Honey, It’s Only Business..

The world back then for John Stuart Mill was completely wrong. Inhumane slavery, insensible patriarchal lordships…just to name a few. Atrocious practices linger freely among the society creating myriad social upheavals. Marriage, for him, did not escape from negative influences of current social norms. Women were exploited and literally treated as property when tied with this so-called noble bondage of marriage. Wives can be treated nearly as servants, with the husbands regarded by law as ‘lord of the wife’. Also, wives can’t even have the rights to own property alas inheriting any from her husband (Mill 667). To summarize, women are deprived most if not all her rights when she married a man. Mill’s “Subjection of Women” essay argued that partnership in business is the ideal model for women’s emancipation and a better marriage. Or is it?

The sense of equality in business partners seems to be an attractive best solution to lift the status of women as a more appropriate partner in marriage. Assuming both partners have equal shares in the business, their say would carry the same weight in determining the business’s directions. One business partner would also have equal rights to exit the binding contract between them, thus protecting both parties from dominating each other (Mill 672). However, it is of utmost importance to first analyze the analogous features between business partnership and marriage before we determine its relevance to each other. Interestingly, these two social institutions were built on extremely contradictory foundations that it can be of opposing ends in a continuum. The core of business partnership would be ‘conditional reciprocation’ meaning relationship comes after certain requirements were met, while marriage is built on an unconditional one. Plainly, business partnership is centered more on self-interest; its relationship depends on the ability of each partner to benefit from each other (e.g. profit, protection, market power, etc). Once the chain of benefits is broken, the core of its relationship is crumbled, the partnership could be off. Marriage relationship, unlike the former, is based on a different paradigm, involving different goals. Not relying solely on benefits each partner could garner from each other, marriage is a relationship that roots deeply on the commitment itself to be a part of each other physically, emotionally, intellectually and for some, spiritually. Marriage is not about what others CAN do for us, but what we WANT to do for others.

Now, how can such two systems of relationship with different goals compared with each other? Business partnership probably suits its purpose to steer a firm’s course in the tangly world of business but in an intimate relationship such as marriage that’s probably not the case. It’s main reliance on self-interest and materialistic benefits instead of the relationship itself is what people describe as ‘strictly business’, and fittingly describes its ‘strict’ and brittle relationship with less tolerance. When billionaire Tiger Woods’s scandal erupted and no longer beneficial of a business image, it only took weeks before global consultancy firm Accenture ended their six-year relationship/sponsorship with Woods; with more partners like Gillette and watchmaker Tag Heuer forecasted to take actions (NY Times). As the core of marriage is the relationship itself, and involves a lot more aspects such as the ‘PIES’ (Physical, Intellectual, Emotional and Spiritual), added with interpersonal intimate interaction, marriage is a relationship built for stability. It would be dreadful if a marriage relationship became so superficial that it could break at any minor crises, considering its impact socially (e.g. raising of children). It would be inappropriate and even detrimental if one would apply the interaction system of a business partnership to marriage.

When Mill introduced this theory, he probably has the best interest at heart to quickly alleviate women’s status from the harsh patriarchal lordships. I would courageously say business partnership would be inappropriate as a marriage model, and that interactions in a marriage only reflect the social interactions of the community as a whole. Foundations of marriage, is not the cause of this atrocity, but the fundamentals of society is what needed to change first.

Works cited:

[1] Mill, John Stuart. “On Liberty” in Modern Political Thought: Readings from Machiavelli to

Nietzsche. 2^nd ed., edited by David Wootton (Indianapolis: Hackett Pub., 2008).

[2] Accenture Ends Sponsorship of Tiger Woods. [NY Times Online]. Retrieved December 15, 2009, from the World Wide Web: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/12/13/sports/AP-US-Tiger-Woods-Accenture.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=tiger%20woods%20sponsorship&st=cse