How free love could destroy the patriarchy
On Taylor, Travis, Trad wives, Toxic Masculinity and the 19th century’s most radical idea
“This howl came from those men who knew that when women got their rights they would be able to live honestly: no longer be compelled to sell themselves for bread, either in or out of marriage.”
—The Complete History of Women’s Suffrage
If you want to know what got everyone’s unmentionables in a twist in the 19th century I’ll tell you in two words: FREE LOVE. One would think such beautiful, peaceful words like free and love would unite us all but no. Fetch the smelling salts or maybe even your swords. Free Love is perhaps the ideal that if made real might slay the patriarchy once and for all. Our 19th century friends knew it, deep in their souls, that if love were to be free, the world would have to change drastically.
The idea of free love is simple: “Love should be free or else it’s not love.”
Furthermore, relationships should be based on love—not money, status, or trading “protection” for housekeeping. Relationships should begin and end based on the mutual consent of the individuals involved—neither the Church or State should get involved. It sounds nice, right? It doesn’t sound like anything to get in a froth about it. But the opponents feared that if love were allowed to be free, the world would have to change so that women could be educated, independent free agents. They weren’t wrong. So what were they really afraid of?
A fear of free love is a fear of female promiscuity and male vulnerability
Only lady promiscuity obvs lols! Our 19th century friends would say this is about women having sex out of wedlock (oh no). But I think it’s really a fear of female pleasure. It is also a fear of female agency and choice.
When a woman is able to choose a partner for her pleasure, she may make that decision based on something other than just wealth, status or power.
The problem is that men have constructed and perpetuated a narrative that “chicks dig this stuff” and they must have wealth, status and power in order to attract a mate. They did this because they built an economic system that forced women to marry for financial support. By refusing to educate girls, or allow them access lucrative professional opportunities, and culturally defining them as wives/future wives women had no choice but to marry for their very survival. Our world was built on a woman trading sex and housekeeping for the protection of one man. It’s not that chicks dig it, it’s that it’s been necessary to survive.
Free love suggests wealth, status or power might not be enough or even relevant at all. Love is what matters. When choosing a mate, a woman with agency, choice and an eye on her own pleasure might instead consider attraction, friendship, sexual compatibility, emotional vulnerability, kindness, sense of humor, kindness and enthusiasm for dishwashing.
It means, then, that for a man to compete for the love and affection of a free love woman, he would have to start playing a new game, with different rules. Money and power is not enough. He can’t just stomp around, acting lordly. He’ll have to be attentive, emotional, kind, and do the dishes. He’ll have to impress a woman—not other men.
Then there is also the uncomfortable truth to face that, in this system, maybe money and power are the only reasons a woman is with a particular man because the world has compelled her to. How lonely that must feel. How terrifying to confront. Especially when one has not been given the tools or models sit with and reckon with uncomfortable feelings.
A fear of free love is a fear of the breakdown of traditional marriage
In 1871, Victoria Woodhull shocked audiences by declaring that marriage is a form of prostitution:
I can see no moral difference between a woman who marries and lives with a man because he can provide for her wants, and the woman who is not married, but who is provided for at the same price.
This offended everyone’s sense of propriety. It follows that if women didn’t have to get married for their literal survival, maybe many of them would not. They were not wrong—look at the 4B movement today. It is women de-centering men, opting out of marriage and motherhood. And there is a lot of backlash. (Aside: my computer autocorrects “decentering men” to “recentering men” and that is everything wrong with the world right there).
Those who do marry might not wish to stay married, which means divorce needs to be legal and accessible. As early as 1848 Elizabeth Cady Stanton was calling for liberal divorce laws. Men fought hard against this one. Seriously: when Elizabeth proposed this in a convention 1860, a fellow male activist stood up tried to get it stricken from the record. They argued at length. It not only remained in the record but also shows men’s fear when faced with the possibility that the women they loved, cherished and relied upon were only with them because capitalism, patriarchy and society compelled them to be. It forced men to consider that women were not happy with their helpmate role and that the woman they loved most might not even like them.
Even “woke” men of the era struggled with this. As Elizabeth famously said “Many a man who advocated equality most eloquently for a Southern plantation, could not tolerate it at his own fireside.”
With free love, those who stand to lose out are the men who rely on women for food, laundry, comfort and security and would feel deeply ashamed if they had to perform this “feminine” labor themselves. And I want to be clear that this isn’t modern me personally harping on housekeeping; the most frequent arguments against women’s rights from the 19th century is that women would leave their domestic roles if given the chance. Numerous cartoons depict men glumly doing laundry and caring for children while women cast their ballots.
A fear of free love is a fear of financially independent women
They must be the companions of men from choice, never from necessity.
— Victoria Woodhull
If relationships are to be based on love, and if love is to be free, both people need their own money. That means that women need access to education and career opportunities so they can be financially independent. Once a woman is busy at work, making her own money, who is going to cook dinner and do the house keeping?! No one wants to do housework.
In a world of free love, a woman needs to be able support herself if she remains unwed, if she ends up widowed or divorced. She may wish for a home of her own, so laws would have to change to allow women to own property and sign contracts.
What about the children from a union where the love hasn’t lasted? She might end up wanting custody of her own children so those laws would have to change too (and men would no longer be able to use a mother’s love for her children to hold her hostage in unfulfilling or even dangerous relationships).
And once she’s financially independent, she may choose not to have a partner at all (after all—it’s a lot of extra housework and nobody wants to do housework). She may not get married in the first place. Or she might choose not to stay married—women initiate nearly 70% of divorces (and the number is higher for college educated women. My guess is its not because they are smarter than less educated women, but because they have more financial independence/opportunity).
Is the “problem” financially independent women or is the problem that men that have defined masculinity as being the breadwinner, the protector, and not doing housework or childcare? Is the problem that they don’t want to pivot to compete in a free love world? Many of them are up for it and have done it! I have married one of them. But some of them refuse to do the emotional work of reconsidering their toxic masculinity and are trying to force the rest of us to deal with it. Sad!
Taylor and Travis
Those afraid of free love were right to be afraid—the world has drastically changed to make it possible for people to commit to relationships based only on love, staying together only as long as the love lasts. Free love is winning.
My favorite example of free love right now is Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. She does not need him for wealth, status, reputation, publicity, or protection—any of the historical reasons women were forced to marry. What does he have to offer her then? Love, companionship, sexy times, celebration. He doesn’t need her for housekeeping or help playing football. What does she offer him? Love, companionship, sexy times, celebration. They are choosing to be with each other for no reason other than love. It was also interesting to me to witness how much it meant to women (on my social media timelines) to see a man celebrating his girlfriend’s greater wealth and success. He wasn’t threatened by it! Swoon! It’s free love in a very pretty, modern, glamorous form. And I think that’s why some people are quick to criticize it as a publicity stunt or fake because they can’t imagine free love.
(I hope it goes without saying that the rest of us don’t need to be at the Taylor/Travis level of looks and professional success to find free love).
The Trad Wives
As you might imagine, I have thoughts and feelings about Trad Wifery. I’ll start by saying something nice: good for them for making money from housekeeping and childcare! (Or congratulations to the few influencers who manage it).
How I really feel: I hear historical women screaming in their graves, especially for the trad wives who aren’t making money off their labors.
It’s not about the art, science and craft of house keeping. It’s about handing over one’s independence to another—the husband, the kids or all of the above. It’s all well and good until it isn’t. People die. Divorces happen. Love fades or ends. Children grow up and move out of the house. And then what?
Are you really going to spend your one wild and precious life in servitude to husband and kids, with your very survival hinging on one individual?
I will never find the clip I’m about to reference, but the gist of it is this: a woman is talking about how she doesn’t want to spend her one wild and precious life under florescent lights in some office, at some thankless job where she is easily replaced, for shitty wages and for a company that she doesn’t care about and that doesn’t care about her. Opting out of that to cook from scratch, cuddle her own kids and make crafts does sound much more meaningful, intentional and wonderful. Of course, in those terms, it sounds like the better choice.
But is it really a choice? The problem with “choice feminism” here is that one’s personal logical decision isn’t truly a choice. For example: the dad makes more money (because we don’t have equal pay) so it “just makes sense” for mom to quit her job and stay home (because child care is astronomical). And now we are back to the start.
I think capitalism is a villain here, forcing us into “choices” that stifle us all. Why are those the only options anyway?
The 19th century free love activists would not be opposed at all to a woman keeping house as her sole work. One of the Suff’s great battles was for widows to be able to keep their homes, possessions and children if their husband died (because they could not!). They wanted her to have ownership over her work (the creation of a home, the creation of children). I would go so far as to say that house keeping and child care are hard, skilled and valuable jobs that should be compensated with cold, hard cash. Maybe grown ups should get an allowance for doing their chores.
One of my favorite pieces of relationship advice comes from the 1998 Rom Com, The Very Thought of You. I haven’t seen it since 1998 (so I’m not sure if it' holds up) but one line has stuck with me all these years: love and relationships are a choice we make every day. What a gift to wake up every day knowing you are chosen for who you are, not just what you services you provide or need or what circumstances have forced you into.
This can only be true in a world with free love. That’s what financial independence makes possible, what divorce laws make possible, what equal division of household chores makes possible.
Free love needs freedom
The freedom to choose a mate or motherhood or whatever. The freedom to move, to explore, to change jobs or partners (without losing health insurance). The freedom to do fulfilling work, the freedom to be with your family, the freedom to change your mind, etc, etc. I’ll close with another line from Victoria Woodhull, on her tremendous speech on free love: “…in mutual confidence and freedom the very strongest bonds of love are forged.”
Your spellcheck anecdote is hilarious and scary. Society is one massive autocorrect enforcer, telling us that the past is prologue—a trap!— whether we like it or not. But we can override! And overcome! All we have to lose is lousy one-sided relationships/prostitution! Sign me up! Wait, I’m already signed up. Whew.
I loved this, thank you.