Relationship Roles

The short story "The Guilded Six-Bits," by Zora Neale Hurston, the poem To His Coy Mistress, by Andrew Marvell, and the poem I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed, by Edna St. Vincent Millay all portray the roles of women's role in a relationship. The idea of sex comes about in all the works too, although portrayed a bit differently in each one.
In Hurtson's short story there is a poor couple who have a great relationship. When Joe describes this man who has wealth and is very appealling, Missie May tells him she wants nothing but her husband. Later on Joe comes home to find his wife with this weatlhy man, but when he rips the chain of his neck he finds that it is not gold at all, and that the man is poor. Missie May can not figure out why Joe does not leave her, but is still madly in love with him. She cooks for him and massages him and gives him what he asks for. When they have a child Joe goes back to his old ways and their relationship stays in tact. One of the main points in the story is how much love is accounted for in a relationship, for forgiveness was given even when she cheated on him. She loved her husband and doing everything for him. She could not wait for him to get home everyday, and that is the role she liked to be in.
Millay's poem tells the role of a woman in a relationship from the woman's perspective. Women at this time are supposed to be basically enslaved to their husbands for sex and other things. Unlike like Missy May, she does not agree nor like it. Millay feels that a woman should be independent and not do everything just for her man. She poses the fact that women are basically born to think this way about being with their man and that is the problem in the beginning of the poem. She then answers it by leaving her man and saying that is not all she is worth.
Marvell's poem is a man speaking about his mistress. His main point is to try and get this mistress to have sex with him and that is the aim of the poem. He is trying to explain during the poem to her that it is okay for them to be together. The different between his poem and the other writings is that the woman's voice is not heard. The mistress who he is speaking to is absent to give her own opinion or response to the poem.
These three works all involve the ideas of women's roles in relationships. Each use a different view point of the woman. The works also include the aspect of sex and how it affects the roles of woman, and men for that matter, in a relationship. In some cases the sex ruins the relationship, others it lets it stay and tact, and others try to start a relationship.