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• 1 2017-07-11T07:43:26+00:00 "Love in the Age of Arranged Marriages" by David Aka 23 plain 2017-07-12T18:45:29+00:00

  As we look at women in the age of 1880-1920, we learn that many women did not get higher educations, and that they were more and more concerned with winning civil and political rights. But of course, arranged marriages were then the norm. The postcards were a relevant way to learn about love. For young woman who sent these cards were in desperate need of someone to relate to. These cards meant a lot to them. that I analyzed were about a woman named Madeleine who has the flu and fell in deep sleep where she dreamed of being by the beach, and then she met a young man. The young man proposed to the young woman and she accepted his proposal, then the young couple got married the next day. Madeleine and her husband then enjoy their moment together after the wedding. Then, Madeleine was sitting by her husband with a baby that she gave birth to, and the couple were both smiling at the beautiful baby. In the next scene Madeleine and her husband are back at the beach where they first met. Lastly, Madeleine comes to a realization that she was just dreaming about a life that she wanted to have but she couldn’t have it.
            There are a total of 10 postcards in black and white, with pictures and subtitles. All these postcards were sent and written by the same young woman named Bene (short for Benedicte), to be received by her friend Claudia. They were sent, following the order of the story of the serial, between April 1905 and June 1906. We can make the assumption that Claudia replied to Bene, but we do not have these cards.
  Here is the story of the cards as made obvious by their images. The firs posctard depicts a woman who was sitting down in a rocking chair and then suddenly falls asleep. The young lady then wakes up in an unknown place where she is reading an interesting book, the lady makes her way to the beach where she meets a handsome man and she is staring at him, and it seems that she likes the man from a distance. The beach is a good place for couples to meet each other. It is like love at first sight. The woman and man talk to each other and find out they share things in common. They believe they were meant for each other. So after few days of connecting with each other, they get married and one of the parents of the bride or groom looks happy to see that their son/daughter are getting married. The couples look happy; it feels like it was destined for them to be with each other. After few years of being married, they decide it’s time to have a baby. At least, this is my interpretation, as things seem to go very fast on the postcards, as if birth directly followed marriage. They lady gives birth to a boy. The man and women look very exuberant. They baby seems to bring them joy in their life. Then the lady and the man go back to the same place where their love all started. But suddenly, on a last postcard, the lady wakes up to see that she is not with the man anymore. She seems shocked at the fact that her only child and her husband has vanished from her life.
            On postcards there were often confidential messages that were only for women to see. If someone else saw those cards, then the women could be in danger. The women of the years 1880-1920 picked their cards because it was a way for them to express themselves freely. The images and text meant something, and the woman could add their own meanings.
            What we consider today as too “romantic” was also a way for the women to go against forced marriage and gain some free will. Sometimes women did not realize that the lives they wanted to have were fairy tales that never came true. The cards tell us a lot about the society the women lived in and their friends.  At some point, Claudia’s friend Bene is writing to her for fast recovery of her illness. She is also planning a trip with Claudia. Friends like Bene were good to have around because she wrote to her friend regularly about several different topics - and always sent her regards, and best wishes in a way that was often only "phatic" (hence only to signify that she is closed from her friend by thought).
  The society the women lived in forced women to have low self-esteem because they knew their lives would not be as great as they wish it could be. How could women grow if during their whole lives they were trapped in a little bubble where all they did was work, and raise their kids? The women in this postcards battle harsh reality, and set high standards of friendship and love, and for how they want to live their lives. This was the only way for women to overcome their marginal status/experience the outside world.