Peter Espeut THERE IS a new lifestyles talk show on CVM-TV called "Our Voices" and last week their topic was "The Kept Woman", a topic about which I have written many times. I was surprised at the low level of the discussion, which took for granted that it was the role of men to financially support women, and clearly stated that there was little difference between marriage and concubinage. I am surprised that the Women's Media Watch and the other gender liberation groups did not immediately get on their case!
Much was made of the situation where women swap sexual favours for cash or kind: rent, clothes, groceries, utility bills, cars, and the like. It was pointed out (with some pride) that some women are "kept" by a stable of men who regularly cover different portions of their portfolio of expenses; this allows variety and reduces boredom. I suppose the only difference between this and street prostitution is that in the latter only cash is involved.
I have been saying for years in this column that in Jamaica today the concept of marriage is in difficulty. It seems that many believe that marriage is an arrangement where money and security are exchanged for household services. Men provide the money and the house, while women clean and cook and wash and provide sexual services. This economic relationship often leads to power relations where the man feels that because he provides the money, he should be dominant. Many women today (and some men) will not put up with this travesty, and so marriage gets a bad name.
PURE MARKET RELATIONS
Some economists reduce dating and marriage to pure market relations. Typically, men want the most desirable sexual partner in terms of body and facial features, while women want a man with car and money and an exchange is made. In reality, it is more complex; women also want a sexy man and men want women who can contribute to the household income. Colour may also come into it, in an effort to further the "browning" of the family. Sociologists and economists would argue that, for many in Jamaica today, desire for marriage has less to do with love and more to do with survival and status.
Marriages of this sort are built on very flimsy foundations and may break up when potential partners with more money or sexier bodies or lighter complexions come along. Sometimes the persons involved are quite mercenary, getting what they want (in terms of money and status) and then abandoning their partner. These situations also give marriage a bad name.
EXPECTING PERFECTION
Some people, on the other hand, expect perfection in their partners, perfection that they themselves cannot claim to have, and they find fault easily. No one can be good enough for them and so they remain single.
There are a growing number of financially independent women who want children but don't want to get married; they choose to be head of a single-parent family as if accepting this lifestyle as a new norm. They want a child and selfishly they choose to bring a son/daughter up alone without regard for the effect upon the child.
The dominant ethic coming to us from the north is that men and women but especially women should be independent and should "fulfil themselves", which is usually interpreted to mean that they should be free to do whatever they feel to do. Marriage for many "modern" people is incompatible with the ideal of "fulfilling oneself" since for them, marriage limits freedom, is like a straitjacket. In many ways "modern" values preach an escape from commitment, a sort of perpetual
adolescence.
Marriage does limit personal freedom, because marriage is essentially a commitment that two people make to each other to walk a certain road together; having a wife/husband and children means there are other people to consider before taking decisions; therefore one's freedom to do just anything one wants is limited. But then anyone getting married should know this beforehand. Anyone who gets married and who wants to behave as if they are free, single and disengaged is not ready is too immature is not properly prepared for marriage.
There are many financially independent Jamaican women who do not need to be "kept"; they want a sharing and caring relationship. There are Jamaican men who do not just want a woman for sex, or someone to dominate, but who want a partner to share life with. There are good Jamaican men and women rich and poor who do not play the "money for sex" game, the "Kept Woman" syndrome, the sexual politics that is part of our popular culture. These are people who search for a higher equilibrium in human relationships, who share all their worldly possessions in common, for whom marriage is a serious and desired state. These relationships need to be more visible, especially to our young, so that marriage will get a good name.
GOOD MARRIAGES
Good marriages are not just for the financially secure. I know many poor people whose marriages are heroic and fulfilling, even though (or maybe because) the times are rough. I know personally married men and women in Portland, St. Mary and St. Thomas, who work their fields together. I know an old woman in the hills of St. Andrew who took back her husband in his old age, a man who had deserted her fifteen years before for another (younger) woman. She took him back when he was crippled and bedridden, and nursed him tenderly. When asked how she could do that after all he had done to her, she replied with a shy girlish giggle: "Is so love go".
I believe in marriage; I am married myself. I believe that the new Jamaica for which many of us seek, will need good marriages and strong families. But I also believe that in this age, our voices need to be raised to reinterpret the institution of marriage, to root out the power plays and the status-seeking and the using of one another for money and sex. Maybe this does not make good TV.
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and an ordained Deacon of the Roman Catholic Church.
