Getting Married · Chapter
The Economic Slavery of Women explained
This chapter argues that marriage, as currently constituted, forces women into economic dependence on men, reducing them to a form of sex slavery compounded by economic necessity.
What happens
This chapter argues that marriage, as currently constituted, forces women into economic dependence on men, reducing them to a form of sex slavery compounded by economic necessity. It critiques the 'husband hunting' that mothers are compelled to perform, equating marriage with prostitution in terms of economic compulsion, and calls for broader social reforms to make women independent of the need to sell themselves in marriage.
Free preview opens on this chapter — companions, themes, and character notes appear beside the text.
Narrative arc
Story tension across the book — this chapter sits in Rising action.
- Setup
- Escalation
- Breaking point
- Aftermath
- Closing
This excerpt marks the dramatic climax because it delivers the story’s emotional and psychological peak by exp…
Full beat labels and climax notes unlock in the reader.
Follow the arc while readingThemes in this chapter
- Economic Dependence of Women
The chapter explicitly argues that women without property or marketable talent are forced into marriage as their only means of livelihood, equating it to economic slavery.
- Hypocrisy and Social Pretense
The text exposes the hypocrisy of a society that calls the economic compulsion of marriage 'purity, home, motherhood, respectability' while it is fundamentally a form of sale.
Key passages
“To a woman without property or marketable talent a husband is more necessary than a master to a dog.”
For a woman who lacks wealth or employable skills, finding a husband is as essential for survival as a dog needing an owner.
This stark comparison underscores the economic desperation driving women into marriage.
“The truth is that family life will never be decent, much less ennobling, until this central horror of the dependence of women on men is done away with.”
Family life cannot be truly respectable or uplifting until the fundamental problem of women's economic reliance on men is eliminated.
This states the chapter's core thesis that economic dependence corrupts the very idea of family.
“At present it reduces the difference between marriage and prostitution to the difference between Trade Unionism and unorganized casual labor: a huge difference, no doubt, as to order and comfort, but not a difference in kind.”
Currently, the only distinction between marriage and prostitution is like that between organized labor and casual work—a matter of stability and conditions, not of fundamental nature.
This provocative analogy equates marriage with prostitution under capitalism, emphasizing the economic coercion in both.
