I'm an admitted Oprah fan. I haven't bought completely into Oprahism, but I do think she has done some significant good through her power.
Today's show was very interesting. The topic was marriage. Specifically, it was warning of the "dangers" of marriage. I'm still kind of trying to process everything that they said, so bear with me...
The dangers they spoke of was the threat of "losing yourself" in the marriage. The whole idea of morphing into person that you think you should be-- ideal mom, wife, etc, and denying "your own truth." Haha, this new age spiritual language cracks me up. But I understand and appreciate the point.
Although Oprah pointed out repeatedly that she isn't "anti-marriage," it sure didn't come off sounding that way! I was a little shocked because I got the general impression that the panelists and professionals honestly believed that you could get married and still retain the same independence and sense of self that you always had.
I'm all for being a strong woman, but you've got to be kidding me! I shouldn't be surprised considering the way that our culture views marriage these days. But isn't marriage the union of two souls? The whole "flesh of my flesh", "leaving and cleaving", and "I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine" type of thing?
Modern wisdom is now telling us that waiting longer to get married is the best idea. I can certainly see the wisdom in that (because let's face it, when you're young you're stupid... haha, that's kind of a joke :) ). But I also think it can be a hinderance, because you spend all that time developing your life based on you and your dreams and desires. Maybe even more so for women because they feel they must be "strong" to validate their singleness. So when it comes time to unite your life with another, it's probably going to be harder to do so without feeling like you are "giving up" yourself.
It's interesting to think about. Certainly our culture needs to re-think our ideas on love, marriage, and commitment. Independence is great, but we can't let ourselves get into a pattern of thinking, "I am number one. It's all about me and how you can fit into my life, because don't expect me to change for you." Of course this notion comes as the pendulum has swung from the other direction of women being objectified and repressed for so so so soooooo long. I guess I can only speak for myself, but sometimes you can feel like a traitor to your gender if you want to submit in any way to your husband. Which is also sad.
Oh my, why can't the pendulum just stay in the middle for a while. :)
2 comments:
I think Rob and I benefited from being young when we married, because we did a lot of growing up together. But we were accepting of the fact that we would not stay the same people we were when we got married.
I did read an interesting study in Psychology Today that said that even people who don't believe in traditional gender roles (husband works, wife stays home) tend to get pushed into those roles after they get married. Sometimes they just drift, sometimes one partner pushes it that way.
This is TOTALLY off the subject, but can you believe Chris got booted from AI last night? I was in shock (as was everyone else, it seemed).
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