Marriage is for women the commonest mode of livelihood, and the total amount of undesired sex endured by women is probably greater in marriage than in prostitution.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Marriage often serves as a woman's main livelihood, and she may endure more unwanted sex in marriage than in prostitution.
- In plain terms
- Women often experience more unwanted sex in marriage than in prostitution.
- What can you take from it?
- Marriage can be a source of sexual coercion for women.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What legal protections exist for marital consent?
- How do economic factors influence marital dynamics?
Another view
The statement generalizes without data across cultures.
More from Bertrand Russell
Even in civilized mankind faint traces of a monogamous instinct can sometimes be perceived.
Permalink to quote #105 The psychology of adultery has been falsified by conventional morals, which assume, in monogamous countries, that attraction to one person cannot coexist with …
Permalink to quote #107 Nine-tenths of the appeal of pornography is due to the indecent feelings concerning sex which moralists inculcate in the young; the other tenth is physiologica…
Permalink to quote #104
Related quotes
The most important thing about marriage is that the man must not let the woman feel downtrodden simply because she is a woman and he is a man.
Saddam HusseinSaddam Hussein quote #1 There is a persistent myth that a wife has control over her husband's money because she gets to spend it. Actually, she does not have much more financial autho…
Ellen WillisEllen Willis quote #2 Ne provincialibus quidem matrimoniis abstinuisse vel hoc disticho apparet iactato aeque a militibus per Gallicum triumphum: 'Urbani, servate uxores: moechum ca…
SuetoniusSuetonius quote #3