Are We Sacrificing Femininity at the Altar of Feminism?

Vijaya Chandrasoma

The principle that that regulates the existing social relations between the two sexes – the legal subordination of one sex to another – is wrong itself, and is now one of the chief obstacles to human improvement”. John Stuart Mill (1869)

I was encouraged by these words of John Stuart Mill to write about the slight but ongoing improvement of the lot of the female sex, whose centuries-long subordination is at last showing some, perhaps minimal, progress towards equality. Progress that has been a long time in the coming, and prevails mainly in the more developed and socially enlightened nations.

There is still a long way to go, especially in the less developed countries, where men use outside factors, mainly religion and tradition, to keep women firmly in their place and under their yoke. Absolute power maintained through enactment of religious laws and barbaric punishments which enable men to have control over education, virginity and extra marital sex, reproductive freedom, dress, marriage and aspirations of women, even permission to play sports or drive motor vehicles.

Of course, total quality between the sexes will never be literally possible. However, both men and women would be well-advised to creatively use the unique and God or evolution given weapons – the physical strength of men, and the feminine beauty and wiles of women, a far more lethal force – to reach the kind of equality and harmony acceptable to both sexes.

Having lived in the USA for a couple of decades, I keep closely in touch with the frequent societal and political changes in a nation that still seems confused on matters of sexual and racial equality. Recently, the Christian right-wing US Supreme Court ruled on restrictions on the rights of women’s reproductive freedom. They are following up with more radical right-wing, “Christian” decisions restricting the liberties of the LGBTQ community and abolishing the educational rights, through Affirmative Action, of minority, especially African American, students. Today’s white supremacist Republican Party, backed by a corrupt Supreme Court, which President Biden politely described as “not normal”, will, if given free rein, take the nation back to the Christian white-dominated environment of the 1950s.

In many other areas, however, women, through the Me Too Feminism movement in the USA, and other nations of European origin, have made significant progress in achieving some equality of income and social justice. My concern is that while achieving such near-equality, they may be denying themselves many of the courtesies and privileges naturally due to them because of their femininity.

Deprived by illness of indulging in those activities that make life worth living, I am now faced with the arduous task of productively filling the void of 24 hours of an excruciatingly long and lonely day. A day in which the highlights are medications, meager and monotonous meals and oxygen masks. Reading and attempts at writing help, but failing eyesight restricts the former and paucity of creative talent the latter.

I try to hasten my recovery and fill my day by resorting to mild exercise. During regular visits to the gym, I strive to revive my ancient muscles with 30 minutes on the exercise bike, a tedious diversion made tolerable by reading. My favorite go to book during these endeavors is re-reading extracts of a narrative written by my father about his childhood, during the ages of five and eight years, at his grandparents’ house in a little village in the south of Sri Lanka.

The other day, I was reading a chapter describing the relationships which existed between men and women in the early 20th century in rural Ceylon. A superficial examination of these relationships may seem, like John Stuart Mill said in his essay on The Subjection of Women, “The relation between husband and wife is very like that between lord and vassal, except that the wife is held to more unlimited obedience than the vassal was”. But when you look deeply at the bond between my fathers’ grandparents, the illusion of such an unequal and dominant relationship is so far removed from reality, it couldn’t be further away from the truth.

My father’s narrative was of a typical marriage in the rural south that his grandparents enjoyed for over 60 years, a relationship steeped in reality and respect. A bond that did not sacrifice the softness of femininity at the altar of equality, that was already implicit. A marriage that did not evolve around that ephemeral ingredient of love, a sine qua non in modern marriages.

I am not for a moment saying that an “arranged marriage” is preferable to what is now quaintly known as a “love marriage”. Just that the former is arranged between partners of similar ethnicity, creed, social and financial status, and physical compatibility (unlike in the very bad old days, the prospective partners are given the opportunity of meeting each other before the knot is tied); while the latter is based, initially, anyway, on physical attraction and desire, “love (lust?) at first sight”, if you will.

Either way, the process of selection of a partner is a crap shoot. The few couples who hit the jackpot of a successful relationship, whether arranged or love, experience all the ecstasies of a marriage made in heaven. The kind predicted by every astrologer consulted by parents before the marriage of their children is contracted. I have a few friends who live in the joy of such marriages, and their happiness drive me to sullen envy, while I pretend to delight in their good fortune.

My guess is that the percentages of successful and happy marriages, arranged or love, run at around 10%, while the unhappy or intolerable ones, the ones which are kept going in resentment for various reasons, usually “for the sake of the children”, constitute the majority.

The institution of marriage, which has served society well for centuries, seems to have run its course, and may be replaced before long by a system where men and women find delight in each other without legal or traditional restrictions. Same-sex marriage, which seems to be gaining legal currency in the west, may well be the harbinger of future fundamental changes in age-old marital values and traditions.

But, for an appreciation of those age-old values, I would encourage you to read extracts from my father’s book on this subject, copied below. His narrative of his grandparents’ marriage in the early 20th century, describes a relationship of mutual respect and acceptance of the duties of each partner, without “unrealistic and superhuman demands on each other’s capacities”.

I am taking the risk, by copying these extracts, of publicly exposing my scant abilities at writing compared to the prose of my father, whose knowledge of, and expression in, the English language, was impeccable.

“Unlike today, when you see so many husbands squirming before their wives, in those days, conjugal relationships were conducted along well-defined lines. This made for much less confusion and for greater marital satisfaction and happiness.

“Neither my grandfather nor my grandmother went to the sort of school we know, They knew no English and less Latin. They happily avoided the sense of inferiority imparted to children of our generation in our hybrid schools. My grandfather studied at the feet of one of the most renowned scholar monks of the southern province and acquired wisdom of an order rarely seen today. His knowledge of the world was incisive and his grasp of the practical philosophy of Buddhism, which was his steadfast way of life, comprehensive. My grandmother had no formal schooling and married my grandfather when she was fourteen. Her understanding of men and matters, which she absorbed from my grandfather, made her in her own right a highly educated and intelligent woman.

“When my grandparents came to know each other, there was naturally no talk of love, for they had not encountered this description of a normal and uncomplicated relationship between male and female. They did know and accept the duties and responsibilities of each partner to a contract of marriage. When they were married, they discharged these with mutual respect, affection, consideration and sometimes with enthusiasm. They had their share of problems, difficulties and disappointments. None of these stemmed from unrealistic and superhuman demands on each other’s capacities.

“As with all married couples, my grandparents had their differences of opinion. But like reasonable human beings, each expounded a point of view without heat or rancour; then they resolved their differences to their mutual satisfaction, thereby also increasing the area of understanding of each other. I can remember one serious conflict of opinion and the manner of its resolution.

My grandmother had a hobby. Her hobby, the seasoning of areca (arecanuts, known for their bitter and tangy taste, raw, dried or seasoned, are routinely used for chewing, with leaves of betel and tobacco), was meant to provide her with pin money. A few arecanut trees in the back garden gave her the idea of growing these on a minor commercial scale. Where before she had to cope with perhaps a hundred pounds of areca per month, she now had to cope with a thousand. To get the best price for the areca, one has to soak it in stagnant water, so that the nut emanates that distinctive aroma that is the ecstasy of the aficionado. To do this created problems.

One can soak a hundred pounds of areca a month in a number of fair-sized buckets. But one thousand? My grandmother soon decided what she wanted: an eight-foot long, four foot wide, three foot tall cement tank, built against the side wall of the kitchen.

My grandmother waited for the propitious moment and selected it with care, which was after a good day at the store and a satisfactory dinner (and going by subsequent stories in my father’s book, a few sips of French brandy he used to bring from his trips to Colombo). After a suitable lapse of time, my grandfather inquired what she wanted. She detailed her hopes and plans for the areca business and waxed enthusiastic over the proposal to build a tank. My grandfather gave his characteristic grunt that due notice of her request had been taken.

My grandfather was no mean carpenter. By evening, he had arrived at what we now call an appreciation of the viability of the project. He informed my grandmother that building a tank was so uneconomic that only someone with a total disregard for the value of money could conjure up such a scheme. My grandmother looked at him, sniffed somewhat disdainfully and went about her business.

Two days later, workmen and materials arrived, and within three days, my grandmother’s tank, exactly as she had envisaged it, was ready to be filled with water.To this day, the tank sits next to the kitchen wall, a silent tribute to the depth of understanding, a half-century or more ago, of men and women welded in conjugal harmony”.

Perhaps an inkling that much can be achieved with the soft sweetness of femininity rather than the naked aggression of feminism.I wish my father had shared these experiences with me when I was a young man. I have no doubt that I would have been a better man, husband and father.