The Unadjusted Girl, With Cases and Standpoint for Behavior AnalysisThomas, William Isaac
Science
The Unadjusted Girl, With Cases and Standpoint for Behavior Analysis
Thomas, William Isaac
Female juvenile delinquents -- Case studies; Young women
Individualism, on the other hand, means the personal schematization of
life,—making one’s own definitions of the situation and determining
one’s own behavior norms. Actually there never has been and never will
be anything like complete individualization, because no one lives or can
live without regard to a public. Anything else would be insanity. But in
their occupational pursuits men have already a degree of
individualization, decide things alone and in their own way. They take
risks, schematize their enterprises, succeed or fail, rise higher and
fall lower. A large element of individualism has entered into the
marriage relation also. Married women are now entering the occupations
freely and from choice, and carrying on amateur interests which formerly
were not thought of as going with marriage. And this is evidently a good
thing, and stabilizes marriage. Marriage alone is not a life,
particularly since the decline of the community type of organization.
The cry of despair in document No. 37 is from a woman who limited her
life to marriage, probably by her own choice, and is now apparently too
old to have other interests. But on the other hand document No. 49 is a
definition of marriage as exclusively a device for the realization of
personal wishes and the avoidance of responsibility. This may be
compared with No. 71 (p. 122) where a girl organizes her life similarly
without marriage.
49. Girls, get married! Even if your marriage turns out badly, you
are better off than if you had stayed single. I know half a dozen
women whose first marriages were failures. They got rid of their
first husbands easily and have made much better marriages than they
could have made if they had stayed single. Their new husbands
idolize them. One of my women acquaintances who has been married
four times is the most petted wife I know.
My own marriage has turned out well. Everything seemed against it. I
was well known in my profession, and when I married I was making as
much money as my husband. We were of different religions. He drank.
But he had one big quality. He was generous. Since our marriage he
has refused to let me work. Girls, be sure the man you pick is
generous. Look out for a tightwad. If a man is liberal with his
money he is sure to be easy to get along with. Liberal men in money
matters do not annoy their wives in the other concerns of life....
But even if my marriage had turned out badly, I would have been
better off than if I had neglected the opportunity to become
married. I met new friends through my husband. If I had divorced him
at any time, I know many of his men friends would have courted me.
There is something about the magic letters “Mrs.” that gives a woman
an added attraction in the eyes of men. There is a middle-aged widow
in our apartment house that has more men taking her to theatres and
dances than all the flappers and unmarried young women....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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