Marriage is not and never was designed with women’s happiness in mind, says one Australian author who is urging women to avoid it altogether [1].
Clementine Ford says her new book, “I Don’t”, is “an excoriating critique of marriage and the lies that are told to keep women enlisting into its service”, adding that, “everything we’ve been told about marriage, from start to finish, is a diabolical deception”.
Describing marriage as a “cage”, she says when you peel back the layers of history and propaganda, “it’s impossible not to want to completely destroy this inherently misogynistic institution”.
“Marriage is an unsalvageable lie, designed to keep women in service to patriarchy and away from realising our full potential. We should reject it entirely, and refuse on principle to willingly add our names to a list built primarily on the backs of women who had no choice, no rights and no freedom,” she writes.
Speaking to Newstalk, she described the enduring appeal of marriage the result of a “PR campaign that has been run by the marriage industrial complex [2] to make women want those things”.