How to separate out issues like monogamy and marriage from patriarchy and sexism is beyond me. I know this is old hat (and maybe we've even discussed this very article? It seems familiar. . . . .) , and we've talked about it a lot on this blog already, but it hit me today that maybe it has nothing at all to do with gender and everything to do with technology.
Or maybe the technology element of this story is inherently gendered. After all, much (most? almost all?) of it was invented by men.
Eva and Ingrid and I have talked about how easy it is to not follow through with social commitments because of cell phones--easy to "be late", "get lost" or "not be able to make it" when some one is en route to a planned rendezvous, or even has already arrived.
Maybe the commitment thing is just an outcropping of the way technology now enables us to not be definite.
I miss the days of seeing my Grandmother all ready on her couch with her attendant handbag 10 minutes ahead of time waiting for a friend to pick her up for a lunch date. Her friend would never, ever cancel on her. She used to be able to talk doctors into discharging her from her frequent hospital stays early in order to make a bridge party. I helped her prepare for and serve at bridge parties when she was hosting, and she always had a full house, unless someone was on a cruise, someone's husband had died, or someone had herself died in the interval between the extended invitation and the party date.
So, any recent thoughts on the decline of duty, decorum, decent social behavior as it relates to monogamy and marriage? I would like to see a return of the above alliterative list, in a more feminist, enlightened, less classist and more progressive way, of course.
