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Marriage: East and West,
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April 24, 2012
This book, written by a Christian couple who were marriage counselors and widely traveled in Asia, is a gem.
The Maces write "We should not begin to understand the East today until we recognize the contempt and disgust with which many Asians view what they consider to be our standards of man/woman relationships. They have a mental picture of the United States as a land of lecherous men, shameless women, sex-mad youth, and children beyond all control. Unfortunately, among those who hold this view are some who have visited the West."
Those were the good old days of the '50s, remember.
The Maces provide a wonder explanation of the Western "gamble" on personal liberty that goes hand in hand with equality between the sexes - and must, therefore, rule out arranged or polygynous marriage.
"We saw the world divided roughly into two major camps, based on two major ideological concepts of human society," wrote the Maces. "The first concept held that the way to make society work successfully is to create hierarchies - to put the majority of the people under the domination of a few leaders who would run their lives for them, tell them what to do, and see that they did what they were told. To try to run either the family or the community on any other basis than this authority-obedience, dominance-submission pattern would, it was believed, result in chaos and disorder. In one form or another, this is the concept of society that has been basic throughout human history, in East and West alike.
"The second concept, however, challenges this. It declares that the best way to make human society work successfully is to give to each individual the maximum amount of personal freedom, autonomy and self-determination that his is able to handle responsibly, and to increase his freedom progressively as he learns to accept more and more responsibility for himself. It is this daring doctrine upon which the Western world of today has staked everything."
The Maces describe this as "the gamble of operating a culture, and the family life upon which that culture is based, on the principle of the freedom of the individual."
Once the Maces had explained this principle to their Asian audiences, they say, criticism gave way to admiration. "For they perceived that at the root of the whole concept lay a belief in the sacred worth of the individual."
"They now saw the chaos and confusion in our family life not as ruin and disaster, but as the price we were having to pay for our tremendous venture in seeking to create a society of men and women free to find themselves and to be themselves."
The Maces note "The evidence is overwhelming that the patriarchal family cannot ultimately survive in the new kind of industrial society that is coming into being in the modern world."
The Maces report with a definite bias toward democracy - both within the culture and the family upon which the culture is built. But they are not judgmental in their descriptions of the horrors and blessings of traditional Asian family life.
Their chapters:
1. The Reign of the Patriarch
2. Change of Model in the West
3. What Is a Woman Worth?
4. Sex in the Orient
5. Romance Is too Dangerous
6. Who Picks Your Partner?
7. Getting Married, Eastern Style
8. Child Wives of India
9. Who Keeps Concubines?
10. Married Life and Married Love
11. The Widow's Fiery Sacrifice
12. Above All, Give Us Children!
13. The Future of Marriage
Appendix: Marriage in Communist China.
I read this book years ago, and the Maces' views have stuck with me. It's written for everyone, without social sciences jargon.
Obviously, we haven't yet found our footing regarding our Western "gamble," but it is likely to be more of a gamble to turn our back on family democracy.
This is a good book to have alongside Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale"; Sarah Hrdy's "The Woman That Never Evolved" and "Mother Nature, A History of Mothers, Infants and Natural Selection"; Arlene Skolnick's "Embattled Paradise, The American Family in an Age of Uncertainty"; and Stephanie Coontz's "The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap."
The Maces write "We should not begin to understand the East today until we recognize the contempt and disgust with which many Asians view what they consider to be our standards of man/woman relationships. They have a mental picture of the United States as a land of lecherous men, shameless women, sex-mad youth, and children beyond all control. Unfortunately, among those who hold this view are some who have visited the West."
Those were the good old days of the '50s, remember.
The Maces provide a wonder explanation of the Western "gamble" on personal liberty that goes hand in hand with equality between the sexes - and must, therefore, rule out arranged or polygynous marriage.
"We saw the world divided roughly into two major camps, based on two major ideological concepts of human society," wrote the Maces. "The first concept held that the way to make society work successfully is to create hierarchies - to put the majority of the people under the domination of a few leaders who would run their lives for them, tell them what to do, and see that they did what they were told. To try to run either the family or the community on any other basis than this authority-obedience, dominance-submission pattern would, it was believed, result in chaos and disorder. In one form or another, this is the concept of society that has been basic throughout human history, in East and West alike.
"The second concept, however, challenges this. It declares that the best way to make human society work successfully is to give to each individual the maximum amount of personal freedom, autonomy and self-determination that his is able to handle responsibly, and to increase his freedom progressively as he learns to accept more and more responsibility for himself. It is this daring doctrine upon which the Western world of today has staked everything."
The Maces describe this as "the gamble of operating a culture, and the family life upon which that culture is based, on the principle of the freedom of the individual."
Once the Maces had explained this principle to their Asian audiences, they say, criticism gave way to admiration. "For they perceived that at the root of the whole concept lay a belief in the sacred worth of the individual."
"They now saw the chaos and confusion in our family life not as ruin and disaster, but as the price we were having to pay for our tremendous venture in seeking to create a society of men and women free to find themselves and to be themselves."
The Maces note "The evidence is overwhelming that the patriarchal family cannot ultimately survive in the new kind of industrial society that is coming into being in the modern world."
The Maces report with a definite bias toward democracy - both within the culture and the family upon which the culture is built. But they are not judgmental in their descriptions of the horrors and blessings of traditional Asian family life.
Their chapters:
1. The Reign of the Patriarch
2. Change of Model in the West
3. What Is a Woman Worth?
4. Sex in the Orient
5. Romance Is too Dangerous
6. Who Picks Your Partner?
7. Getting Married, Eastern Style
8. Child Wives of India
9. Who Keeps Concubines?
10. Married Life and Married Love
11. The Widow's Fiery Sacrifice
12. Above All, Give Us Children!
13. The Future of Marriage
Appendix: Marriage in Communist China.
I read this book years ago, and the Maces' views have stuck with me. It's written for everyone, without social sciences jargon.
Obviously, we haven't yet found our footing regarding our Western "gamble," but it is likely to be more of a gamble to turn our back on family democracy.
This is a good book to have alongside Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale"; Sarah Hrdy's "The Woman That Never Evolved" and "Mother Nature, A History of Mothers, Infants and Natural Selection"; Arlene Skolnick's "Embattled Paradise, The American Family in an Age of Uncertainty"; and Stephanie Coontz's "The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap."
Displaying 1 of 1 review