Lady Crindeyes

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In cleaning out my desk drawer, I found an invitation to a baby shower from earlier in the spring.  Over the years, I have spent plenty of money on gift registries for my friends who were either getting married or having babies.  None of those friends have ever given me a gift--whether it be for Christmas, my birthday, or graduation (and I have had several graduations over the years).  I have gotten plenty of gifts over the years, but they were all from my single friends--or from men who loved, but did not marry--me.

Dear reader, what say you to this strange system our society has devised of acquiring a wishlist for gifts? First, one must announce the life stage that is dawning--marriage or motherhood--and then one goes onto the store or the internet to assemble a list of items that are required for this stage of marriage or motherhood.  Depending on their own financial situation, each friend contributes anywhere from $40-$100 towards the wishlist, ensuring one gets everything one wants.

Have you ever wondered why a new bride is not capable of purchasing her own lingerie?  After all, she will not be sharing the wedding night with her friends, nor will they ever speak of it again, after the shower.  New brides receive expensive kitchenware--and yet, I have never been invited to brunch or any other meal, nor even visited the new home of those who have had a wedding registry for household items.  

Lady Crindeyes is left both perplexed and put off by this rather self-celebrating and self-centered behavior.

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Dear reader,

When this author was in seminary, she noted that some men had kind eyes, and some had critical ones.  Her girlfriends would assess new friendships using the rubric of kind eyes and critical eyes.  And yet, there are times when being critical is a form of ultimate kindness, because it prevents blindness.  and that, dear reader, is what Lady Crindeyes seeks to do in her blog posts.  May her words ring true.

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In the olden days, love was about money and status.  Women married for protection and security, and their fathers and brothers paid a dowry to their new husbands, to ensure that they would be treated well.  Men married for a place in society, and sometimes for the money that a wife brought, acquired from her father.  

This, dear reader, is why we have inherited the custom of taking on a man's last name after marriage.  We transferred from being our father's property to becoming our husband's.  Going from Miss to Mrs. was a change in status, and more often than not, money, rather than actual love, was involved in the exchange.

Why then, must we continue to harp and hurry our single women over the notion of marriage as the next important milestone?  In colleges that have a "ring by spring" culture, is not the bachelor's degree the modern day equivalent of the accomplishments of sketching and sketching, from the olden days?

Although I could have had a Mrs. Degree by the time I was finished with college--as the first suitor came along my second week of freshman year, when I was but 17--this author went on to collect two Master's Degrees instead.  Her grandfather, rather than offering congratulations, warned her not to go further.

"Women with Ph.Ds will have trouble marrying!"

Interestingly, she eventually pursued a Ph.D, because marriage proved not to be worth the trouble.