The Problem With Marriage....

is feminism. There. It's been said. And what a relief!

Wait, let me back-track a moment here: we, as a society, are all aware that marriage has been a crumbling institution for the past fifty or sixty years. We search for the clues as to why and how to fix the problem (or whether there's a problem at all) but all we see are the statistics: 50% divorce rates, fewer marriages and a lot more cohabitation. The statistics also show a likelihood that cohabiting couples are more likely to call it quits. This, normally, wouldn't be so big a deal-- if you didn't add children to the stew.

And the problem is pretty simple: feminism. Feminism destroyed marriage.

And that's a good thing.



If we go back to the very first concepts of marriage, before those heady days with the idea of "romantic love" was first conceived, marriage was little more than a living, breathing, eternally binding contract. You trade a daughter for a bunch of gold and a financial stake in an up and coming corporation-- In-Laws inc.

Later, you cemented alliances with feudal lords, passed a princess and a few peasants, be sure she gets knocked up and BOOM-- you needn't fight that messy war.

Times changed but it wasn't until postWW2 that the nature of marriage shifted-- until women went to work, marriage was a way to financially secure your daughters, hopefully to someone they could tolerate. It wasn't like women could own a property in all places, or were respected if they did. Thus, the safety of marital bless-- with it's attendant abuses and servitudes (of course, it wasn't all bad-- after all, marriage tends to take the fight out of a man).

Then a funny thing happened. Women started wanting, like, rights and stuff. And jobs. And equality.

And when they happened, they realized they didn't need to be married. So when they got married, while having jobs of their own, divorce wasn't as horrifying a thing.

Fast forward to today and you find women becoming increasingly successful-- and who needs a marriage when you've got a career?

We had a boom in divorce, followed by a bust in marriage-- fewer people doing so, but those who do understand the risk: a coin-flip on whether they'll last. Maybe they're a little more committed-- then again, maybe not--, maybe they're just a bit smarter, having watched a generation of parents divorced... they, like the survivors of some species-wiping cataclysm, have adapted their way into the next step of marriage evolution. And maybe that's a good thing.

You take the money out of marriage and all you're left with is love, hardship and commitment. Love, in the romantic sense, runs dry after a few years. Hardship is something modern Americans aren't used to dealing with (perhaps these new married couples have benefited from a decade of unwatchable romantic comedies). And commitment?

One of the few married couples I know have neatly side-stepped this problem in what I increasingly believe will be the next step in marital evolution: the open marriage.

They are a couple. They live with (and date) another couple. And date a few others, besides.

While I do not understand the mechanics of their particular little sex-nest, I've seen the overall concept executed a few times thusly: there's a primary partner, with a few other secondaries. There are "veto" rules, allowing some measure of control for the other partner (i.e., "no you're NOT sleeping with that particular crazy bitch-- go fuck that nice girl in the corner"). If one partner is feeling unappreciated, there must be some devotion to repairing the primary relationship. Communication is a must. And there has to be at least one MFF threesome.

I just threw that last one in cuz, you know, naturally, that would be my clause.... I just assume that's an unspoken given.

It seems to work out for them but more importantly, it may work out for those who aren't married. After all, some people don't want or need the pressures, stresses and time consumptions of a relationship-- why not, then, just attach yourself to a happily open marriage as a free-agent secondary and let the franchise players worry about the Big Questions.

Personally, I have a hard time with the idea of open marriage-- for myself.

That is probably because I have a hard time with the idea of marriage, period-- that is, once again, for myself.

But if and when I did, I would have all the knowledge that my marriage is fragile, fraught and likely to fail-- and still should be forever. Perhaps the rise in cohabitation shows that, in order to succeed, you should fail a few times-- and if and when you find the person to enter a binding contract with, you'll fight through the hardships, you'll let the love mature and you'll hold to whatever version of commitment you happened to hold with.

Either way, we can't go back to Donna Reed. And we shouldn't. This is a brave new world and we have brave new marriages to go with it.

And hey... let the gays marry, already. They couldn't do any worse at it than straight people, could they? Don't fight it: they're just another step in the evolution. Change is inevitable.

Desperate House Husbands.

Perhaps the problem with the modern woman is that, like the modern man, she's not so sure she wants to be modern. And when she does, she may not want to be fair about it. Perhaps the problem with relationship is that modern equality is a thoroughly defensive.

Take Karen Karbo's article in the NYT's "Modern Love" feature: the entire feature is about how she found herself an "accidental breadwinner"-- and ended up resenting it and her S.O's (tongue-in-cheek, she says she couldn't imagine being her mother, dusting on Tuesdays, etc, then goes on to say she wanted her "househusband" to dust on Tuesdays, etc.. and give the kids more than cereal for breakfast).

It's all standard-issue role reversal: as the "wife" now, he must take on the traditional gender roles women have been trying to free themselves from for years, follow a work-like schedule of the routine tasks June Clever would have done. Not to say he shouldn't be playing video games, but there's a reason that Soap Operas existed: you can't be cleaning all the time. And if you were expected to, you wouldn't be a house-wife, you'd be a slave.

But Karbo doesn't get juicy until she talks about her leaving a relationship and the financial troubles it represents...

It’s not just a problem from my mother’s era. Several years ago, a friend of mine decided she’d had enough of her arts administrator job. With the support of her husband, who worked somewhat unhappily as a doctor, she quit with the idea of taking a year off to decide what she wanted to do. The year slid into two, then three. She walked her dogs, attended yoga classes. Then her life became a third-rate show on basic cable: she discovered her husband was having an affair with a nurse, and worse, when she confronted him, he said he wasn’t going to stop.

My friend was devastated. She knew she had to get out but couldn’t bring herself to file for divorce. I imagined that she was afraid to be alone, that she would miss her husband’s companionship. “There’s always Match.com,” I said, trying to console her.
She snorted. “It’s not that. I don’t have a job, and I don’t think I could get a job that would pay enough.”

Enough to live in the way she had become accustomed, she meant.

They are still married.

Poor thing. Cheated on by some rotten shlub, having laid around, done yoga and ate bon-bons all day. She couldn't leave the bastard, though-- she's too accustomed to that good living.

Of course, when the tables are turned, after her own house-husband played too much Halo....

When we divorced, he wanted alimony, child support and the house — the house that was purchased with my money, in my name. During one of our last conversations, I wept with incomprehension. He wanted my house? Whatever happened to the way people divorce in the movies, where the husband packs a bag and moves into a sad hotel, leaving his wife (whom he supported) in the house?

The Cuddle Bum said that if I insisted on leaving him, he had no choice but to play hardball. (In response, I stepped up my freelancing work and got a better lawyer, who spun things into my favor quite nicely. Don’t talk to me about hardball.)

So the heroine wins again-- she gets herself the freedom from a relationship, "wins" the divorce by keeping the house (again, Karbo is very knowingly tongue-in-cheek, here).

What's depressing is where Karbo ends up: in a thoroughly litigated relationship, with seperate budgets and an almost renterly attitude. Her current beau pays his share of the bills on the 15th, while Karbo pays for herself and her daughter.

Is this the direction of the modern relationship? separate beds, separate budgets, separate lives?

In moving towards a state of equality, it seems that relationships of equals mean equally on-guard. A shame, but it's meant to be.

I've waited a long time to even consider the possibility of marriage, for this very reason: while I have, in the past, thought a relationship might be "forever" I couldn't get over the fact that marriage is a litigative trap-- a legal concept, masquerading as a rite of love. My partner (read: girlfriend) at the time wanted marriage and specifically for the security it provided.

For her: security.

For me: utter dependence and debt.

Is the only way to have a long-lasting relationship the clearly delineated Karbo way?

The day Jim and I moved in together, I gave him a formal accounting of how much our monthly nut would be; he would pay for himself, and I would pay for my daughter and me. Since then, he has written me a check for his portion on the 15th of every month. Sometimes he buys the groceries, and sometimes I do. But he always pays for both of us when we go to the movies, and spends lavishly on buttered popcorn and Milk Duds. I am always touched by this.

I couldn't imagine "togetherness" more romantic.

But, I suppose, what other choice do we have? It's slavery, independence or nothing, it seems.

Makes me wonder how the communist's fucked.