Josephine March - Feminist Role Model

This is not a literary analysis by any means, so please be forewarned first and foremost. I'm not a literature professor or a psychologist. Just a gal whose light bulb finally went off after reading this book for the tenth time. Instead of a character analysis, this is a reflective essay after probably 30 years of reflection on a character in a beloved book that I never really understood until now, in my early 40s.

In the beloved book, Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott, Josephine March is the independent 2nd child of four girls born to a minister and his wife in Pre-Civil War New England. They lived in Concord, Massachusetts in a modestly sized home with worn furniture and rugs, barely enough wood to keep the house warm, but with a kitchen full of food and a loft full of kittens to keep them both satiated and entertained. "Jo," as she was called by her family, was the tomboyish heroine of Alcott's coming-of-age story for the four daughters, while their father was away serving the Union Army as a Military Chaplain.

The "boy-next-door," Theodore "Laurie" Lawrence becomes best friends with Jo. To the average female adolescent reader, myself included, I could not understand why Jo was not in love with Laurie, as he claimed to be in love with her. I do believe he was in love with her and not with the "idea" of marrying one of the March sisters (as he claimed) just so that he could become a member of their family one way or another. For him I truly believe there was only Jo.

What I failed to understand then, when I was 11 years old, and likely up until I've watched every version of the film, including the one that was on PBS recently with Maya Thurman-Hawke, was that Jo didn't love Laurie back in the way that he loved her. She wasn't going to settle, as so many women have throughout generations. Just because he loved her, didn't mean that she had to accept that "that" was good enough for her. In other words, or what I am trying to say is, that we are conditioned as young girls that if a boy is paying us attention, or that if he is "nice" to us, or that if he likes us, or even if he asks us out on a date, or to the prom, or if you've been dating for a little bit, and he proposes marriage, it's impolite to say anything other than "yes."

I think about the modern day marriage proposal, and I think about how it's so out of whack. I've witnessed marriage proposals in public places - or on jumbotron screens in ballparks. I've witnessed proposals in restaurants, for example, where there is this audience. I've never witnessed a woman say "no" to a public proposal, even though looking at the expression on her face is one of terror or disbelief that this is happening. Publicly. For what would happen if she were to decline, politely of course, in public?

How many women have accepted proposals because maybe they were dating for awhile, but maybe they weren't sure if they were really "all in?" But they accepted those proposals anyway because they didn't want to hurt the fellow's feelings? How many women would do the brave thing and say, "You know, I'm not ready yet." Or simply just say, "Thanks, but no." Our society has pressured girls since the time they were little to accept the nice boy's advances and it's the logical next step after you've been dating to get married.

I suppose that's why I admire Josephine March so much. She resisted society's expectations, and including the most intense pressure - from her own parents and from her best friend, Laurie, to say "no." Sure she fretted, and yes, she regretted, but what it did was force her to go out and find her own happiness as a writer, and really discover who she was as a person. She didn't let the societal pressures or norms for that time period define her. For as much as she is one of my favorite characters in all of American Literature, I never fully understood what she was trying to accomplish until I found myself in situation where I was able to identify with her.

I married young. I married because we were dating for about 9 months, things were good. People were constantly asking us, "so when are you getting married?" Those asking were mostly my married friends and my future in-laws. I was always conditioned that after you date a while, the engagement was next, then marriage was next. If you dated for a few years, you were weird if you didn't get engaged, at least according to our societal pressures.

The truth was, I was not ready to get married. I wasn't 100% sure this was what I wanted to do. But things progressed. I felt in many ways I needed to break things off or I was "leading him on," which was one of my guilty-conscious/anxiety feelings that society conditioned me to feel. So when he asked me just after 9 months of dating, I said yes. My heart wasn't in it though, and even up to the wedding date, I had cold-feet. The morning of the wedding, I didn't want to go through with it. I did ultimately go through with it, because this was what I was thinking:

• My family and friends spent a lot of money to be here and they will hate me. 
• He will hate me. 
• My dad will lose a deposit on the reception of several thousands of dollars. 
• People will never forgive me and I'll never live this down. 

Notice that all the "reasons" were not about me? The reasons were about other people's feelings and about money.

Why I admire Jo March and why I now fully understand her character is because the reasons she did not marry Laurie, even though there was intense pressure from her family and pressures that included money, is that her reasons for not marrying Laurie were her own reasons. She wanted to stay true to who she was. She recognized that she did not love him in the way that one should love their partner or true companion. There needs to be this whole-body encompassing love, and this feeling that this other person is your soul mate. They won't judge you, verbally lash out or put you down (because let's be honest, Laurie did that from time to time to Jo because her independence frustrated him). Your true companion will let you be who you are meant to be, and for Jo, that was more important than meeting the expectations of her parents, her Aunt March, her sisters, Laurie, and financial security. These things are important to all people - men and women - but having someone you love who loves you back wholly in return, is the greatest gift. And that gift is worth waiting for, and sometimes you have to wait awhile for it. Don't rush into things because it is expected of you, or because it's "nice" and you don't want to hurt the other person, or because "someone else better won't ever come along." Jo knew she deserved better. She knew she had to follow her dreams and find herself before committing to someone else's dreams and sacrifice her own.