Part 9
This Sub Chapter is called Marriage
If she's good-looking enough, and displays her body to tantalize the male eye, she will
position herself to seduce a man with a large income. She will fall in "love". Such
heartfelt emotion, however, has nothing to do with it-for her, marriage is a business
arrangement, an impersonal profit center. Emotion she saves for kitty cats and babies,
who have no money she can exploit. Still, she'll act out her female masquerade,
convincing herself that her feelings are genuine, and her eyes will sparkle with
excitement as she shows off her huge diamond to her envious girlfriends, and whiles
away the hours (she's already quit her job) flipping through brides' magazines and
furniture catalogues. If only her husband-to be could just for a moment glimpse the cold,
hard thoughts running through her head!
But her marriage is not grounded in true love, trust, or friendship, and so it is doomed.
Since sex has always been a bargaining chip to get what she wants from a man, she will
cut it off almost immediately after the wedding. She has achieved her goals and no longer
needs to lure the fish-she has hooked him and now it's time for dinner. Still, despite her
coldness, she will continue to exact monetary tribute from her husband.
Eventually he will tire of her frigidity and her consumption of his money and he will seek
the company of other women who are still plying the tools of their trade. With his large
income he will encounter no problems with attracting lovers-they've been practically
hurling themselves at him all along, heedless of his marital vows. On her part, she can't
comprehend the reason she's lost her attractiveness to her husband. Isn't she still the same
sweet girl he married? Her outrage begins to flame-she calls him a "jerk" and a "bastard".
She is furious because her gold-plated vagina seems to have lost its controlling power. It
doesn't occur to her that she has used her sexuality to attract a rich man, and that he
rightfully expects to get what he paid for. She has acted like a whore-albeit a dishonest
one-and now is shocked when she's treated like one.
Even if her looks are a bit more ordinary, nevertheless she still believes that her body is
worth a high price, and she will hold out for a surgeon or a stockbroker for as long as her
biological clock permits, having failed to notice that the men with the level of salary she
desires will pass her by in favor of a woman with superb looks or youth. But she is
encouraged by an orgy of romance novels and movies-of-the-week in which the heroine
discovers that the rich, handsome bastard is in reality a nice guy after all, only tragically
misunderstood by women not as worthy of him as she is; and even though she might not
be as glamorous as the rest of his paramours, he's been tortured by a secret crush on her,
but has been afraid to proclaim his love because all along he's been intimidated by her
intelligence. She truly believes that such fairy tales come true in the real world; in her
heart of hearts she imagines herself a latter-day Cinderella, patiently waiting for Prince
Charming to come riding up on his white steed to sweep her off her feet in a gush of
romantic ecstasy. So she passively marks time, spending her weekends alone, or going
out to dinner with her girlfriends, convinced that her true love will find her without any
effort at all on her part.
Unfortunately, because of the depression she's been suffering over the string of "losers"
who have been asking her for dates, she's been stuffing herself on an eating binge, and
the only man who comes knocking on her door is delivering a pizza, and he certainly
couldn't earn enough money to qualify him as a suitor. Yet she, too, will profess to her
friends that what's important is to find a man who will love her for herself.
But when too many birthdays fly by and her magical thinking begins to grow stale, and
her delusions fail to materialize, she will finally "settle" for an average guy with a decent
job and a not-too-shabby roof over his head. But inside, she's seething with jealousy. One
of her girlfriends married a dentist, and another just got engaged to a man from a rich
family. Why is she cursed with such bad luck with men? For what possible reason should
she have to miss out on the good things in life? It would take far too much effort on her
part to go back to school or train herself for a more lucrative career. Money is to be taken,
not earned.
So she has plans for her poor husband. Soon after their marriage, she begins to wield her
sexual tool like a club, hounding the bewildered sucker into greater earning power. She
doesn't pout, like Lucy Ricardo, brattily crying and stamping her foot when Ricky says he
can't afford to buy her a fur coat; and withholding sex is too benign a weapon. Instead,
she attacks his male ego, shaming him, belittling him, flogging him remorselessly to find
a higher-paying job. jabbing an accusatory talon at him, she snivels that he's not a "real
man" unless he finds the means to support her in style. He is a "loser". He has "ruined her
life". Going home for him has become a living, sexless hell. What happened to the "nice
girl" he married, who swore that all she ever wanted from a man was respect? Love,
which had never really been an issue in the first place, has fled in disgust.
And when he straggles home after his new 60- or 70-hour work week, does she offer
sympathy, or do they talk about their plans for a lifetime of shared happiness? No. She
complains that he's working too much, not paying enough attention to her. And he's still
not making enough money. She's tired of working and wants to quit her job so that she
can go shopping in the afternoons with her girlfriends who married successful men. She
lives in a world of invisible self preoccupation. To her a man is a workhorse, a slave
worthy only of exploitation.
In her dreams, she's still having visions of the rich handsome prince who will carry her
off to his enchanted castle. After all, it's only what she deserves-it's the price tag on her
vagina. And if by some remarkable chance such a man did happen to ride along, she
would divorce her poor serf husband in the time it took her to climb up into the saddle.
