Q: What real [Marriage] issues does Gilead identify? What does it get wrong in this solution?
The main issue with marriage they tackle, in a remarkably awful way, is the impact fulness that marriage can have on the society at large. It’s a very complex and hypocritical relationship, similar to Gilead’s odd stance on religion, where members of religion are executed yet follow a strict Christian code of law. Their ideas of marriage are similar, highlighting the importance of it yet demoralizing the wives and econo-wives as barren useless women. Atwood makes the idea of marriage more of a social agreement between two people to keep up the appearance that the current model of the society is working.
The Commander justified the loss of freedoms by women in Gilead by saying that the now have safety and the freedom to raise children and “fulfill their -biological destinies in peace.” (Atwood). He also adds that arranged marriages work better than love, which upsets Offred who says later “… nobody dies from lack of sex. It’s lack of love we die from.” (Atwood) Atwood gives us two perspectives on the issues of marriage in the state of Gilead, as well as showing us how Offred still holds onto some of her morality. But, the commander summarizes the higher-ups resolutions to marriage in the state of Gilead. The idea of marriage has been co-oped into a method of survival, as unmarried women face harsher realities in the state of Gilead.
Along with the “Prayvaganza”, which is a mass arranged marriage of the daughters of the Commanders wives, which could be as young as 14. It’s a solution to the marriage issue, as well getting young women indoctrinated into the system early before they develop critical thoughts of their own. The mothers of those girls, no matter how much they deny it to keep up appearances, are bitter and lonely, even though they legally aren’t alone.
Womens Lit. Blog 