Marriages in the 19th Century Marriage is the joining of two people as husband and wives according to laws and customs. In our society today, women get married of their own free will and gain respect from their spouse. "A dream of the 21st century" is a story written by " Winnifred Harper Cooly". It is about a young women's dream. She imagines that women in the 21st century will have a better place in the society. Ideal marriages in the 19th century were very hard to achieve and most of the time, they were without true love. This short story portrays that women of that time would marry someone to overcome financial difficulties. It also describes the lack of respect between the married couples. Marriages in the 19th century were done for the financial security of the women. "Women's goal were to get married and take up homemaking,"-Shanny Meide, Women's work, p.150 The reason that women wanted to take up homemaking is because the work conditions were very bad at this time. The only way to get rid of that job was by getting married. "Every one marries, and the number of ideal unions is really very large,"-Winnifred Harper Cooley, A dream of the, p.209 The story that "Winnifred Harper Cooley" wrote is on a utopian world, the 21st century. The reason this quote is used is because this quote describes a dream that she was thinking that would be accomplished in the years ahead. If one sees of this situation with a creative aspect, one can think that there would be many possibilities for having very large ideal unions in the 19th century. For example, if the girl, before getting married, was not making and her parents would have enough money to support their daughters, she would have the time to choose the guy of her choice. "If they failed to find a husband, and their parents could not support them, daughters were still obliged to support themselves." -Shanny Meide, Women's work, p.149 All these quotes prove that women did actually get mar...
