The Never-Wed Stigma
Now it isn't the divorced who get the suspicious stares, writes Olivia Barker. It's those who've never tied the knot:
“Coupledom is now taken to be a sign of normal psychology,” says Laura Kipnis, author of Against Love: A Polemic and a media studies professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. “People who don't do it are under suspicion” for not being capable of intimacy.“What's peculiar is that this country supposedly celebrates independence yet assumes lives should conform to the same shape,” Kipnis says. Society, she says, dictates no less than one and no more than two marriages. (One divorce is allowed; more than one “people have to apologize for or account for somehow.”)
What's odd is the assumption that there's something wrong with somebody who doesn't feel they're nothing without somebody else, who doesn't feel compelled to cleave to somebody, anybody, just because that's what they're "supposed" to do? Allowing for the fact that there are a number of human ingrown toenails out there, doesn't this say they're very likely emotionally healthier than a whole lot of people? And perhaps a whole lot more logical?
What's just as peculiar is the idea that coupling for life is the ideal, when nobody looks at what that means. My late gerontologist friend, Roy Walford, predicted that people who are in their 30s today, and relatively healthy, could very likely live to be 120. So, if you get married at 35, you're pledging to be with somebody for 85 years. Do you really have anything new or interesting to say to them after the 50-year mark? (Or the 25-year-mark?) Perhaps you do...if you're Chris Rock, Bertrand Russell, and Einstein, all rolled into one. But, perhaps the real reason for your marriage and its continuation isn't being with somebody because you're more together than you are alone, but because you secretly feel you're not enough alone.
Here's an excerpt from a column I wrote on the subject, To The Better End.
What's with this idea that your life isn't complete if you're unable to get somebody to attach to you like a vacuum hose in perpetuity? What's wrong with a relationship that lasts five years, five months, or five great days? Hmm, maybe, just maybe, you aren't the scourge of humanity if you don't partner up for a lifetime. Or partner up at all. Of course, if you're underfunded, under-selved, and desperate for somebody to ''complete'' you, well, then you'd better break rocks and call it love. Unfortunately, if you're nothing without a relationship, it's unlikely that you're going to be much of anything with one.
The shovel-fulls of angry letters I'm getting from readers confirm how little people like to have the status quo challenged.
“Coupledom is now taken to be a sign of normal psychology. People who don't do it are under suspicion for not being capable of intimacy.”
This point is consistent with Michael Warner’s argument in “The Trouble With Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life.”
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0674004418/qid=1108573478/sr=8-2/ref=pd_csp_2/102-0062329-5301706?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
Read it. It will make you nostalgic for the days when the gay/lesbian intelligentsia still had some fucking bite.
Lena, Teething and Seething at February 16, 2005 9:10 AM
You're absolutely right and carry an important message for your readership.
The question becomes why-why does this climate exist?
Like all good atheists, I trace it back to religion. Marriage has never been a natural or normal state for man. It is a religiously imposed notion that has plagued mankind from its inception. They have made it a so-called moral issue and have been preaching it from the beginning. People, already made weak by the various religions, simply fall into lock step with the program. Animals, such as ourselves, mate and move on, as is natures prime directive, at least for men. Because we imagine ourselves different from the animals we have invented this idea of permanent bonding.
Psychology then, like the gutless lap dogs that they are, steps in and sanctions it, as a tool of the state and the religions. Psychology, like religion seeks turn to us into a nation of so-called normiopaths. They have notions as to how it should be and thus seek, not to help people, but to bend them, to conform them to their preconceived notions. And where do these notions of what is normal come from. Why, from religion of course, their big brother. It's really hard to say which is the more nauseating group, religion or so-called psychology.
To any doubters of this-wasn't it the psychological industry that up until a few decades ago classified homosexuality as a mental illness. And where did they get that notion? From the pulpit, brothers and sisters.
chris "world teacher" volkay at February 16, 2005 9:15 AM
Actually, it traces back to agriculture, and when people (men) began to own property. They wanted to make sure it would pass down to the fruit of their loins!
Amy Alkon at February 16, 2005 9:22 AM
Which chapter, Lena? Got a page number?
Amy Alkon at February 16, 2005 9:23 AM
Amy you are talking about the business of it, and yes i've read those textbooks and once in a while they even get something right. I was talking about why, as the post suggested, is coupling percieved as the normal state of affairs. Religion and theological notions.
chris "world teacher" volkay at February 16, 2005 9:55 AM
Why isn't almighty evolution and natural selection being consulted for the answer to why we couple? Or better yet, the newly fashionable evolutionary psychology ("Ooooooh"). Isn't that the scientifically modern place to look for an explanation for our behaviors these days?
It's really very simple you see: coupling confers an advantage to reproductive success, that surreptitious "purpose" which motivates all our actions (except maybe Amy's), don't you know. And not just in our species -- lots of our biological predecessors pair up for life. It's all very natural.
Coupledom isn't about what we are "supposed" to do, we are under the control of our genes people! Obviously you're viewing this from the wrong side of the is/ought gap (see Hume).
Don't you get it? I beseech thee, bow down, moderns, at the secular altar of Neo-Darwinism.
...
By the way, I read Kipnis' book. Nice prose, but it got a little tedious near the end.
RKN at February 16, 2005 10:44 AM
> Do you really have anything new or interesting to say to them after the 50-year mark? (Or the 25-year-mark?)
Definitely yes after the 25 mark.
> Perhaps you do...if you're Chris Rock, Bertrand Russell, and Einstein, all rolled into one
Why, thank you!
Ron at February 16, 2005 10:48 AM
The idea that this is a new phenom is totally false. I clearly remember fussing over unattached friends while planning dinner parties in Europe back in the '60s.
I also cannot believe that people glom onto "just anybody" for the sake of conforming. Women select mates carefully -- the evidence is everywhwere.
Stu "El Inglés" Harris at February 16, 2005 11:06 AM
Coupling works for some people. It most definitely does not work for me. As for perpetuating the species, it's overrated, and I'd rather be dead than pregnant. To that end, I had surgery to make sure I wouldn't set myself up for a painful choice. I'm extremely happy being alone, and my life is enriched by friends who love me for who I am and, unlike everyone I have been coupled with, do not take me for granted.
I enjoy being a whole person all by myself; the energy that I would dedicate to a significant other gets channeled to my friends. I find I am able to help more and do more for society and the earth because I am not pouring myself into a single (pardon the pun) relationship.
Some people need to be in a relationship, and hey, if it works for them, great.
Count me out.
Goddyss at February 16, 2005 12:43 PM
"Why isn't almighty evolution and natural selection being consulted for the answer to why we couple?"
Why not sociology? I can't help but notice that the gay couples I know who are getting married these days usually live in places like Bel Air or the Hollywood Hills. They also have a thing for adopting children of color from young women in poor countries, then hiring women from other poor countries to raise them. I'd tend to rely more on Weber than Darwin to understand these phenomena.
"Women select mates carefully -- the evidence is everywhwere."
I think there's also ample evidence that they do not select mates carefully, unless you're going to cook up some kind of hypothesis about a larger, species-specific purpose driving rates of domestic violence, clinical depression, bad pop music, tedious conversations overheard in cafes, etc, etc.
Lena at February 16, 2005 12:52 PM
RKN, "coupling" alone isn't the question -- it's the valuing of coupling for a lifetime without considering that a lifetime is awfully long these days.
PS Women and men are exceptionally uncareful in their choice of mates. If they weren't, I might be working in Starbucks.
Amy Alkon at February 16, 2005 1:23 PM
"I'd rather be dead than pregnant."
That was so touching! You made my day!
Looking over this thread, I was going to say that the sides of argument seemed to fall along the gender line, but then I realized that I'm pretty much the Berlin Wall of gender (ie, destroyed, reviled, graffitied, and spit upon).
Lena at February 16, 2005 2:06 PM
Oh, sure, let's all talk about what Amy wants to talk about! :-) (That's a smiley).
I think a pretty good argument could be made that the value of a mate increases over time. Think about how often you hear of a spouse dying, somewhat suddenly and unexpectedly after his or her mate dies.
Right off the top of my head it seems like co-dependence could very well increase with longevity. We may no longer have anything interesting to say to each other after 50 or more years, but it might be nice to have somebody shake me once in a while in the morning to make sure I'm still breathing, and call the hospital if I'm not. Expectations change.
(Besides, the neo-Darwinian argument where there are grandchildren involved, is that paired grandparents make evolutionary sense because they can better nuture their genetic immortality. But then every behavior squares with natural selection when you're a neo-Darwinist!).
...
Dead over pregnant, eh? Careful there, abortions are easy, resurrections are rare.
RKN at February 16, 2005 2:51 PM
"Think about how often you hear of a spouse dying, somewhat suddenly and unexpectedly after his or her mate dies."
Not that often! (Or at least no more often than I hear about a recent widow thanking her stars that the old bag finally kicked the bucket.)
Lena-doodle-doo at February 16, 2005 2:59 PM
I think all people who make pronouncements about how other people conduct their sex and/or love lives should piss off. Sometimes marriage works, sometimes it doesn't but it sure shouldn't be used against people who opt out of it or who opt into it.
"...notice...the gay couples...getting married these days...have a thing for adopting children of color from...women in poor countries, then
hir[e] women from other poor countries to raise them[?]"
Love that idea from Lena (and agree), but it ain't just gay couples - that describes A LOT of white LA couples of any sexual preference.
THE Curtis at February 16, 2005 7:05 PM
I may have posted this before, but I find it frightening that, to cut hair, you need a license, but to have a child, all you need are working ovaries.
Amy Alkon at February 16, 2005 7:23 PM
I can speak to this topic, as I am a twice divorced breeder who sucked at mate choice. But the kids are great. There is just no fucking way I could have stayed with either of those men. Life changes, people move on. There are times I wish I could divorce my teenage daughter, but tonight she came in (albeit smelling of cigarettes) and gave me an THE MOST AWESOME hug. I'm glad she's a permanent fixture. Life is just too short, no! Life is just too long to stay with someone who no longer fits. I have intimacy with my kids, and with friends and dammit that intimacy is more real and true because I've tossed off the chaff.
Diana Knows at February 17, 2005 9:53 PM
I like your perspective, Diana. I'm not parent material at all, but I really like kids. I was feeling kind of down yesterday evening, when a happy little girl, probably 3 years old, gave me the most beautiful smile. Reminds me of something my niece said to her mom when she was around that age: "Mom, we're girls. We're the best."
Lena at February 17, 2005 11:21 PM
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