In the past year, I have overheard no fewer than four women in my personal acquaintance suggest that their lives would be completely solved (and that their creative potential would be completely realized) if only they had married (or could marry) a rich man.
These are women whom I have admired for years. They are different in age, in background, in passions, in upbringing — but they are each strong and smart and competent and completely healthy in mind and body. And each one of them still dreams of snagging a guy with money, who will (presumably) remove all their obstacles and solve all their problems.
The most startling example was a woman who is a powerful, famous writer. This woman is ardent and outspoken feminist. An example to all human sisterhood. A person I have looked up to forever. We did a reading together recently. A young, female audience member asked her, “What advice to you do you have for aspiring writers?” The famous author replied: “Marry a rich man.”
When I heard this, my soul let out an anguished howl. I simply could not contain myself. I cried out, “NOOOOOO!”
The author turned to me in genuine surprise. “But how will she get her writing done, if she has to pay the bills herself?” she asked.
People, listen to me. I wrote my first two books when I was a diner waitress and bartender. I worked as a nanny and a cook, and I stocked other people’s books in a bookstore. I did whatever work I had to do, and I honed my craft in my stolen hours. Hours that belonged solely to ME, because I had bought them myself.
Toni Morrison wrote her first books as a single mother. She did it by getting up at 4:00am while her young son slept, and putting in the hours at the typewriter before she went to her fulltime paycheck-earning job.
My friend Ann Patchett wrote her first books while she was a broke-ass waitress at TGI Fridays in Nashville.
Her friend, the poet Lucy Greeley, wrote her books while she was in numberless hospitals, enduring countless reconstructive surgeries from a lifetime spent battling bone cancer.
Cheryl Strayed, Anne Lamott, Sue Monk Kidd, J.K. Rowling…do you want me to go on?
There are no rich men in any of these stories.
Please help me to understand, then, why this fantasy of the rich man endures. Why would a brilliant, gifted, healthy, powerful woman still hold to the hope that someday a Mr. Darcey will arrive, and open up a world of possibilities that she somehow cannot open for herself?
Whenever I hear this fantasy expressed, in any form, I want to say, “WHERE IS YOUR DIGNITY, WOMAN?”
I was practically a baby in the cradle when I first heard Gloria Steinem say that we should strive to become the men we always wanted to marry. I took it to heart. That was 40 years ago. Does it need to be said again?
Can you help me wrap my mind around why this story endures? Can anyone explain this dream in a way that makes any sense to me? Because I really don’t get it. In fact, it makes me want to spit nails and blow fireballs through my ears.
AUTONOMY IS THE GOD OF WOMEN. Never forget that.
Hell, autonomy is the god of everyone.
Which is what I told all the aspiring young writers in the audience that night. And I also told them: “Now go get yours.”
Onward,
LG
suddenlysinglewomen 
If women can be so independent w/out a (rich) man, and these women can accomplish so much, then why is every single woman out there living to get married or re-marry. If men aren’t that important, than why do not single women cherish their single girlfriends & their lives. If all these “divorced women” were in marriages with cheaters & adulterers, why would they want to take that chance again; most men I have ever heard about all committed adultery. Even in second & third marriages….
Let’s face it; this is a couple’s world, and most women cherish their marriage because of the “fun ” lifestyle they have, simply because they are married. Even when a single women still has money, she is taken to lunch by her “married friends.”, but they sure do not invite the singles out at night w/ their hubbies, or to join them on trips.
Married women DO NOT want single women along w/ them & their husbands. It is really sad that single women feel totally out of the universe if they are not married, and they will seek “companionship” at any cost. I, personally.would not have taken a second look at most of the men single women re-marry. I know that most people think this is our only life, and we should make the most of it; however, tomorrow may be our last day here…….and the only thing in this world that counts is eternity….and spending our time on looking for a husband is not putting our
talents into getting into heaven. Yes, women can make it on their own, but it is pitiful that the married women are the ones who rule the universe….and exclude the singles from letting them have a life.
When we were married, did we include good looking single women in our “groups?” And if one re-marries again, will these women then exclude all their newly found single friends? YES!! They will!!!!! Good luck to all of you who need a man to exist in happiness and do not concentrate on the heavenly things on this earth!!! Jinx