Love and Marriage Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Love and Marriage - Essay Example od, Zora Neale Hurston narrates how a free black grandmother marries off her sixteen-year-old granddaughter, Janie Crawford, to a landed old black man, Logan Killicks. Another arranged marriage occurs in The Book of Ruth, where Naomi arranges the marriage of her daughter-in-law, Ruth, to a wealthy landowner and relative, Boaz. Logan and Janie’s marriage did not flourish because Janie they are in complete conflict regarding their marriage expectations, whereas Ruth and Boaz’s marriage flourished because they both believe in a traditional form of marriage based on shared social norms and customs, and because Boaz loves Ruth physically and emotionally too. Logan marries with traditional expectations of controlling his wife, particularly in serving his economic needs. Coontz describes traditional marriages that are based on economic goals. Instead of marrying out of love, people married because they needed to secure their financial conditions in life, such as what happens when aristocratic families marry to preserve or improve their wealth (Coontz 69-70). One of the reasons that Logan marries Janie is because he wants someone to help him run his large farm. He asks her to chop woods and to not depend on him for these chores, but Janie retorts that if she would be chopping wood, he would not be getting dinner (Hurston 25). Despite Janie’s protests in handling masculine tasks, Logan leaves her to get a mule that she can manage and to cut up seed potatoes. He also insists that Janie should start helping him more in his farm and stop pretending that she was â€Å"born in a carriage† (Hurston 29). He marries to have a reliable , unpaid helper in his farm. Instead of hiring more people, Logan marries a servant. Besides economic interests, Logan marries for the traditional reason of controlling a woman who will fulfill his social and power needs. Coontz notes that people traditionally married to gain social advantages. Marriage has been â€Å"the most important