Sharon Krum
BODY LANGUAGE
For a while now, Americans have been galvanised by a television game show that ended with the winner marrying a woman he had never met. Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire? featured as its ultimate prize not a bank account but a rich bachelor.
Yet after millions of Americans watched 50 women parade in swimsuits, then explain without shame why they wanted to marry property developer Rick Rockwell for his money, the disgust at the stunt registered with Richter-like force. The microwave marriage upstaged a bitterly contested presidential primary.
How could all these women and one man make such a mockery of the sacred institution of marriage, people demanded to know. Whatever happened to the practice of marrying someone in spite of their flaws, not because of their assets? When did marriage vows change from ”for richer or poorer” to ”for richer and richer”?
Ironic that it took a glitzy, low-brow TV quiz show and not the usual army of psychologists, priests and government ministers to get the public to debate the meaning of marriage in the 21st-century United States. ”I haven’t seen anything like this since the OJ Simpson trial opened up the conversation about domestic violence,” said Los Angeles psychologist Dr Robert Butterworth. ”This marriage between strangers [already on the rocks] has made the country finally tackle the issue of what it really means to get married and stay married.”
As the debate raged, University of Missouri criminologist Richard Rosenfeld unknowingly stepped into the fray. He presented a paper at the Academy for the Advancement of Science conference in Washington DC, documenting how the decline in marriage rates in the US led directly to a fall in spousal homicide. While in 1996 75% of domestic murder victims in the US were women, overall the rate of murder in US marriages has plummeted 36% since 1976.
The fact is, Americans are not the great champions of marriage they pretend to be. Marriage rates have never fallen so low, and cohabitation is not filling the void. Americans are choosing to stay single longer and women in particular don’t see marriage as an economic or social necessity.
”The marriage rate in America was 8,3 per 1E000 people in 1998, the lowest since 1958,” Rosenfeld says. ”Fewer marriages means fewer opportunities for spousal violence.”
But the statistics do not mean domestic abuse is no longer a fixture in the American home. While there is a downturn due to fewer marriages and more domestic violence services, it is still an issue with which many married women have to contend. ”It’s the proximity of the relationship and the influence of alcohol, handguns [50% of USdomestic murders involve a gun] and financial problems that cause homicide.”
Rosenfeld is right, but he is only telling half the story. The other reason marriage rates are falling, why men are killing their wives, is the changing role of women both inside and outside the home. Forty years of feminism have thrown American men into a blind panic. The boundaries that once defined an American marriage are not so much blurred as erased. Women now work and earn their own money. They are not sexual nafs on their wedding day. Inside their marriages, they have redefined the word ”wife” to mean equal partner, not unpaid housekeeper.
Men locked into the idea that marriage means they play the breadwinner and man of the house are in shock. They complain that marriage to the new American woman emasculates them. As Susan Faludi so aptly titled her new book on the plight of the American male, they feel ”stiffed”.
Subsequently, the switch in marriage roles sends them over the edge. As Butterworth says, a lot of domestic abuse is really anger at women leading independent lives within a marriage. ”With the rise of the women’s movement, roles changed dramatically. Married men don’t ‘own’ their wives any more. A lot of men would just love to wish away the women’s movement but they can’t. I think it’s fascinating that so many American men today are marrying foreign brides who are much more passive in relationships.”
While some men still seek out women willing to play the traditional wife, others are avoiding marriage. Statistics show children of divorce are less likely to marry and divorced adults are more likely to live together than remarry. For women, there is no fear that without a husband they will become social pariahs, so they opt for what they see as the better bets: permanent singleton status or cohabitation.
”There is a huge psychological difference for Americans between marriage and living together,” Butterworth says. ”If you are not married, you can change the arrangement any time. If you are a victim of domestic violence, you can walk out. Living together gives women freedom because it allows them to sidestep the stereotypes. A lot of religious denominations say, for instance, that the husband is ruler in the house. Without marriage, there is no battle. Women get to redefine the boundaries.”
So where do all these shifting goalposts leave the once celebrated American marriage? Has feminism killed it? Is it now a TV stunt and not a sacred vow? Well, yes and no. Americans will still marry, but the marriage of 1950s TV sitcoms, with Mom in the kitchen and Dad at the ad agency, is dead and buried. The more women own their lives, the less they look for men to create a role and lifestyle for them. And, as Butterworth notes, men threatened by the new face of American marriage are heading overseas to find a partner willing to recreate the 1950s inside the home.
”The future of American marriage is going to be very interesting,” he concludes. ”I believe it will continue to decline. And I also believe whoever chooses to get married now understands the roles are interchangeable and nobody will be embedded in stereotypes any more.”
Millionaires who think money, not equality, will buy them love need not apply.