The Eternal Feminine

In the play The Eternal Feminine, gender is represented by women taking traditional roles in the home, specifically within the Hispanic culture of Mexico City. The main character Lupita is bound to a gender role which forces her to be trapped in the confines of her home as a housewife. She is required once married to give up everything and is obligated to tend to her husbands every need. In the case of this play, marriage restricts women and makes women become bound to a mundane life without thought or purpose. With society being extremely patriarchal, husbands have all the control in the institution of marriage and it is vital that women please their husbands by being good mothers and continuing to preserve their beauty. In the F-Word, the author states that “the importance of being married or in a committed relationship varies across racial and ethnic groups. This facet of a woman’s self-identity is most important to Hispanic women, two-thirds of whom say being married or in a committed relationship is very important to their sense of self” (Rowe-Finkbeiner 133).
The first dream which Lupita has while in the beauty salon was of her honeymoon. Clearly the author was trying to show the importance of women getting married and that Lupita must validate her womanhood through marriage. Marriage in the play seems to be a negative thing and the author made it quite clear that Lupita gave up a part of herself to her husband. Marriage can be a wonderful thing; however, in the context of this play marriage enforces the rules of a patriarchal society in which men have complete control over women. Lupita became the property of Juan once she made that vow to be his wife. Even Juan says to Lupita, when she says that she will refuse to have sex with him, that “you vowed to obey me before the alter” (Castellanos 279). Therefore, in the play a woman has no say over her body because it is owned by her husband and he has the freedom to do as he pleases.
After a wedding, it is highly predictable that a woman will become a mother and her entire being will become focused on raising a child. Lupita got pregnant in the play and her mother told her of the importance of being a good mother. Lupita’s mother says that “no happiness can compare to being a mother” (Castellanos 284). However, Lupita struggles with this idea of happiness through motherhood because it is evident she is unhappy staying at home with the children. She complains of the life she gives up because according to her “the one who must sacrifice herself is the mother. For the children. And also for the house” (Castellanos 285). The problem that Lupita had in the play was that she seemed to struggle with the strict gender roles she had to adapt to. Why is it that women must give up their identity in order to take care of household chores and raise children?
Lupita asks the question “what better way to keep a husband then a woman who is always smartly dressed, always slender, nice looking?” (Castellanos 285). Many women feel they are not valued by their intelligence or personality, but their worth is measure by how they look because of the enormous emphasis society puts on the exterior. Even when married, women feel they must spend ample amounts of time on making sure they are beautiful. In society, many women feel their worth is correlated to how pretty they look. According to Bell Hooks, even in these contemporary times “our nation’s obsession with judging females off all ages on the basis of how we look was never completely eliminated” (Hooks 33). Fashion and appearance are the driving forces behind women having less equality as men because women are being fed ideas that they cannot be taken seriously unless they look a certain way. This need to look a certain way in order to get and keep a man tends to “emulate sexist representations of female beauty” (Hooks 34). In The Eternal Feminine, women in Mexico City visit the beauty salon a couple times a week, if the can afford it, to maintain the cultural beauty standards. Sexism has caused women to think that they must fit a very narrow mold of what defines beauty.
Even within the institution of marriage, women are held back in order to achieve an unattainable beauty standard. In the case of the play, women in reality had little say in society and politics because they were inside the home without a voice. Each week women went to the salon to enhance their features and maintain their splendor. By being concerned about their appearance and taking care of their families, women had little time to think and question their place in society.
Do women really have to surrender a part of who they are when they get married? Not necessarily. In healthy marriages there is give and take. Women are equal when compared to their spouse and should be treated as so. Marriage is about supporting each other by dividing the work and loving a person beyond their outward appearance. The Eternal Feminine portrayed the negative consequences of having a spouse who conforms to the sexist ideals of society which results in a bad marriage.


Hooks, Bell. Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2000. Print.
Rowe-Finkbiener, Kristin. The F Word. Emeryville, CA: Seal Press, 2004. Print.