Today's Romantically Based Marriage Is Like Yesterday's Affair
Marriage, until very recently, was largely a business arrangement, not a love match. Maggie McNeill blogs at The Honest Courtesan:
Most people are confused about why modern marriages fail because they misunderstand what marriage really is in the first place. Once this is understood, it becomes obvious that the institution is alive and well; it has merely changed into a form most people fail to recognize. Contrary to what most modern people like to believe, marriage is and always has been primarily a socioeconomic arrangement; the most basic motivation for any woman is the acquisition and retention of security for herself and her children, and only after that basic need is met can she pursue any higher motivations. In the past, a woman married in order that she and her children would be provided for and protected, and love or sexual passion had little or nothing to do with these considerations. Historically, marriage was almost never for love; it was a social arrangement designed to ensure that women and children were protected and provided for. Men who could support and protect a larger number of women and children married more women and fathered more children, and the arrangement worked; the woman was guaranteed security for herself and her children, and the man was guaranteed as much sexual variety as he could afford. Women (or their parents) sought out whichever man they felt could best provide for them: They "married up" whenever possible. Men who were less able to provide got the less desirable women, and women who either could not or did not wish to marry still could gain male support via some form of whoring; only those with no prospects whatsoever and a psychological aversion to any form of harlotry attempted to subsist on the meager wages available to women through "honest" work.It must not be imagined, however, that love as we know it is a modern invention; it merely had nothing to do with marriage. A look at the love stories of ancient and medieval times (and even many modern ones), in which the female character was often married (or in modern "romantic comedies", at least claimed) and the male almost never was, supports this. In other words, once a woman's basic needs were met by marriage, she was then psychologically free to pursue her higher needs for love and intimacy, whether inside or outside of her marriage. In some societies this situation was more or less acknowledged or else actively ignored by the men; in others the woman had to go to considerable lengths to disguise the affair, with dire consequences if she was discovered. Even in societies like that of the Arabs, where the men in power took great pains to ensure the fidelity of their wives, the poor-but-interesting men were more than happy to assist those wives who wished to engage in extramarital liaisons, and because of the need for secrecy the husbands saved face. Even in situations like this everyone could profit: The husband got the social prominence deriving from a large family and access to as many women as he could afford; the wife got security from her husband and intimacy from either him or her lovers, as she desired; the children got security and an illustrious name, and the lover got the sexual favors of a woman to whom he would otherwise have been denied access.
...Like those extramarital relationships of the past, however, these "affairs" the "wives" of institutions have with human men are often short-lived and replaceable; lovers come and go, but the marriage endures. In other words, modern "marriages" are not the true successors to marriages of the past; they are instead the successors of what used to be called affairs, born of passion and the need for intimacy and usually transitory for that reason.
As I wrote in a column:
Romeo and Juliet were overprivileged freaks. Until 200 years ago, according to historian Stephanie Coontz, "the theme song for most weddings could have been 'What's Love Got to Do with It?'" Sure, sometimes love did follow, but for thousands of years, writes Coontz in Marriage, a History, people married for sensible reasons, like keeping peace between France and Spain. For commoners, matches were not typically made in heaven, but in three inches of manure: "My daddy's pigs and your daddy's cows forever!"Back in the 1550s, when it took two to do a lot more than tango, divorce was about as common as cell phones. In those days, putting food on the table meant chasing it, killing it, skinning it, then turning it on a spit over a fire, and there was a bit more to housework than despotting the water glasses and wiping down the microwave. Since the laboring class usually married in their late 20s, according to Lawrence Stone and other historians, and "growing old together" could mean making it to 40, a marriage might have lasted 10-15 years, at best. These days, with some gerontologists predicting that living to 120 will soon be the norm, if you pledge "til death do us part" at 25, you could be promising to spend 100 years together. (You might serve a similar amount of time if you murder several of your neighbors.)
Love isn't the answer, it's the problem. As Coontz observes, once people started marrying for love, they started getting divorced for lack of it. Nobody wants to ask whether it makes sense to tell another person you'll love them until you drop. Yes, it can happen. Everybody's got a story of that one couple, still madly in love at 89, and chasing each other around the canasta table. Guess what: They lucked out. You can't make yourself love somebody, or continue loving somebody after the love is gone; you can only make an effort to act lovingly toward them (and hope they don't find you too patronizing). Love is a feeling. It might come, it might go, it might stick around for a lifetime. It's possible to set the stage for it, but impossible to control -- which is why people in the market for durability should stop looking for love and start shopping for steel-belted radials.
No argument here. I moved in with my now-husband for one reason: my living situation was changing and I needed a place to stay. He had a crappy roommate he was trying to get rid of. Win-win.
We had started going out after the crappy roommate got us together in the first place. The roommate was trying to get my guy out of the way so he could romance his married girlfriend there.
We two clicked right away and it just kept getting stronger, but I don't remember an actual proposal. The subject just came up and we decided to do it. After 22 years I still occasionally mention that it'll never work, but if we live long enough, we will be that couple still in love in their eighties, I'm pretty sure.
Pricklypear at July 18, 2012 9:32 AM
So we can all get mail order brides? What about Crid?
Stinky the Clown at July 18, 2012 9:53 AM
No Stink, ugly women got their husbands in congress to nix that
lujlp at July 18, 2012 10:26 AM
I also wonder how much traditional roles have to do with problems in a marriage. Back then when marriage was about property rights more than any tender feelings they might have for each other, but also that their roles were assigned.
Men brought home the bacon and women cooked it.
Not suggesting that we need to go back to gender-assigned roles in a marriage, but their should be a mutual understanding of who is going to do what before the nuptual vows are taken.
Patrick at July 18, 2012 11:17 AM
Stinky the Clown: What about Crid?
I would recommend a deaf woman.
Patrick at July 18, 2012 11:26 AM
but their should be a mutual understanding of who is going to do what before the nuptual vows are taken
This is generally true, but it works best in a society where life circumstances don't change much and people don't have many options.
MonicaP at July 18, 2012 11:43 AM
I agree with most of this except for one thing. Love is not a feeling. It is something you do. My wife and I have been married 27 years. We did get married for practical reasons. We value and respect each other and treat each other how we would like to be treated. We have a sex life that is satisfying to both of us. That's real love.
ken in sc at July 18, 2012 12:04 PM
@Stinky: "So we can all get mail order brides? What about Crid?"
Dunno. Poke some holes in the shipping crate, throw in a bag of pork rinds and a bottle of water, and he might survive the trip. Can't picture him looking good in a dress, though.
Old RPM Daddy at July 18, 2012 1:00 PM
I joke with my husband that we should follow the rule the upper crust Brits in Edwardian had:
Men could cheat as long as they were discreet. Women could cheat all they wanted too, once they had produced "the heir and the spare".
We have two boys.
UW Girl at July 18, 2012 1:10 PM
And this is why gay marriage is stupid - it's based on the hetero perversion of marriage as all about romantic love.
carol at July 18, 2012 1:51 PM
So we can all get mail order brides? What about Crid?
Why would you want to marry Crid?
Steve Daniels at July 18, 2012 2:44 PM
Steve: Why would you want to marry Crid?
Why would anyone?
Patrick at July 18, 2012 3:04 PM
I've been married 3 times.
First time, I didn't want to get married, he did. BC failed, now I'm pregnant, and I still don't want to get married because my BF is a cheating, lying jerk, but he's all in love with the image of himself as the "Family Man". I was already a Mom, knew I could handle it, so I kept saying "No". Then my crazy bitch mother gets into the middle of things and starts telling me :If you bring another bastard into the world, I'll KILL myself!"
I should have told her to go ahead. I finally gave in when I was 8 months along, the bastard continued to cheat, and not only gave me all kinds of sti's, but got another woman pregnant. I found that out after our son died of SIDS, and I was packing to move back in with my parents.
Moral of that tale, if your gut says don't, listen to your gut and RUN like HELL.
Second hubby lasted 17 years. We had one daughter together, he helped raise No 1 daughter, we probably would have still been together except for the fact that I grew a spine and finally told him to go jump in a lake. He was a control freak, a manipulative guilt-weasel who thrived on sympathy. I hate pity parties, if something bugs you, either control your own reaction or fix it.
Third and definitely last hubby and I have been together for 8 years, married 7. We will be the little old couple chasing each other around the old folks home. I plan on painting flames on my walker so it will go faster ;) We aren't just "in love", we are a team. We're best friends, we make sure to show our appreciation of each other in little ways each and every day, as well as in the big ways people all think about. Before we ever started dating we knew each other so well it was an almost seamless transition. So I guess you could chalk us up as lucky, I would prefer to say I was cautious and took my time on this one because it meant so much to me.
Kat at July 18, 2012 3:24 PM
Once again, another nice piece Amy. Wish Dan Cathy had read it before this blew up. :-)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/17/dan-cathy-chick-fil-a-president-anti-gay_n_1680984.html
qdpsteve at July 18, 2012 5:21 PM
so... in the cold calculation of it all -
there actually is no reason to be married for the individual.
short term partners are not so hard to find, you can pay them if you like or calling your right hand sally also works.
There isn't ANY economic advantage whatsoever.
Our instincts are able to be short circuited by civilization and our own independent drive... and that's that, then.
They that will inherit the earth will be uncivilized and running on instinct... because they will be makin' babies.
It MAY have been an economic question in the past... so what is it now?
Why do we get together and why do we have children? To continue the species? And why, pray tell, should we continue the species?
Perhaps civilization falls because it forgets why it exists... or it never came up with a reason.
As we are managing to live longer lives, we are working on figuring out why we need partners. People 100 years hence will see that some changes were made in male/female dynamics... and those changes seem like a smooth transition, but those of us living it, know this is not true.
Difficult to say what we are transitioning to, because it's not a movement, but trending of millions of individuals... each making their own decision.
What else besides the idea of love should replace this? There isn't an economic reason. Ideals have replaced necessity in much of our lives at many levels... seems that the ideals have become to easy to change and discard though. Perhaps they are only passing fancies now.
SwissArmyD at July 18, 2012 5:35 PM
Difficult to say what we are transitioning to, because it's not a movement, but trending of millions of individuals...
We are transitioning to: men who never marry, and women who bear children using sperm donors and raise them on their own.
Engineer at July 19, 2012 3:22 AM
WHen my little bro got married, the preacher required some counseling sessions with him first. One of the things he asked them was "what's going to keep you together when you not only don't love each other, but can't stand each other? Because there will be times that happens". And I'd have to say in most marriages that's true. But if you recognize the lows will happen and work on them, highs come again.
I've always thought expecting one person to be your everything was stupid. No one can be best friend, lover, coparent, roommate, movie-going pal, shopping buddy etc. Find others to share the load (not sexually, though, unless your spouse is aware and cool with it).
I'll never marry again. Little bro and his wife, though, make you believe the story. Started dating in high school, neither had really dated anyone else, and are still the best-matched couple I've ever known.
momof4 at July 19, 2012 5:38 AM
The two basic rules of relationships:
1. When you screw up, you have to apologize.
2. When your mate apologizes, you have to accept the apology.
Cousin Dave at July 19, 2012 6:35 AM
It must not be imagined, however, that love as we know it is a modern invention; it merely had nothing to do with marriage. A look at the love stories of ancient and medieval times (and even many modern ones), in which the female character was often married (or in modern "romantic comedies", at least claimed) and the male almost never was, supports this.
________________________
I REALLY don't know which "ancient" stories Maggie's talking about, since the medieval "courtly love" tradition hadn't been invented yet. I mean, aside from romances based on adultery, what DOES she mean by saying that in such stories, the woman's typically already married and he's not?
When it comes to Greek and Roman mythology, it seems to me that while there WERE stories of marriage-as-business-deals (you could say that about Perseus and Andromeda) the most famous ones were often very much about romance leading to marriage, such as the story of Cupid & Psyche.
BTW, I agree with Ken that love SHOULD, at least, be more about actions than feelings. You only get as much as you give in a marriage, and as Quentin Crisp famously said:
"Love is the extra effort we make in our dealings with those whom we do not like and once you understand that, you understand all. This idea that love overtakes you is nonsense. This is but a polite manifestation of sex. To love another you have to undertake some fragment of their destiny."
Besides, any psychologist will tell you that it's our actions that shape our attitudes far more often than the other way around, which is why parents who refuse to force their kids to say things they don't mean, like "please," "thank you" and "I'm sorry" (on the grounds that that's "teaching hypocrisy"), are only going to see their kids behave worse and worse as time goes by.
Work (both paid and unpaid) never stops in life, whether you're in a relationship or not, so anyone who manages to keep doing both AND the work to sustain a relationship is already someone to value.
lenona at July 19, 2012 2:51 PM
Difficult to say what we are transitioning to, because it's not a movement, but trending of millions of individuals...
We are transitioning to: men who never marry, and women who bear children using sperm donors and raise them on their own.
Posted by: Engineer at July 19, 2012 3:22 AM
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Interesting. That's a situation that someone said was only going to get a lot more common once the male pill arrives and men eliminate "oopsing" entirely. (I don't really see the latter happening - if men REALLY were eager to use male methods other than condoms, they'd be freezing their sperm and getting snipped a lot more often than they are. Or, at the very least, doctors everywhere wouldn't be claiming that men just don't want their genitals messed with. If those doctors are wrong, their patients need to speak up. Why don't they?
____________________________
The two basic rules of relationships:
1. When you screw up, you have to apologize.
2. When your mate apologizes, you have to accept the apology.
Posted by: Cousin Dave at July 19, 2012 6:35 AM
___________________________
Or, as Ogden Nash said:
"To keep your marriage brimming,
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you're wrong, admit it;
Whenever you're right, shut up."
lenona at July 19, 2012 3:03 PM
Here's one comment I saw at Amy's advice column that was linked to (comment by another Amy):
I don't understand what the big hurry is to get married. I am 25 and all of my friends are rushing to get married like old people run to the grocery store the night before a snowstorm. I've never heard of anyone's relationship dramatically improving once they were married. Like, "Oh yeah, once we tied the knot our relationship really skyrocketed."......(snip)
Posted by: Amy at December 24, 2005 8:44 AM
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I do think that if one thinks: "I MIGHT want to marry some day," it's a good idea to start looking long before age 30, simply because:
1. You don't want to wake up one morning and suddenly find that the dating pool consists heavily of divorced (or never-married) parents.
2. A lot of people contract incurable STDs and don't even know it, and the older they are, the higher the percentage is, I assume.
3. And, of course, the older people are, the more likely they are to have emotional baggage as well.
4. Finally, IF you want to reproduce - and you're female - you don't want to risk having to spend thousands of $ on fertility treatments.
Of course, none of the above is an excuse for being careless in your choice of a spouse.
lenona at July 19, 2012 3:17 PM
You guys miss me when I'm not around. You share your feelings about me, and these emotions are powerful for you... Very pungent and enthused.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at July 21, 2012 3:31 AM
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