Joe Sparks and Vergil Tea Cakes: Compare and Contrast. All over the world, marriage is one of the main things that define a woman's life. Indeed, for women, marriage greatly contributes to determining many aspects of their lives, including happiness, overall quality of life, and whether or not they are able to set and achieve their life goals. Some women get married which allows them to follow the path they have chosen and achieve their goals, while for other women marriage could mean the end of their life goals. For Janie, the protagonist of Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, who has been married twice, first to Joe Sparks and then to Vergil Tea Cake, her two marriages to these men have greatly influenced her happiness, quality of life and the pursuit of his life goals in various ways, based on the personality of each of the men. Although both men were very different from each other, they were also similar in some ways. Joe Sparks, Janie's first husband in Their Eyes Were Watching God, was an ambitious and confident man who was very successful in achieving his dreams. He became mayor of the city and worked hard to build the city and bring development to it. However, as a controlling husband Joe saw Janie as just another of his. Furthermore, rather than receiving negative reactions, neither man was held accountable for their actions, rather, they were seen as an expression of their masculinity. Anne Ganley, citing gender as one of the causes of domestic violence, states that “men are socialized to take control and use physical force when necessary to maintain dominance” (Ganley). This is why the violence Janie suffered at the hands of both men was seen as excusable and acceptable not only by citizens and migrants but, in part, by Janie.