"Marriage resembles property right: it involves a right to a person as if she were a thing. It does not mean that persons are actually owned as things... Marriage right is like property right in that it hinges on a right to exclusive use: my rights to my spouse hinge on the fact that no one else has a right to him."
I don't necessarily like these terms - property, rights, thing - but it is basically true. You are married to someone. You belong to him/her. You are tied to him/her. Your spouse has a right to know where you are, what you are doing, and to be informed of what's going on.
According to Kant, a marriage makes up "a society under the head of the household. And, Kant tells us, these relationships are different from other rightful relationships (like those delineated by contract) in that they are "a society of unequals (one party being in command or being its head, the other obeying)."
Who is the head of the household? In most cases, the head of the household is the man, the leader, and the breadwinner. So if there is a head of the household that is the leader then there has to be a household to be led. This household is below the head. Generally speaking, the woman is below the man within the union.
Kant brings up another very interesting point about engagement. He says, "... a woman engaged to a man in Kant's juridical order is actually afforded greater rights to equality than she is after she has married him. While she is engaged, the united will ensures that she is equal to her partner, both in mutual possession of the other's promise. Once she is married, she retains that right to mutual possession in terms of sexual relations-but otherwise, she finds herself "under the head of the household" (1996, 283). The equality of wives as sexual partners, therefore, must be examined against the inequality of wives as subordinate members of the household."
While engaged, men still need to seal the deal and treat women more equally. After the marriage, men become the heads of households and now possess their wives.
So how does this affect the proposal? If men propose to men with the hope of getting married and forming a union in which he is the head of the household, then what would happen if women proposed? Would the roles just flip? Would that mean that women have to be the head of the household? How does that impact men? Are men now the household that is governed by the women? Does the proposal automatically mean all of that? Does it have to go to that extreme?
I was surprised to learn that 50 years ago men and women had defined roles as husband and wife. Today marriage in America is quite different.
ReplyDeleteIn countries like Afghanistan, men and women still have strict roles to perform in a marriage. The men are the breadwinners and rule the house. Whereas the women are the caregivers, clean and cook, and raise the children.