A woman in the aftermath of Traditional Conservatism and Feminism

You know, if you are going to get on me for something, you shouldn't be doing it yourself.

Congratulations on being a post man hating woman. My married life is very fine, and we are Orthodox. That's about as traditional as you can get. 

A lower class woman in the 1700s would be mystified by an 1900s banker's wife demanding 'the right to work', as she would live her life working alongside her husband, a partner in his trade. A fisherman's wife would mend nets, clean fish, and keep the books in order. A farmers wife would tend her share gardens and small livestock.

It was only ever rich women who felt 'shackled', and they weren't shackled by the 'patriarchy' at all.

They were shackled by a society which had made consumers out of them, which had robbed them of productive work and replaced it with comfort and large, opulent, and oppressively silent homes.

Mainstream feminism was often born out of the boredom of the well-to-do, not the struggle of poor women, because that struggle filled their lives with rich meaning. Just look through the early suffragettes. All of them are from bourgeois or higher social caste...

A lower class woman in the 1700s would be mystified by an 1900s banker's wife demanding 'the right to work', as she would live her life working alongside her husband, a partner in his trade. A fisherman's wife would mend nets, clean fish, and keep the books in order. A farmers wife would tend her share gardens and small livestock.

Only because she had to. Do you honestly think that should wanted to mend nets, clean fish, and keep the books in order? Have you ever heard someone say, "wow, I'm sure glad I get to spend my life cleaning fish".

Unless you think all women wanted to perform menial tasks to support their husbands, what do you think the alternative was if the she wanted more out of her life?

It was only ever rich women who felt 'shackled', and they weren't shackled by the 'patriarchy' at all.

Were married women allowed/encouraged to start their own careers, if they didn't want to play second fiddle to their husbands? Did women, traditionally, have the option of not marrying?

They were shackled by a society which had made consumers out of them, which had robbed them of productive work and replaced it with comfort and large, opulent, and oppressively silent homes.

Yes, technology has caused traditional relationships to morph into the far more acidic nuclear family, wherein women are plagued by comfort and boredom. However, again, women were only interested in Agrarian era traditional relationships because they didn't have a choice. Once women do have an option (as we're going to see below), they choose not to uphold traditional relationships.

For example, in the traditionalist country of India, where traditional values are still held in high esteem, and the women are notably frugal, there has been a sudden surge of divorces initiated by women (and divorce, obviously, is quite non-traditionalist) So, why would this occur? Quote:

"In India, this means a growing number of women have become financially independent enough to leave abusive husbands, there's been a decrease in the stigma attached to divorce and there are greater opportunities for extramarital affairs in the more mobile, urbanized and interactive society."

(http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/life/2011-11/13/content_14085667.htm)

Rather than women being shackled by economic circumstances, they are being liberated by economic circumstances. When women aren't forced into traditionalist slavery, as soon the stigma and financial dependence is relaxed (not even abolished), women leave their traditional relationships in droves.

Being made "consumers", and these "large, opulent, and oppressively silent homes" have not caused these divorces.

I think that lower class woman gets a lot more fulfillment out of their lives than you give them credit for, precisely because her life is more than her work. It is tied up in community and family. Repairing fishing equipment and preparing fish to be cooked is also a lot more fun and fulfillinh than being a barista, fry cook, or cubicle rat, while also being much more limited in scope. Hell, fishing is literally considered a leisure activity nowadays.

Women had the option of becoming nuns or anchoresses, who often became educated and contributed to the larger culture. Just as common men could become monks. Abbesses could even vote in some pre-modern European elections. So yeah, woman absolutely had the option to not marry. In fact, it was considered quite admirable to sacrifice motherhood and sensory distraction for a rich spiritual and intellectual life, and women who did so were honored.

I don't think that people make good choices, left to themselves. Quite the opposite, really. I think that people generally take the path of least resistance, and that this causes them to suffer in the long run.

Well, I find a lot of traditional Indian culture to be profoundly diseased, so this probably isn't the best example for me, but I'll bite. What are the long term effects of these divorces? Can single women raise children which are as functional as those raised by a married couple? Will the exodus of woman actually reform the behavior of the men? I don't think that the answer to any of those questions is rosy, and furthermore I think that the availability of divorce perverts incentives by making marriage seem like an arrangement of convenience.

Is abuse in marriage bad? Absolutely. But to me the sensible way to tackle that problem is to stigmatize abuse in marriage, not to do away with marriage. I think that the Indian concept of marriage is terrible and has little to do with Christian marriage, so I obviously think that it should be reformed. Look at any map of India that maps abuse rates and you will see that the small state of Goa has drastically lower rates. The Goa states were ruled by Portugal for almost five hundred years, are more deeply Catholic than other areas, and some of the more barbaric Indian practices have been stamped out there.