The Myth of Marriage and Pukirev’s ‘Unequal Marriage’

I was innocently searching for portraits of young Queen Victoria in floral headdresses (don’t ask), when I came across this painting on a blog called Wedding Clan: All About Wedding.

The Unequal Marriage (1862) by Vasily Pukirev

This is the description that came with the painting:

 “The Arranged Marriage by Wassili Pukirew is almost photorealistic in nature. The bride is depicted looking down as the priest begins the wedding proceedings. It’s difficult to gauge her expression as many emotions play across her pale face. The young bride is surrounded by men and an elderly gentleman who could very likely be her father standing by her side.” – Sonia Renthlei, Wedding Clan

Now, I don’t expect information on the internet to be always accurate, but I am a bit surprised how off the mark the author of this piece is. First of all, the painting is called ‘The Unequal Marriage’. It was, in fact, painted by Vasily Pukirev in 1862. However, the ‘elderly gentleman’ as the writer over at Wedding Clan so aptly calls him, is not the bride’s father, he is the groom. That’s why it’s called an ‘unequal marriage’. The ’emotions’, that supposedly ‘play across her pale face’ are not hard to decipher. It’s despondency and resignation to her fate.  The man standing behind the bride, with his arms crossed, who looks like a poet or a young revolutionary, is her sweetheart.

Pukirev’s painting is a work of social criticism. He attacks the unequal status of women in Russia and society’s lust for money and power at the expense of individual’s happiness.

We like to think of marriage as a union of two loving people, who on that special day celebrate their life-long commitment to each other. But we shouldn’t forget that for most of history that was not the case. Marriage has been a contract that allowed for transferal of goods and property (and women were property, formally or informally) from one family to another. It was a way to secure status and wealth, make alliances, and ensure the continuation of your line with property inherited by legitimate heirs.

I don’t mean to say that a somewhat unsavory history of marriage should mar anyone’s wedding day. Like all institutions marriage has changed and evolved to suit the needs and priorities of the contemporary society. What I do object to, however, is the blind belief in marriage as this monolithic structure and that any change to the institution would bring about its immediate destruction. There is no reason why we shouldn’t redefine marriage. We’ve been doing it for ages! And mostly for the better.

The expression ‘traditional marriage’ is especially jarring because it overlooks the fact that marriage has not always been the same and did not mean the same thing to all people in one place at any one given time. Works of art, literature, historical documents, diaries and letters remind us that marriage has not always been a pretty thing.

There are plenty of compelling arguments for redefining marriage that have already been voiced many times by supporters of marriage equality. I will just add that looking at the painting above, I’m pretty darn glad that marriage has been redefined since the 19th century.

My Favorite Horrible Vintage PSA Videos

We all have a friend who posts those vintage videos on Facebook. You know the ones I mean. The black-and-white kind with people, stiff smiles plastered on their faces, a stern but reassuring voice-over and a (un)healthy dose of retro sexism, homophobia, racism, etc.

This is a list of my own personal favorites. You may have your own collection. Please don’t hesitate to share in the comments.

JESUS CHRIST, MAN! It’s just coffee. Relax! What a bunch of jerks. If you don’t like the coffee, just make it yourself.

This is a handy test. Do you read newspapers with vaguely threatening headlines? Do you go out protesting with signs that read “End K.K.K. Terror “? Are you against Imperialism? Then you might be a commie. You should turn yourself in right now!

Wow! Radioactive tracer on your skin just to advertise some face cream. Harsh.

Yes, Barbara, listen to the gleeful narrator; you deserve to be miserable and depressed because you didn’t brush your hair and interrupted someone at a party.  Why can’t you be more like that Helen girl? Look at her empty, soulless eyes and her robotic responses to every social situation. You’re a terrible little delinquent, Barbara, and should be taken to a psychiatrist for behavior modification with a good dose of electroshocks or a lobotomy.

This one is particularly funny because it’s just so darn helpful at times. It gives you a list of all those good dating tips that you can find in preteen mags. Except here, instead of bullet points, they had to make a 12min short movie about it, with a plot, characters and even alternative endings.

‘Good old days’, indeed!

‘Girls’: The Ballad of Youthful Angst

I watched the pilot episode of the much-hyped HBO series Girls, brought to us by Lena Dunham, who wrote, directed and stared in the show. My feelings about it so far are, well, mixed.

On the one hand, it’s great to see a show written and directed by a young woman, chronicling lives of other women who are trying to figure things out. It may be an old subject, but it’s not like they issue a guide book. Every generation has to figure things out and so it comes as no surprise that there are hundreds if not thousands of works of literature, cinema, poetry and music dedicated to this theme.

On the other hand, I felt unnerved. It was like my life flashed –  or sluggishly dragged itself – before my eyes. Here was Hannah, our main character, who lives a life uncannily similar to my own. She’s in her mid-twenties, has a college degree, works in an office, has some aspirations and unrealistic expectations.

If I wasn’t depressed before, I sure am after watching this.

At one point  Hannah tells her parents that she feels she is the voice of our generation. Or at least a voice of a generation. And I think that speaks to a lot of us twenty-something would-be hipsters. We feel like we have something important to say, but no one is really listening. And if they do listen, they point out that what we’re saying has been said before.

And I know, I know, people roll their eyes and say, “oh, you poor white girls and your petty little problems.” And they have a point. We (and I’m talking about a very specific segment of the population here) have had  a comfy life so far.  We know little about war and next to nothing about hunger. And, yet, we live with a perpetual threat hanging over our heads – there’s terrorism, global warming, proliferation of fanatics and conservatives both abroad and at home. As the baby boomers are getting ready to retire, we are left with a world that is held together by scotch tape and some spit.

Of course, the truth is, every generation faces very similar challenges. There’s always the threat of mutually assured destruction or some disaster looming on the horizon. But here we are, young people, who are told that we must be self-sufficient individuals, but we can’t be selfish; we are all special, but in the end we’re all unemployable; we must make our own choices but every choice we make will be scrutinized and criticized; we must love ourselves, but we are utterly undeserving of love. We’ve been told from a very young age that we can achieve anything we want. But then we’re suddenly left out in the cold with a crumbling  economy, excessive expectations and unrealistic images of success and social worth.

Girls is restrictive in its scope and appeal. The majority of humanity would have a hard time sympathizing with affluent, white women living in New York. I’m sure it doesn’t speak to or for many people, but it in my own case it hit pretty close to home.

Dunham’s show is a comedy. But, to be honest, it felt too real to make me laugh.

Tavi Gevinson and the Sublime State of ‘Meh’

I was just reading Jezebel the other day, as one does, and came across a post about Tavi Gevinson, the tiny fashionista and an outspoken teen feminist, and her talk on TEDxTeen.

As I scrolled down to the comments section, I noticed a lot of responses that went something like this “Gawd, I don’t know why everyone is so into her. I mean, she’s smart but there are tons of smart teenagers. She just got to where she is becasue of her privilege, and what’s with this 90s revival, etc, etc, etc.”

Wow. Way harsh, Tai.

Why do people have this knee-jerking reaction to Tavi? Is it becasue her style is a bit odd? Is it becasue she went mainstream and everyone raves about her? Is it because she’s interested in fashion and we don’t think it’s a serious pursuit? Is it becasue she’s a teenager and we are programmed to snark on anything that’s both teen related and mainstream?

Sure, there are a lot of smart teenagers, despite what the sitcoms might want us to believe, but is that a reason to dislike this one? The number of people who are just as smart as you are should not detract from your own worth as a human being. We live in a world with a real shortage of strong teen characters and role models. Tavi may not appeal to all teenagers, but she can remind them that it is possible to achieve something and there are other things to strive for besides reality TV stardom.

And this brings us to privilege. Yes, in many ways Tavi is privileged. She is white, young, conventionally pretty, middle-class and has supportive parents. This has opened a lot of doors for her; doors that for many teens remain firmly shut. It’s clear that what we need is a better system in place to help bright young people find their footing in the world. That is our responsibility as adults. So maybe instead of hating on Tavi we could think about ways to encourage and help other teens to set goals and work towards them.

And, yes, Tavi was not alive in the 90s, but just because some of us lived through those years doesn’t give us exclusive rights to the decade. No one is forcing any one to like Tavi’s style, but I am surprised that adults have so much disdain for a teenager. I’m all for constructive criticism, but what teenager in his or her right mind would willingly go up and address adults on the issues that are close to his/her heart, if instead of encouragement all they can expect from us is a dismissive shrug and a general ‘meh’.

Now, I’m not an objective observer. I really like Tavi. I like her style and I like her self-deprecating sense of humor, heck, I read Rookie (their makeup tutorials are excellent), and I just like that a teen managed to make something of her life at such an early age. I want to see more teenagers commended for their input. There are scores of teens who do important work and contribute: write blogs, take part in social and political activism, paint, write poetry. They deserve to be acknowledged and celebrated. But this Tavi-hate is counterproductive (not to mention petty). By dismissing one teen with “there are plenty of smart teens out there, I don’t know what makes this one so special” we essentially dismiss all teens. What teenager, nay, what person, would willingly step into the limelight and share their own brand of brilliance with the world if they know that people would just roll their eyes and snark?

You don’t have to admire Tavi. You don’t even have to like her personally. But don’t be dismissive of her. You’re not doing anyone any favors.

What Do I Call My Blog?

I’ve just started this blogging thing and I’m already in the midst of an existential crisis – what do I call my blog? How will it define me? What will I write about? Am I sufficiently interesting to provide entertainment or rage for my fellow human beings trapped in the Web?

The first question – what do I call my blog? – is really the core of all the other ones. How can I sum up everything I care about and everything I want to write about in just a few well chosen words? More than that, these words have to be original. I’m pretty sure there’s already someone out there happily blogging under the title of “My Totally Awesome, Super Cool Blog. No, Really!”

Besides, with a name like that the expectations are too high. I start hyperventilating just thinking about it. So I went with something a little bit less flashy – Angry on Fridays.

No, this is not necessarily a true statement. I am not angry on Fridays. I am very often pretty mellow, of even happy, on Fridays. But it seemed like a nice safe choice: a bit self-deprecating, with a pinch of self-awareness; and now no one will expect me to have a constantly sunny disposition.

I can still post pictures of cute cats, but no one will be too surprised if I start raging about social inequality or a particularly nauseating movie.

WordPress helpfully tells me that I can change the name of my blog whenever I want. So very much like Trent I can say, “I call it Angry on Fridays. But we’re thinking of changing the name.”

Hello there!

Hi there! Welcome to Angry on Fridays (But we’re thinking of changing the name) blog!

This is it. My first blog post as myself. Yep, that’s right, this is my first personal blog. It’s seems that I’m joining this party as everyone else is leaving. But no matter. I’ll still have a good time while the music is playing.

This blog is going to be about things that interest me: feminism, books, sociology and social issues. I might have an occasional post about fashion, food or travel, but I’ll keep those to a minimum.

Enjoy!