinette’s first patriarch that indirectly restricts her spatial mobility. Mr. Cosway, furthermore, by leaving a legacy as a slave owner, exacerbates Antoinette’s spatial stasis in her home town because his such legacy makes her become the target of malignant assaults from townspeople. Worse yet, Antoinette’s step-father, Mr. Mason, and his son, Richard Mason, continue the role of a patriarch by engineering Antoinette into a marriage. This commodification of Antoinette into a marriage with Rochester completely forestalls her independence, let alone any spatial mobility. Moreover, Antoinette’s half-brothers, as an extended representatives of patriarchy, compounds this situation; both Daniel’s slander and Sandi’s tenderness toward Antoinette fuel up the tension between her and her husband, Rochester. In fact, these issues become the very reasons that Rochester use to justify his imprisonment of Antoinette in England. Thus, for Antoinette, each line of patriarchs and its successors in her family, collectively and individually, restrict, malign, and imprison her into a life of hell with no spatial freedom nor mobility.
Among all the patriarchs in Antoinette’s life, the one who holds the ultimate keys to her status, happiness, and freedom, her husband Rochester, cruelly eracinates all human dignity out of her; he treats her with the utmost disrespect, uproots her from her social and cultural familiarities, and imprisons her in his domain – Thornfied, a cell that slowly kills her. Alarmed by such a plan to uproot Antoinette from her hometown, Antoinette’s surrogate mother, Christophine, exhorts Antoinette to leave him: “Ask him pretty for some of your own money…When you get away, stay away…Better not stay in that old house. Go from that house, I tell you” (66). Antoinette, however, is overwhelmed by the patriarchal forces that are seemingly omnipotent and omnipresent in her life, self-rendering her escape to freedom unfathomable; she gives in all too easily and feebly:
He would never give me any money to go away and he would be furious if I asked him…Even if I got away (and how?) he would force me back. So would Richard. So would everybody else. Running away from him, from this island, is the lie. What reason could I give for going and who would believe [or support] me? (68)
When Christophine pleads Rochester for money, so that she and Antoinette can go away to Martinique and “[t]hen to other places” (95), Rochester, not only denies Antoinette any spatial mobility by not returning a portion of her money, he also psychologically eliminates “the only space of her own” – her home – by having an affair with her servant: “Do you know what you’ve done to me? It’s not the girl, not the girl. But I loved this place and you have made it into a place I hate. I used to think that if everything else went out of my life I would still have this, and now you have spoilt it” (88). In fact, Rochester is so obsessed with the idea of controlling Antoinette that he exclaims in silence: “She said she loved this place. This is the last she’ll see of it…I’ll take her in my arms, my lunatic. She’s mad but mine, mine. What will I care for gods or devils or for Fate itself. If she smiles or weeps or both. For me” (99). Thus, Rochester, Antoinette’s husband, who bears the highest moral obligation to love and protect her, betrays her most utterly, and becomes the ultimate culprit to her gradual death, psychologically and physically. Engineered, thwarted, and crumpled by various patriarchal figures in her life, most repulsively yet decisively, by her husband Rochester, Antoinette, unlike Jane, each “spatial movement” she undertakes pulls her downhill, undermining her self-preservation and independence.
Both in Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea, the protagonists’ free movements from space to space, or even having such a constant space that she can call “a space of her own,” is directly linked to whether or not a patriarch is present or absent in her life. For Jane, in Jane Eyre, absence or escape from patriarchal authority enables her to use spatial mobility as one of her means to enhance and fortify her self-preservation and independence. For Antoinette, in Wide Sargasso Sea, however, too much patriarchal presence – too many controlling men – ultimately kills her.
Works Cited
Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Norton & company, Inc: New York, 2001.
Rhys, Jean. Wide Sargasso Sea. Norton & Company, Inc: New York, 1999.
Woolf, Virginia. “A Room of One’s Own.” The Longman Anthology of Women’s Literature. (2001): 16-72.
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