Equality and Chivalry Do Not Mesh

Fights are bad enough, but when a relationship goes kind of sour, the women’s lib jumps at the chance for a divorce favoring the “victimized wife.” Women used to be afraid that all men wanted to do was to get in their pants. As Allende’s Eva Luna summed it up, “Sex without love makes me melancholy” (Allende 248). However, nowadays more than ever, men have to be wary that all women want to do was to get in their wallets. Marriage is supposed to symbolize a special bond, a unique union, between two people. More and more, it now represents a method of getting selfish benefits, and this abuse of divorce is not restricted to only to the male gender. In fact, Paul Akers writes:

Feminist propaganda unfairly paints virtually all domestic violence as fitting this simple-minded and satisfying vision of male evil. Sure, there are some chauvinist pigs, and some men can be downright violent. There are brutal men out there who pound their cowering wives, and these guys deserve to be in jail, castrated, and then hanged. However, everything should be taken in the context of the situation. Women can be just as bad as men. In the words of Buster B., “Men, upon closer inspection, aren't half as bad as women think they are. Women, upon closer inspection, are almost as bad as women think men are” (B., “Projection.”). My overly feminist ex-girlfriend slapped me in the face whenever she got angry at me. She considered this as perfectly reasonable behavior. However, her complaint was that I was working overtime so often that I did not have time for her. She was horrified when I slapped her back, but I said that so long as she felt free to slap me, I would feel free to return the favor. After all, she was always striving for equality - well, here’s equality for her! In the end, I won the battle when I finally relinquished the truth to her - I was working overtime to afford her birthday gift.

Moreover, let us not forget that as a rule, ex-wives receive 50 percent of the marital property. To counter the words of Eva Luna, divorce without half of what we own makes us men melancholy. “A lot of women get bored in their marriages,” says Psychologist John Guidubaldi of the U.S. Presidential Commission on Child Family Welfare, “If they can forecast all these benefits, why stay married?” (Akers) Why stay married, indeed, or even file for a divorce when one can purchase a million dollars’ worth of insurance for a spouse instead and then kill him or her off? Nevertheless, even in situations like these, the fact of the matter is that inequality abounds. The unfairness is in the tendency for a husband to immediately become a suspect when his first wife dies, like in the case of Scott Peterson, while a wife would have to be with her second or even third husband terminated in order to garner the same suspicion. Bettie Beets of Payne Springs, Texas had to kill her fifth husband before authorities apprehe

Some topics in this essay:
I’m People, Anna Quindlen, Accounting Doesn’t, Eva Luna, Valentine’s Day, Sexist Garbage”, Family Welfare, Middle East, Women Angier, Natalie Angier, eva luna, doors women, allende’s eva luna, moreover women, closer inspection, women children, allende’s eva, bad women, chauvinist pigs, context situation, women’s rights,