Unpopular Yes, History Is Not On Your Side, Sorry But History Repeats

My undergraduate was in Sociology. I was deeply interested in practices of wife hunting, taken away from their village by force to become wives of the hunters and their clans. The Vikings, the Aztecs, American Indian tribes. There are many credible narratives of white girls stolen to become wives of braves.

I met a woman from India and we talked about arranged marriages. She was against it for 'her', but not against it. She had an arranged marriage when she was 19. That's how she ended up in Michigan and attended Michigan State. Her husband is older and was working on his doctorate at the time. A decision made by parents, she had been married over twenty years at the time.

So I found myself facing a man who had decided 'once and for all' to put me under his thumb. It wasn't pleasant as such. He placed me under his physical control, and took his 'liberties' with me. I was instructed to stop resisting, to surrender, unconditionally. I was marched down the isle, and before the year was out rolled into the maternity ward.

The practice of wife taking is alive and well. Arranged marriages last a lifetime, in Sudan the bride joins their new tribe. In the 'west' we 'take' his name. We bear his children, present him with his new son. We adopt his family. Nothing changes. And for never 'married' women, or those that come to divorce, their husbands selecting younger fertile wives, the economic outcome is severe.

Leave aside the tendency to demand female autonomy, over time and body, the lonely (ex) wives club is not a club you want to be part of.