GENDER AND MARRIAGE: Lynn Gazis-Sax replies to Sam Schulman's Commentary piece

Lynn Gazis-Sax is a quality assurance engineer in southern California.

If I'm looking at what is ancient and unfailing and unwritten (to use Schulman's own adjectives) about marriage, if I try to find *that* fundamental good, then it can't possibly be that women get to regulate
who has sex with them, and certainly it can't be that marriage protects us from rape.

Given that marriage exists in societies where women are subject to honor killing for being raped (while their rapists get off scot free), societies where women are forced to marry their rapists, and a whole lot of societies where husbands can, if they want, rape with impunity, I don't think protecting women from rape has a whole lot to do with it.

Besides, Schulman's way of framing things sounds as if marriage is primarily a good for women. And from what I understand, married
men are, on average, healthier, happier, and do better in their careers, while married women, on average, are happier, better off financially, and have more support for raising their children. It looks to me as if marriage is a benefit for both sexes. Maybe a benefit in slightly different ways for both, on average, but a benefit about equally for both, all the same.
posted by Eve at 10:11 AM VOTE

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