From: utzoo!decvax!cca!csin!cjh
Newsgroups: net.singles
Title: Re net.single_but_wish_the_hell_I_was_married
Article-I.D.: csin.288
Posted: Wed Apr  6 11:44:27 1983
Received: Thu Apr  7 02:48:15 1983

In response to your message of Mon Apr  4 09:19:57 1983:

   I don't think it's too good an idea to recommend that someone examining
an overly emotional issue from a somewhat rational basis "get professional
help". This is not just rude; it's grossly ignorant of history.
   The notion of romantic love dates a long way back. But the idea that
romantic love is feasible for anyone with less time on their hands than a
wandering knight is much more recent---not even Victorian if I recall
correctly. Compare the high-flown principles of THE CANTERBURY TALES with
Chaucer's diary. My personal favorite example comes from someone who was a
teacher before the mayor and the teachers' union killed what was left of public
education in Boston; she described the jeers from students at a second-level
selective school at a film scene (ca. Tudor period?) in which a noble married
couple was bedding down not simply in separate beds but in separate rooms. To
these kids, marriage was purely a license for sex. (In how many states is
unadorned, missionary-position sex illegal if the participants happen not to be
married to each other? I don't know either, but I'm sure it's too many, if only
because it exerts a force toward marriage completely irrelevant to the
"commitment" you endorse.)
   To examine the practical "why" of marriage past is not to deny the
possibilities of marriage future but to consider why marriage as it is now
constructed is unlikely to be the future. Consider that some of the
propertarian expectations of modern marriage (e.g., single-family house in
suburbs with 2 cars in garage) date only from after World War II (in response
to post-war economic conditions); how does that affect current expectations?
What about some of the more [exotic] ideas, such as the line marriage described
in THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS? (Heinlein tends to be very poor at dealing
with women, sex, or families (not surprising considering he's childless in two
marriages) but the line marriage has distinct advantages, especially for
childrearing; the biggest problem I see is the stratification it could
produce.)
   The problem with a -"long-term commitment"- is that it can all too readily
devolve into "We're so wild about each other now that we forgo, in advance, the
possibility of growing at different rates or in different directions."  My view
of this is all too readily interpreted as selfishness, but in a traditional
marriage this happens only from one side. It's something close to infantile to
demand that a perfect moment be stretched indefinitely.
   Some months ago somebody was being roundly stomped on for trying to cover
his propertarian ass, before marriage, against the eventuality of divorce. I'm
surprised no one simply laughed at him, recalling closely similar scenes in
PRIVATE BENJAMIN. Surely there's some reasonable medium between these
two positions (absolute commitment and assumption of impermanence)?
   I regret the length and incoherency of this, but I've seen enough of how
inapplicable the traditional forms are to most people.

	CHip
		(Chip Hitchcock)
		ARPA: CJH@CCA-UNIX
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