Marianne Weber's Patriarchal Authority in Marriage in Don't Worry Darling **spoiler alert**

 

Aside from seeing One Direction's Harry Styles perform sub-par acting, the biggest surprise of Olivia Wilde's "Don't Worry Darling" was the surprising ending, when the veil on Florence Pugh's character, Alice's, life was dropped. The Community of Victory is perfect—everyone lives in a nice house, the sun is always shining, and the women spend their days attending dance classes while their husbands are off working "somewhere." Essentially, the women of Victory are the quintessential housewives. Everything is perfect until the reason why that perfect life is revealed. Alice learns that she is in fact trapped in the Community of Victory, by force.  Her husband, Jack, forced her into a simulational world where there life would be perfect. Only he has the complete autonomy to be able to wake her up out of it. I was reminded by a quote in Marianne Weber's Patriarchal Authority in Marriage that says, "Wherever civilization grew, the aspiration grew as well to somehow protect the woman from the barbaric arbitrariness of the husband. On the other hand, everywhere, his domination over her and the children nevertheless remained secure." (Weber 2003 [1912]: 86). I believe the simulation in Don't Worry Darling is a visual representation of a husband having complete autonomy in marriage. Although he may have done it out of love and "what is best for Alice," Jack ultimately strips his wife of all autonomy in her life.