There is one college class I had my senior year that I didn’t really understand too well at the time, yet it has left an indelible impression upon me and I find myself thinking of it and the assignments from time to time as my years increase.
I was 22 at the time I was in this class called Family Life at the University of Delaware. I am now 57-years-old and two marriages later, two children, two divorces, and a lot of therapy and self-help as well as observing and holding the confidences of many women friends over many years – I get it.
From the first day, I thought this class – its text book(s) and its professor – was very odd! Perhaps it was the unconventional teaching methods, but I now hold this class in high regard with ideas burned into the resources of my mind – information and insights I only unpacked years later…
Being the woman I’ve become today, I would sign up for a class like this in a heartbeat! That is, if I had the opportunity and luxury of taking a college class again.
The professor – as I remember her – was a fairly young woman, who often wore floor-length hippie dresses to class and her long hair in braids wound into two buns on each side of her head, like Princess Leia. Our main text book was Goddesses in Everywoman: Powerful Archetypes in Women’s Lives Paperback – 1985 by Jean Shinoda Bolen.
Because at the time, I had undergone an intense “born-again” religious experience during my first year of college and was having difficulty integrating/evaluating some of the theological ideas I was being exposed to with ideas, information and history being presented in secular/humanistic college courses, from the first day of the class I was afraid to explore and embrace ideas found in a book with the word “Goddesses.” In my simplistic understanding, it was as though the word itself was somehow wrong or dirty.
Today, I am able to embrace both my Christian faith and other sources of truth. All truth is God’s truth. I recently listened to a talk on the RobCast with Alexander Shaia, who stated that “Myth is a story that is so true that it can only be told in metaphor.”
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I can almost remember every unusual assignment or exercise – and I’d like to share my memories of these.
The earliest memories of the class involved reading, analyzing and discussing Greek myths and classic fairy tales involving women, with a focus on the relationship dynamics and patterns between the women figures themselves and also between the female and male figures. I can’t say that I remember any Greek myth in detail – what I took away from it years later in a very practical way was that there are repeated and recognizable patterns (or themes) found in families, relationships and marriages.
I also remember studying some of the classic multi-cultural fairy tales such as Cinderella. These are stories that tell of family dynamics that are so deeply human as to transcend any one culture. While each culture may have its slight variation on the fairy tale, the plot is pretty much the same.
I am pretty sure that the first unusual in-class assignment must have followed a discussion of Zeus giving birth to Athena. According to Wikipedia,
“In the classical Olympian pantheon, Athena was regarded as the favorite daughter of Zeus, born fully armed from his forehead.[86][87][88][h] The story of her birth comes in several versions.[89][90][91] The earliest mention is in Book V of the Iliad, when Ares accuses Zeus of being biased in favor of Athena because “autos egeinao” (literally “you fathered her”, but probably intended as “you gave birth to her”).[92][93]
(Above)
“Athena is ‘born’ from Zeus’s forehead as a result of him having swallowed her mother Metis, as he grasps the clothing of Eileithyia on the right; black-figured amphora, 550–525 BC, Louvre. – Wikipedia
We were asked to bring a pillow and blanket to the next class and told that we were going to re-create our own birth experience. In class, the lights were dimmed, relaxing music was put on and we all lay on the floor with pillows and blankets. As we closed our eyes and relaxed – an attempt was made by the professor to verbally help us visualize and re-experience our birth at each stage of the process – with us imagining and adding in anything we may have known of the actual happenings – such as C-section intervention.
I recall another class where we listened to the song by Carly Simon – That’s The Way I Always Heard It Should Be – 1971 and then discussed the details and themes of the song and some students may have shared from their own home experiences and observations of their parent’s marriage. I recall also discussing the pros and cons of living together and generational differences at that time surrounding this idea.
There were two particular major projects/assignments toward the end I found quite difficult. I believe much of our grade depended on us choosing a myth or fairy tale we thought most represented our own life story (mind you – at age 22….) and to re-write it with our own personalization. If we could not see our own story in any of the common mythologies and fairy tales, then we were to create our own fairy tale.
I remember the professor said that we had until midnight to turn the assignment in on the due date and gave us her home address – telling us we could leave it in her mailbox if necessary – for those who procrastinate.
Well, that procrastination option was certainly for me. I found it very difficult to see my own unique childhood story in any other we had studied, so I created my own with the three characters of Tired Old Daddy, Little Girl and The Storm. I remember finding her mailbox in the dark, probably close to midnight, in my first car – an old 1969 Toyota Corolla that only half ran…
The professor gave me an A+ on the assignment, adding a personal note: “I know this was very hard for you.” I still have the original copy of it – as I keep many things I consider worthy landmarks somewhere in my closet bins. I attribute this writing assignment to be the beginning of many personal short stories I have written from time to time in subsequent years, it was a valuable exercise in self-expression.
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There was one other very difficult assignment toward the end of the class. We were to find a partner and do a “marriage contract” together. Our partner could be someone we were dating, a friend or even a random stranger we might ask in the dining hall.
At the time, I was engaged to my future first husband and it was spring semester – not long before our June 1 wedding. We went through the questions together – questions we were to write into a detailed “pretend” pre-marital contract – outlining everything from division of household labor, work expectations, pre-nuptial agreements, child bearing, child rearing, friendships with people of the opposite sex, grounds for divorce, finances, etc.
The one question I quite recall – because my fiance and I ended up in a tearful argument over it – was whether if one of us somehow entered a state of “long and permanent coma” (you know…some comas might be short and not permanent!) whether and at what point it would be OK to dissolve the marriage and marry someone else. After six months, one year….five years…ten years…
I am pretty sure there have been a number of movies with variations on this plot! There is one by Stephen King that comes to mind called “The Candidate” and a romantic comedy called “While You Were Sleeping.”
The last part of the assignment was to have both parties describe what the process was like and how they felt about it. I remember my first husband (then my fiance) said, “It made me angry and it made her cry.” I would love to know if any of my classmates picked a random person in the dining hall and what their comments were!
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I write and share these reflections in hopes of encouraging other women to continue exploring the patterns and dynamics which drive their life choices of marriage and romantic partners and how they navigate these relationships – as well as other life choices including navigating life as a single woman – and their own personal sense of identity and womanhood.
And let’s not forget the title of the class was called Family Life – so these women’s issues encompass so much more – relationships with parents, children and siblings.
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And I do see that for the men, there are companion books entitled “Gods in Everyman: Archetypes That Shape Men’s Lives” – also by Jean Shinoda Bolen M.D., and “Ring of Power: The Abandoned Child, the Authoritarian Father, and the Disempowered Feminine : A Jungian Understanding of Wagner’s Ring Cycle” – by Jean Shinoda Bolen.
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“That’s The Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be”
by Carly Simon and Jacob Brackman
My father sits at night with no lights on
His cigarette glows in the dark.
The living room is still;
I walk by, no remark.
I tiptoe past the master bedroom where
My mother reads her magazines.
I hear her call sweet dreams,
But I forgot how to dream.
But you say it’s time we moved in together
And raised a family of our own, you and me –
Well, that’s the way I’ve always heard it should be:
You want to marry me, we’ll marry.
My friends from college they’re all married now;
They have their houses and their lawns.
They have their silent noons,
Tearful nights, angry dawns.
Their children hate them for the things they’re not;
They hate themselves for what they are-
And yet they drink, they laugh,
Close the wound, hide the scar.
But you say it’s time we moved in together
And raised a family of our own, you and me –
Well, that’s the way I’ve always heard it should be:
You want to marry me, we’ll marry.
You say we can keep our love alive
Babe – all I know is what I see –
The couples cling and claw
And drown in love’s debris.
You say we’ll soar like two birds through the clouds,
But soon you’ll cage me on your shelf –
I’ll never learn to be just me first
By myself.
Well O.K., it’s time we moved in together
And raised a family of our own, you and me –
Well, that’s the way I’ve always heard it should be,
You want to marry me, we’ll marry,
We’ll marry.
Thank You For Reading
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