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From: features@ihuxf.UUCP (aMAZon)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: "Traditional Values"
Message-ID: <2722@ihuxf.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 9-Oct-85 23:58:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihuxf.2722
Posted: Wed Oct  9 23:58:33 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 12-Oct-85 15:48:46 EDT
References: <274@fear.UUCP> <5798@tektronix.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 35

> In article <274@fear.UUCP> robert@fear.UUCP (Robert Plamondon) writes:
> >People who lament the decline in the institution of marriage tend to
> >overlook a few of the less savory reasons why marriages lasted so
> >long in the past.
> 
> (* A good article, Robert.  Thanks. *)
> 
> Another aspect: The commitment that Ray Frank so highly regards
> did not come out of a higher moral fiber, but more probably from the
> fact that women were economically trapped in marriages  regardless of
> the quality of the relationship.   Women, for the most part, did not
> have the required skills to be able to support herself, let alone
> her children.  
> 
> Moira Mallison
> tektronix!moiram

Moira,
	I think that if you really investigate the past, you'd find
that women did have the skills to support themselves and their
children.  What was illegal was for a married woman to keep her
own earnings (until the Married Woman's Property Act, ca. 1860,
was passed in New York).  In fact, I've seen articles here at
work relating to work benefits and such things that demand
a husband's signature on the wife's record (if it's in
Louisiana).  Fortunately, that kind of thinking is not current
in Illinois.
	You're absolutely right about most marriages being based
on economic grounds.  A daughter was looked upon as another
commodity, like a cow or a goat.

-- 

aMAZon @ AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL; ihnp4!ihuxf!features
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