The Institution of Marriage in America
The Institution of Marriage in America
The father has just come home there is a warm meal in the oven. His wife and kids greet him with much enthusiasm and delight to see the man of the house come home from a long days work. They say grace eat dinner together as a family. At the table they joke around talk about how their day went with details. Then the family goes out for a family drive. When returning home the family sits down and watches television until they are tiered and one by one they go to bed. This is an example of what people now view as a family that you only see on the television on an old sitcom. This means that it only happens on TV and not real life. In the 21st century a family life is a lot different nowhere near the bond as the families back in the early nineteen eighties.
“A Secret Sorrow” gives a great description of how society vied marriage back in 1981. In the 80’s marriage and kids was expected for every women. In this story there is a woman who is scared to tell her husband that she cannot get pregnant because she is afraid of him leaving her. Because of the idea of children was an idea that was spread throughout all the people in the 1980’s. Marriages and having children were encouraged in this story written in the 80’s. The story accomplishes the encouragement by at the ending showing the family together watching all the adopted kids. “A Secret Sorrow,” shows a man who is truly in love because although he wanted to have kids and his wife couldn’t give him any of his own he still stayed with her.
Women and men used to have unequal roles in life. They were treated quite differently and had different economic and social status. If you go into some cultures a lot of marriages were arranged with the woman usually not having a say in who she wants to marry. The part of a woman in marriages in the 1980’s was usually to stay home cooking, cleaning, taking care of the kids, and any other household chores. The male was the one who worked and had to pay...