Old Man and Old Woman as Marital Guide
"Old Man and Old Woman," a retelling of a Native American myth by Chewing Blackbones, a Blackfoot Indian, should serve as a lesson to all couples in how a good relationship works. In today’s society there is a great need for people to understand how to make their relationships successful. As the divorce rate gets higher every year; small children have begun to think that getting a divorce is something that is normal and to be expected. This story shows how to work through problems with a give-and-take approach where you make compromises, yet still stand up for yourself when you believe your convictions cannot be compromised.
The Old Man and Old Woman agree on certain rules from the beginning. It is important for couples to agree on certain points when they begin a relationship. Problems might arise later if certain ideals and standards for behavior are not established from the onset. The man and woman in the story agree that the man will have the first say in all decisions and the woman the second. For couples in today’s society the ideals that are established are more likely have something to do with religion, the number of children a couple wishes to have, or who should work in the family. The establishment of these principles will help couples to stay together longer and also be happier.
While the Old Man and Old Woman agreed, from the beginning, that the man should have first say and the woman the second, they both had equal input into decisions. When they were discussing the duty of tanning the hides, the man said "the women will have the duty . . . they will rub the animals’ brains on the hides to make them soft and scrape them with scraping tools. All this they will do very quickly, for it will not be hard work" (539). The woman did not completely agree with the man’s ideas about how this should be done. The woman suggested, "they must tan hides in the way you say; but it must be very hard work, so that good workers may be found out" (539). The Old Man and Old Woman used compromise in making this decision. While the woman had the final say, she did agree to part of the man’s original idea, while also adding some input of her own.
A History of Marriage by Stephanie Coontz speaks of the recent idealization of marriage based solely on love. Coontz doesn’t defame love, but touches on the many profound aspects that have created and bonded marriages through time. While love is still a large aspect Coontz wants us to see that a marriage needs more solid and less fickle aspects than just love. The first chapter begins with an exploration of love and marriage in many ancient and current cultures.
Finally, even though, for a long time, the roles of woman in a relationship have been established to be what I already explained, we see that these two protagonists broke that conception and established new ways of behaving in them. One did it by having an affair with another man and expressing freely her sexuality and the other by breaking free from the prison her marriage represented and discovering her true self. The idea that unites the both is that, in their own way, they defied many beliefs and started a new way of thinking and a new perception of life, love and relationships.
The opinions demonstrated in the two tales are extremely unlike, of course with such different stances a point of view will be preferred by different people. In these stories both couples end up in a successful relationship, but one has a stronger base. It will differ from person to person; however, most would agree a marriage based off of equal respect would be the best choice.
Union between two quarrelsome objects can be the most amazing creation in certain situations, take for instance, water. Originally, water was just hydroxide and hydrogen ions, but together these two molecules formed a crucial source of survival for most walks of life. That is how marriage can feel, it is the start of a union that without this union the world would not be the same. A Hmong mother, Foua took it upon herself to perform a marriage ceremony for the author of “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down”, Anne Fadiman. In this miniscule event, two cultures with completely conflicting ideas came together to form a union. In this union, an American was celebrating an event in a Hmong way, truly a collision of two cultures.
Poverty is a prevalent issue that many Americans face and it has been a serious problem over centuries. Every year there are people at risk of hunger. Combating poverty is not an easy task; there are many underlying issues that need to be addressed. Fortunately there are policies in place to assist with in decreasing the negative effects of poverty; however, some of the policies may cause people to become more dependent on government assistance. As a result it may cause a rise in taxes to support these policies and programs. Poverty is very common and widespread around the world. Unanswered questions that arise in regards to poverty are what can be done to resolve it, what are the causes of poverty, and is it possible to eliminate poverty entirely. Based on research and my personal experiences, government aid and housing are some resolutions to decrease poverty.
Michael Katz of the University of Pennsylvania defines welfare in this quote “The welfare state is how a society insures against the risks inherent in human life - unemployment, poverty, sickness, and old age - that in one way or another confront everyone.” (Katz). Accordingly the United States’ citizens and government has been thought of as charitable, but unfavorably, government intervention might be altering United States’ citizens’ charita...
Several citizens in America may not empathize with many social conflicts which transpire in America. Unfortunately, when poverty is mentioned people of diverse gender, race/ethnic, and age can relate to poverty in America. Although several societies have not experienced the undesirable measures of relative or absolute poverty; several people know poverty exist through many channels, such as the media, social networking, history and charities.
Tan shifts tones throughout the paper but ends with a straightforward tone saying “there are still plenty of other books on the shelf. Choose what you like” (Tan 4), she explains that as a reader an individual has the right to form their own opinion of her writing but if they do not like it they do not have to read it because she writes for her own pleasure and no one else’s. All of the women took separate approaches to dealing with their issues but all of these resolutions allowed them to see the positive side of the
Many reforms in the UnitedStates have been passed to help fight against the “War on Poverty”; but it has not been effective in eradicating poverty in the U.S. There are about 46 million people who are living in impoverished conditions and poverty continues to be a social issue in this country (Heritage Foundation, 2011) In the beginning, our country was formed under the belief that “this land is the land of opportunity and if we worked hard enough the American Dream can be gained” (Schwarz, 1997). People immigrate to this country today in hopes of becoming rich so they could gain a better life. In spite of coming to this country for a better life, many are faced with the lack of skills and money to succeed. In the end, most will end up in unskilled labor jobs that can barely support their families. Poverty continues to be a growing social issue because people have the “ inability to provide necessities like clothes, healthcare, and shelter” (Heritage Foundation, 2011) to help themselves and their family; therefore, many sacrifices have to be made to insure their survival. Yet many reforms made to help people living in poverty are based “off of outdated statistics” (Henslin, 2014, p.276) and are not enough to help the lower class maintain a sufficient standard of living. Poverty relates to conflict theory since the poor are struggling just to get by. Government programs such as Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), housing assistance, and food stamps provided by the government are not enough to help the poor gain social mobility.
Ninety percent of Americans marry by the time that they are fifty; however, forty to fifty percent of marriages end in divorce ("Marriage and Divorce"). Love and marriage are said to go hand in hand, so why does true love not persist? True, whole-hearted, and long-lasting love is as difficult to find as a black cat in a coal cellar. Loveless marriages are more common than ever, and the divorce rate reflects this. The forms of love seen between these many marriages is often fleeting. Raymond Carver explores these many forms of love, how they create happiness, sadness, and anything in between, and how they contrast from true love, through his characters in "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love". Four couples are presented: Mel and Terri, Nick and Laura, Ed and Terri, and, most importantly, an unnamed elderly couple; each couple exhibits a variation on the word love.
Brockmeier’s short story represents a damaged marriage between a husband and a wife simply due to a different set of values and interests. Brockmeier reveals that there is a limit to love; husbands and wives will only go so far to continually show love for each other. Furthermore, he reveals that love can change as everything in this ever changing world does. More importantly, Brockmeier exposes the harshness and truth behind marriage and the detrimental effects on the people in the family that are involved. In the end, loving people forever seems too good to be true as affairs and divorces continually occur in the lives of numerous couples in society. However, Brockmeier encourages couples to face problems head on and to keep moving forward in a relationship. In the end, marriage is not a necessity needed to live life fully.
As the story begins, the narrator's compliance with her role as a submissive woman is easily seen. She states, "John laughs at me, but one expects that in marriage" (Gilman 577). These words clearly illustrate the male's position of power in a marriage t...
Immediately, the narrator stereotypes the couple by saying “they looked unmistakably married” (1). The couple symbolizes a relationship. Because marriage is the deepest human relationship, Brush chose a married couple to underscore her message and strengthen the story. The husband’s words weaken their relationship. When the man rejects his wife’s gift with “punishing…quick, curt, and unkind” (19) words, he is being selfish. Selfishness is a matter of taking, just as love is a matter of giving. He has taken her emotional energy, and she is left “crying quietly and heartbrokenly” (21). Using unkind words, the husband drains his wife of emotional strength and damages their relationship.
a struggle between love and family tradition and ways. In the two stories a young girl
Looking at the bigger picture, 16.4 million of our nation’s future is technically poor. Living in poverty is defined by: An individual living alone has to make $11,770 or less per year to be considered living in poverty; two people living together has to make $15,930 or less in a year; for each household member you have to add $4,160 starting from $11,770. For example, if a household has nine members then the income has to total over $45,050, otherwise that household would by definition be living under the poverty line. All though many numbers, facts, and statistics have been presented, people may never truly understand what it is like to live in poverty until they themselves are unfortunate enough to live in poverty. America, a country which people are free to pursue all of their life dreams, a country which people enjoy success beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, a country where everyone who inhabits it is equal, yet America is a country plagued by poverty which takes a toll on health, education, and our