An Unconventional Woman

The two passages I have chosen correlate with each other. They assist the novel in telling why Marie is the way she is. The theme running through the story is the power of men over women in marriage. Marie Rogers, the main protagonist in Agnes Smedley's novel Daughter of Earth is disgusted by her father's actions. Her father asserts his dominance over her mother by threatening to beat her, and cheating on her with another woman because he can. He deserts his wife and family at months at a time after they have argued, and moves them to different towns without there consent. Her parent's marriage represents everything she does not want out of life. Mrs. Rogers is unable to lift her hands out of the soapy water because she is fatigued from working so hard and does not have the stamina to do anything else. Her mother is exhausted from the struggle to feed and clothe five children without much help from her husband. Marie sees that only a woman who makes her own money is free.

The first passage shows why Marie Rogers does not believe in marriage and refuses to get married. The passage begins with, "One day angry voices came from the back yard. I hurried to the kitchen door. My mother was standing with her hands in a tub of wet washing, her face as ashen as it had been when Helen went out into the night. She seemed unable to even lift her hands out of the water. My father stood near her with a short doubled-up rope in her hands. They heard me and looked up.

"Marie, he goin' to hit me with that rope!" Her voice was lifeless.

It was as if she had turned to me for help against him. I saw him standing there, broad-shouldered, twice her size, the tobacco juice showing at the corners of his mouth. He was going to beat her...he had of late spoken admiringly of men who beat their wives. Still he had not carried out the hidden threat. Something held him back; he had had to curse and accuse much to whip himself up to this point" (Smedley 112).

After being a close observer of her parent's marriage, she realized that marriage gives men power over their wives. A woman becomes her husband's chattel has she trades her virginity for his name. Marie's father believed that beating Marie's mother would give him back his authority. The only reason her father did not beat her mother is because she Marie stood up to him.

Mr. Rogers has lost is authority over Annie. Annie earns her own money, which frees her from taking orders from any man especially her father. Only married women had to take orders so by touching Annie, Mr. Rogers had violated the code of honor. He berates Annie for not giving her money to her mother, and accuses her of being a prostitute. Annie obviously does not care, what she has does only that she is making her own money (Smedley 78).

When Marie found out that Annie was a prostitute, she loathed her sister for choosing that profession. Later on in the novel, she observes that it is better to be a prostitute and make your own money than be subjugated to the will of a husband. On the other hand, she afraid of the sexual intimacies that is required by marriage. Her intense dislike of the sex act comes from sleeping in the same room as her parents as a young child and hearing her parents have sex and the sounds her mother made. At a young age, she learns that, male animals are more important than female animals and that this is an accurate picture of the world.

The second passage I chose tells how much Marie hates the institution of marriage and what it does to intelligent females. Marie states that, "In my hatred of marriage, I thought that I would rather be a prostitute than a married woman. I could then protect, fed, and respect myself, and maintain some right over my own body. Prostitutes did not have children, I contemplated; men did not dare beat them; they did not have to obey. The "respectability" of married women seemed to rest in their acceptance of servitude and inferiority. Men don't like free, intelligent women. I considered that before marriage men have relations with women, and nobody thought it wrong--they are but "sowing their wild oats". Nobody spoke of "fallen men" or men who had "gone wrong" or been "ruined". Then why did they speak so of women? I found the reason! Women had to depend upon men for a living; a woman who made her own living, and would always do so, could be as independent as men could. That was why people did not condemn men" (Smedley 189).

She acknowledges that, "she would rather be a prostitute who is able to protect, fed, respect myself, and maintain some right over my own body, than be some man's wife" (Smedley 187). Prostitutes have no need for children, there job unlike a married woman is not procreation, but pleasure. Men did not have the right to beat them and prostitutes don't have to obey them. Men prefer women they can mold and tell to do whatever they want. Women are only respectable if they are married. It is the only prestige