Fair Play In The Game Of Marriage example essay topic

Marriage is a word where a man and a woman come together in the eyes of God and pronounce their love for one another and are joined together as one. This concept has been the ways of the world for hundreds of years. However, marriage back during the eighteenth (18th) and nineteenth (19th) century was completely different from the way it is in the twenty-first (21st) century. Woman of today have better equal right to the world where they are seen as equals to men than woman back in the day. Over the years ancient philosophers tried to dissect the concept of equality for woman back during the 18th and 19th century.

One of those philosophers was John Stuart Mills who developed a writing called the Subjection of Women, which dealt with the women's emancipation. He also made references of sexual equality in his other works (Utilitarianism, On Liberty) as well. The institute of marriage has been oppressive to woman why is that so? That is what we are going to explore and find out. The institute of marriage was a burden to women during the 18th and 19th century because they were not seen as equals.

They were either forced into marriage by their parents by marriage arrangements or they married for survival in the world. The men during that time were seen as the breadwinners. Men work to support the family financially, where the women bared the children, kept the home clean and ensured that there was a meal on the table every day. Women were not allowed to vote, play a role in politics, nor could they earn an income to support their family. Whatever the husband voted or how he played a role in his career and politics was the wife's position as well. John Stuart Mills was a philosopher who believed in utilitarianism, which is the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people.

He believed this to be for both men and women. He advocated for women because he believed they needed to prosper in societies. He said that " women expressive power has been stifled and that if women fail to developed and if they are excluded from involvement, society as whole is impoverished if it denies itself their contributions " (Subjection of Women) He believes that women need to be out in the world doing the same things as men, and that they can contribute a lot to society. However, even though Mills believes that women should be allowed to have a fair play in the game of marriage, he also believes that when playing the game every man and woman should be on equal playing levels. Mills said "What marriage may be in the case of two persons of cultivated faculties, identical in opinions and purposes, between whom there exists that best kind of equality, similarity of powers and reciprocal superiority in them-so that each can enjoy the luxury of looking up to the other, and can have alternately the pleasure of leading and of being led in the path of development-I will not attempt to describe. To those who can conceive it, there is no need; to those who cannot, it would appear the dream of an enthusiast.

But I maintain, with the profoundest conviction, that this, and this only, is the ideal of marriage; and that all opinions, customs, and institutions which favour any other notion of it, or turn the conceptions and aspirations connected with it into any other direction, by whatever pretences they may be coloured, are relics of primitive barbarism. ' (Subjection of Women) Mill saw no reason why either partner in a marriage should dominate the other; he proposed that a family governed by consensual separation of functions could, in principle become a profoundly serious example of free association. Many women were trapped by social expectations in the traditional forms of marriage, which had its origins as bondage or involuntary servitude. Mills seemed to play both side advocating for men and women; nevertheless, he wanted to ensure that women got to play on the same team as men and were considered equal.

Even though it took many years women are now considered equal to men..