My grandmother wanted to continue to work as a translator and a teacher after she got married but it would shame Papa. He said “No wife of mine will ever work.” Mama’s mother wanted the same thing, and had the same problem, for the same reason.

These men were embarrassed that others would think they could not provide for their families. Perhaps they were also concerned that their wives would be independent from them and develop power, money, ideas. They wouldn’t need them. As if they stayed in the marriage because they had no other choice. Not out of love, but economic stability. Leave and be homeless, jobless, powerless.

This is economic shackling, foot binding. This is transforming a perfectly able person into a dependent cripple, having to be hand fed. Some entire cultures do this as a matter of course. This is enforced dependence. They fear their wives will leave them. They fear that their wife’s love is tied to their wallets. The women stay only because the alternative is worse. An unmarried or divorced woman is invisible and powerless in some societies.

Independent women frighten men, so they try to shame them or worse, they try to frighten them with sex. They threaten to either remove it, saying “we won’t date you” or impose it, saying “we will rape you” if you don’t get in line, which means under a man’s control and authority.

Awareness is the first key to unlocking the jailhouse door.