E-mails from Marriage

The argument of my paper is to present comparisons and contrasts within different women's marriages and whether marriage, on the whole, is a necessary factor in a woman's life regardless of whether that marriage is a happy one. A marriage can be with a husband or a faith-based marriage with God and still be as important to a woman's growth in society and history. Without some form of protection, she will falter in the world, in society's opinion.

I've engineered fictional emails between several women in different time periods whose marriages or possible marriages have impacted their lives because of societies need for women to be confined by some form of male intervention. Through these emails between them I've tried to showcase the various themes of independence, resignation, and ultimate happiness between the women which is a pattern they all share.

Julian of Norwich as an anchoress was a wife to God and her faith, following a male bishop and male rules for her life. By this marriage she aims to better herself for the next life and like a normal marriage she is subservient and all giving to her "husband" as was expected of her wifely duty. Unlike Julian, Christine De Pizan understands that marriage must be in her future because she cannot survive within her community as a single woman; however she turns to knowledge and education to further her life along with the knowledge of God. She resigns herself to a fate not wholly her own choice but a necessity much like Julian's love for God. The last woman, Marianne, has come to love her husband as second best to her true love and though she is happy her morals and values are compromised to be happy. She is no longer the willful independent woman she once wanted to be and her husband doesn't have the passion she wishes in a partner of her choice.

Though all these woman share marriages they must look inside themselves to find their own meaning because either way marriage was unavoidable and a way for a woman to make her way in life. Without it there weren't many options, however these women engineer their own options within the societies they were given and marriage has a different meaning to each one despite its rule over their lives.

To: JesusGirl@aol.com, SettleforPassionateTears@yahoo.com, BrainForLove@google.com

From: c.elise91@yahoo.com

Hello Girls,

Tonight I was sitting by my window thinking of our book club a week ago and wondering at the romance between a man and a woman and whether love and marriage always go hand in hand. There are many different partnerships made for other reasons than love, and even now couples find it agreeable to marry simply for tax right off's and the easier deal on a mortgage or loan. Does it benefit women of the modern age with careers and independence to "break" that and marry someone else because it's required? Is it required? What do you think of the idea of marriage in your own lives? Here's a fun little poll to take to get to your answers:

1. Who is the one love in your life?

2. If you had to choose to marry for money or personality which would you choose?

3. Would a religion get you through a unfit husband or would you divorce him?

4. Marriage itself: pro or con?

5. Do women need financial protection in marriage?

6. Will marriage allow you to accomplish everything you want in your life?

Thanks for your answers girls, can't wait to see you soon!

Elise

To: c.elise91@yahoo.com, SettleforPassionateTears@yahoo.com, BrainForLove@google.com

From: JesusGirl@aol.com

Good Evening,

1. Who is the one love in your life?

Lord God who giveth me life and passion

2. If you had to choose to marry for money or personality which would you choose?

As I am married to God I am able to look outside the world and into myself to be my own ultimate dependent and moral compass pointing in life. A man may forgo his wife and bring her to sin, and she may do the opposite in turn but Julian of Norwich says: "Therefore Christ loves more, for though the soul, his wife, prostitutes herself with the devil in capital sin for many years, his mercy is always ready for her when she wishes to come home and abandon the devil."(323). Jesu works as the husband to us all to give love worth more than gold or charms abundant in our Lord God already by our making. We are our own prizes within the world, praise him.

3. Would religion get you through a unfit husband or would you divorce him?

Religion is thy life outside thy window of soul. A husband of the Lord is all that is needed and he cannot be unfit nor vanquished for sin, his endless love having drawn you back to his aged wings. There is no parting in a marriage so perfectly matched than a soul reborn within a confused woman and a pure man. A consultation of thy bishop would be most worthy if though had such misdeeds. Julian says: "No anchoress[es]...make promises of obligation, except to three things: these are obedience, chastity, and stability of place, so that they should never more change their place of living except for necessity alone; such as by force or fear of death, or in obedience to her bishop or to his superior. For whoever takes such a thing in hand and promises to God that she will do it as if it were a command, binds herself by that, and sins mortally in its breaking, if she breaks It of her own free will."(311) As in marriage with any man thy marriage with Jesu must forsake all bodily wishes and you are to be happy on earth if he is happy and be in the world as he is regardless of thy own willful nature to thy own wishes as his wishes are now thyn own fulfillment.

4. Marriage itself: pro or con?

If there is the utmost connection to our Lord God thy need no other bodily connection on this solid ground nor would anyone wish for another. It is as any other bodily union in which a heart is taken without consent and a union is sealed in worship and thankfulness between the finding and creation of one another and thy are but blessed. Julian remarked upon the goodness of this union: "...but in this I desired never no bodily sight ne no manner showing of God, but compassion as me thought that a kind soul might have with our Lord Jesu, that for love would become a deadly man."(39). It is no matter thy never laid sight of though betrothed, though knowest his love as pure as any bridegroom. That love be worth any injustice.

5. Do women need financial protection in marriage?

Women being hand and hand with our Lord God hath the greatest riches within heaven and the most worthy and holy union on earth. Rich and everlasting bounty is faith within a partner as great as Jesu and the almighty thou cannot want for much more.

6. Will marriage allow you to accomplish everything you want in your life?

Thou Good Lord: "With this sight of his blessed passion, with the godhead I saw in my understanding, I knew well that it was strength enough to me, yea, and to all creatures living that should be saved, against all the fiends of hell, and against all ghostly enemies."(39) Julian remarked. Thus a life of salvation through thou everlasting and all forgiving marriage to the almighty hast allowed everything to be as is in the world. With this strength and the Lord's great guidance I want for nothing.

I have this last to say by Julian: Thus was I learned, that love is our Lord's meaning. And I saw full surely in this and in all, that ere God made us he loved us, which love was never slaked ne never shall. And in this love he hath done all his works, and in this love he hath made all things profitable to us, and in this love our life is everlasting."(45)

To: c.elise91@yahoo.com, JesusGirl@aol.com, SettleforPassionateTears@yahoo.com

From: BrainforLove@google.com

Good Morn My Ladies,

1. Who is the one love in your life?

My love of knowledge surpasses my love of all other things, the brain which can fathom things through logic which is unreachable through the veil of love and marriage. Love is not needed for a match to be sure but it is necessary for life's preservation and protection. As Christine says: "These ladies have been abandoned for so long, exposed like a field without a hedge, without finding a champion who would appear for their defense, notwithstanding the noble men who by order and right should defend them, but who through negligence and lack of interest have let them be mocked."(124). Men wrong women in their lack of education and their endless persecution but knowledge is needed by the fairer sex to understand such wrong doings and to right them artfully.

2. If you had to choose to marry for money or personality which would you choose?

I would choose for neither, but rather a man that respected me in all things and my inquisitive mind would be allowed to roam as it willed without judgment nor persecution. Neither coin nor charm much matter when a connection is a necessity to cannot be avoided and men will be as they will in their persecution of woman to no happy means.

3. Would a religion get you through a unfit husband or would you divorce him?

An unfit husband is a common way of life and doled out to many an unlucky wife. A parting is not right when endurance and learning can take place through an unlucky union. Let a lesson be breached through hard times as much as good. Marriage though unfair to a party is formed for a purpose and a place.

4. Marriage itself: pro or con?

Marriage is a pleasure and a curse to be born: "...for in this world there is no greater and stronger bond than that of the great love that Nature, by the will of God, forged between man and woman."(127) so says De Pizan. Through this bond a woman can reach through herself to greater choices and greater advantages open to her in society.

5. Do women need financial protection in marriage?

Certainly, as they are unallowed to be of their own mind without protection of a man and making their way in life by one's own strength is frowned upon. A city of ladies can be true to the man God and make their own way in the world with the financial protection of themselves to rely upon.

6. Will marriage allow you to accomplish everything you want in your life?

No, marriage will just as likely push me down as bring me towards myself but it doesn't much matter as my learning shall continue.

To: JesusGirl@aol.com, BrainforLove@google.com, c.elise91@yahoo.com

From: SettleforPassionateTears@yahoo.com

1. Who is the one love in your life?

Willoughby, though I have settled down with someone less suited in passion and have grown comfortable in my domesticity and the companionship of our love. As Marianne knew within herself: "...Marianne found her happiness in forming his, was equally the persuasion and delight of each observing friend. Marianne could never love by halves; and her whole heart became, in time, as much devoted to her husband as it had once been to Willoughby."(335) Though it took both time and patience to love someone in a different suit than her original intended.

2. If you had to choose to marry for money or personality which would you choose?

"I could not be happy with a man whose taste did not in every way coincide with my own. But it would have broken

my heart, had I loved him, to hear him read with so little sensibility."said Marianne(18). Both would be agreeable with time as Brandon has come to teach me, however if I could have married for passion my love would be better for it. I resign myself to luxury and easy manners where once was a flair of emotion and charm.

3. Would a religion get you through a unfit husband or would you divorce him?

Marianne understood that: "It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy; it is disposition alone."(54) having made a divorce quite impossible if you wait it out and truly get to know one's strengths and weaknesses. Only time and sensibility to one's other half and the troubles he is going through can bring the marriage to right again rather than showing an outpouring of emotion and fixing nothing but bringing more unhappiness to the household.

4. Marriage itself: pro or con?

Marriage for love is most wonderful, marriage for necessity can be just as sweet with prodding and time. It neither matters whom your married too, rather that your purse is heavy and your happy with the lot given to you, whether it be lacking passion or not. A marriage of any kind is most essential to a woman's life.

5. Do women need financial protection in marriage?

Indeed, that is the only way woman can get a purse of independence at all. Coin in any fashion must be extracted diligently with time, love, and feminine charm from your husband. You should control him and love your betrothed as Marianne says: "That is what I like; that is what a young man ought to be. Whatever be his pursuits, his eagerness in them should know no moderation, and leave him no sense of fatigue."(42) this also applies to the views he carries for you that must stand time so you can always have that which will make your household prosper and will bring good friends to your door to support your husband.

6. Will marriage allow you to accomplish everything you want in your life?

Yes, my marriage though, Marianne said: "Colonel Brandon is certainly younger than Mrs. Jennings, but he is old enough to be my father; and if he were ever animated enough to be in love, must have long outlived every sensation of the kind. It is to ridiculous! When is a man to be safe from such wit, if age and infirmity will not protect him?"(36)." There is something to be understood for the love and adoration of a good and kind gentleman whom shall give you everything you desire though he lacks passion. My life will be my own though it is not what I would have chosen for myself.

To: JesusGirl@aol.com, SettleforPassionateTears@yahoo.com, BrainForLove@google.com

From: c.elise91@yahoo.com

Hello Girls,

Thank you for your insightful and honest answers to my poll. I believe both women's standards and reasons for marriage has changed and though it is no longer quite as necessary to marry, it is still looked on as something of value. I also still see the spinster mentality that if a woman is not married by a certain age she is contaminated and there is something "wrong" with her that she has reached this age without a mate. The same thing can be said with the stereotype of the promiscuous woman who, if she is unmarried by a certain age and enjoys dating she is given a reputation undeserving of her actions.

Next month please bring a copy of the new Laurell K. Hamilton book and thanks again.

Elise