Marriage Is Fleeting; So What?

Like Hanna and Meghan, I read Sandra Tsing Loh as arguing that companionate marriage involves trade-offs; that for all we gain in trading hierarchy for equity, something, perhaps, is lost. But I was most struck by the fact that Tsing Loh has such high expectations for the longevity of marriage; so high that her eventual disavowal of the institution is almost inevitable. It’s not like she got hitched late one night in Vegas and regretted it the next morning. She was with her husband for 20 years. They produced two seemingly happy kids, and Tsing Loh has managed to build a fantastically successful career while raising them. This is what failure looks like? Why is this split treated as a lack of will—“a gravestone sunk down on two decades of history”—rather than a natural, peaceful end to a happy and productive union?

As Tsing Loh says, Americans marry and divorce, and divorce and marry, and continue to attend endless engagement parties without deeming the institution a waste of everyone's time. Tsing Loh thinks we’re deluded, but perhaps we’ve adapted to the fact that modern unions can be both meaningful and temporary. Surely, given the reality of serial marriage, we can come up with a better metric for determining a successful partnership than “does/does not last forever”? Tsing Loh asks “why we still believe in marriage,” but I’d like to know why she still believes that the only successful partnership is one you’re in when you die.

Tags: divorce, marriage, the atlantic

VIEW THIS CONVERSATION

Kerry Howley is a contributing editor at Reason Magazine and an Arts Fellow at the University of Iowa's literary nonfiction program.

Comments

Irony? Really?

By: bagel | Thu, 06/18/2009 - 21:36

Regardless of whether marriages last forever or not, they bring many important legal rights as well as a host of social benefits. The fact that homosexual couples are deprived of their legal rights and of equal social recognition is the issue, which is true regardless of how often individuals of any orientation get divorced.

@SonofMacphisto

By: wrongshore | Thu, 06/18/2009 - 15:42

Perhaps not fair. I certainly don't speak for homosexuals, but I imagine they would like the right to get divorced along with the right to get married. Further, I have heard an awful lot of swill about how homosexual marriage will energize a crumbling institution. Because they want it more because they can't have it or something. Winning the right to marriage includes winning the right to fuck it up.

There is a tendency to use the sorry state of straight marriages, especially those of gay marriage opponents, as a pin to burst the bubble of "gay marriage is a threat to the institution." Prick away.

@wrongshore

By: SonofMacPhisto | Thu, 06/18/2009 - 15:33

That's not particularly fair to say. To me, I am all for equal rights for homosexual couples regarding marriage. Jerseygirl's observation was interesting to me because I am honestly curious what homosexuals think of divorce. Maybe irony isn't the best word to use, but I wouldn't blame someone for smirking at society's situation regarding marriage and divorce as it relates to homosexuals.

One group of people are fighting for something that another particular group of people are often desperate to get OUT of! What a weird world we live in. :)

Re: conservative hack

By: wrongshore | Wed, 06/17/2009 - 19:36

does anyone else see an irony in reading the work of a heterosexual author dismissing the significance of an institution that gays and lesbians are now fighting hard to have?'

I think someone who would see irony in that is probably also someone who will hold up the inevitable gay and lesbian failed marriages, bitter divorces and ruinous affairs as evidence that they shouldn't have ever got the right in the first place.

@jerseygirl

By: SonofMacPhisto | Wed, 06/17/2009 - 17:41

CONSERVATIVE HACK! :P

On a more serious note, I liked this, 'Also, does anyone else see an irony in reading the work of a heterosexual author (I'm talking about Loh here) dismissing the significance of an institution that gays and lesbians are now fighting hard to have?'

I certainly see what you're talking about. I'd love if someone in a homosexual relationship would chime in on the subject.

@Bumblebee

By: SonofMacPhisto | Wed, 06/17/2009 - 17:36

Great post. To me, it seems very obvious in this discussion who has been through a painful breakup, divorce or not. They have the more thoughtful, careful comments regarding the article. Folks who haven't experienced it generally seem the more... how shall I say this gently... combative and condeming in their attitude.

I hope I don't sound like some conservative hack here, but....

By: jerseygirl | Wed, 06/17/2009 - 17:09

I'm not ready to ditch the "till death do us part" bit. Yeah, I see that many, many marriages don't make it that far, for a host of reasons. But does that make it the wrong ideal? A friend of mine once described marriage as "family but with sex" and I thought that perfectly captured the combination of comfortable companionship with romantic/erotic undertones that defines a good marriage. Serial monogamy has its benefits, and may be more in tune with the some people's life rhythms, but there's also something wondrous about the possibility of creating new families that are together for the long haul. And let's be realistic here -- finding a new partner may seem exciting when you are in your 20s or 30s, but reach your 60s and 70s and perhaps it's less exciting.

Also, does anyone else see an irony in reading the work of a heterosexual author (I'm talking about Loh here) dismissing the significance of an institution that gays and lesbians are now fighting hard to have?

I'm astonished that someone

By: wrongshore | Wed, 06/17/2009 - 17:04

I'm astonished that someone bothers to post to complain that the discussion of the Tsing Loh piece is boring


Hi! Welcome to the Internet. It sucks here, all the time.

Marriage seems like

By: nc3274 | Wed, 06/17/2009 - 14:42

the only human relationship where people define success by duration rather than growth or quality. I think Howley's dead-on when it comes to the definition of a "successful" marriage. I know lots of people who have broken up with long term girl/boyfriends and don't consider those relationships "failures." Same goes for other contexts. I've quit jobs and allowed friendships to fade, but don't consider those to be "failures." It was just time for a change.

To me, the difference between ending a long term, committed relationship and getting divorced is paperwork. Having lived through both my own and others' breakups, I have never seen any correlation between a marriage license and the pain of ending the relationship. I have unmarried friends who went through tremendous difficulty ending a 5 year relationship. A married couple I know got divorced after 22 years after going for a walk and deciding it was "just time."

That said, I think Howley completely missed another point--Tsing Loh's relationship with her (ex-)husband isn't over. It's just different. When you have kids with someone, you continue to have some form of relationship with that person as long as the children are alive (with the usual carveouts for abuse, abandonment, etc.). Having survived thirty years of acrimony between divorced parents, I'd say that if she and her husband can maintain a relationship in which they can effectively co-parent their kids, then their relationship should be considered a roaring success, divorce or no.

fixed-term contract marriage--the way of the future

By: pxtot | Wed, 06/17/2009 - 14:19

I've gotta say it: if it's really so important to have a spouse for raising children or paying mortgages, and if it's unreasonable to expect romantic love to last forever while you're doing all that, why don't we just grow up about this and have marriage be a 10- or 15-year commitment, and then you can either renew or be done with it?

You think that makes marriage sound too much like a job? You're kidding, right? As if scheduling "date nights" and "working" at your relationship isn't?