[lit-ideas] Marriage
- From: Andy <mimi.erva@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2011 06:38:35 -0800 (PST)
We think of marriage as an institution in peril, that in the good old days the
nuclear family was the norm. I had read a long time ago however that
historically marriage was not particularly important as an institution outside
of essentially political unions. (Think empire, Hapsburgs, Willie-Nicky
letters (Kaiser Wilhelm and Czar Nicholas, cousins courtesy of Queen Victoria,
etc.) It makes one wonder if the Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best type
shows of the 50's weren't intentionally promoted as well meaning didactic
fantasies of what life should be like. Children absolutely need a mother and
father who don't have conversations with flying plates, but given reality, how
far that rises above fantasy is debatable, and certainly not just in the U.S.
Here's an excerpt from that earlier link on pre-code movies in the 30's.
Truly, there is nothing new under the sun.
"In Pre-Code Hollywood the sex film became synonymous with women's
pictures—Darryl F. Zanuck once told Wingate that he was ordered by Warner
Brothers' New York corporate office to reserve 20% of the studio's output for
"women's pictures, which inevitably means sex pictures."[177] Vice films
typically tacked on endings where the most sin-filled characters were either
punished or redeemed. Films explored Code-defying subjects in an unapologetic
manner with the premise that an end-reel moment could redeem all that had gone
before.[178] The concept of marriage was often tested in films such as 1931's
The Prodigal, in which a woman is having an affair with a seedy character, and
later falls in love with her brother-in-law. When her mother-in-law steps in at
the end of the film, it is to encourage one son to grant his wife a divorce so
she can marry his brother, with whom she is obviously in love. The older woman
proclaims the message of the film in a line
near the end: "This the twentieth century. Go out into the world and get what
happiness you can."[179] In Madame Satan (1930), adultery is explicitly
condoned and used as a sign for a wife that she needs to act in a more enticing
way to maintain her husband's interest.[180] And in the 1933 film Secrets a
husband admits to serial adultery, only this time he repents and the marriage
is saved.[180] The films took aim at what was already a damaged institution.
During the Great Depression, relations between spouses often deteriorated due
to financial strain, marriages lessened, and husbands abandoned their families
in increased numbers.[181] Marriage rates continually declined in the early
1930s, finally rising in 1934, the final year of the Pre-Code era, and although
divorce rates lowered, this is likely because desertion was a more likely
method of separation.[182] Consequently, female characters in pictures such as
Ruth Chatterton's in Female, live
promiscuous bachelorette lifestyles, and control their own financial destiny
(Chatterton supervises an auto factory) without regret.[177]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Code_Hollywood
Andy
Other related posts:
- » [lit-ideas] Marriage - Andy
