[Un]Marriage

Recently I read an article in Time Magazine that challenged the institute of marriage. In “All but the Ring: Why Some Couples Don't Wed”, author Lisa Davis presents various arguments for why marriage is not only unnecessary, but even damaging to what it ultimately tries to promote: a lifelong commitment between two people. "Every day we're making this decision and this commitment anew," says one unmarried husband figure. "I'm not with you because there would be legal speed bumps to get through if we weren't. I'm with you because this is where I want to be." "People mistake the government sanctioning your marriage for commitment," says another.

Yet, remaining unmarried has impractical consequences. You can’t be on your spouse’s health insurance, for instance, if you are not married to him or her. And if you’ll have trouble explaining the decision to move in with your unwed partner to a too-traditional family, try explaining the decision to have a child while still sans-ring.

Marriage—and un-marriage (i.e. divorce)—has been such a prevalent topic in my life lately that this article really struck a chord. Right now, the finality of marriage terrifies me. I have never and will never consider divorce an option. This of course means that the person I end up marrying had better be the person I want to spend the rest of my life with (and a person who wants to spend the rest of their life with me!). Considering I have never even had a pseudo-serious relationship with a boy in my life, the prospects of this look dim. (If I haven’t tried this out, how do I know what I like? What works? What I can and cannot tolerate? What I have to change and improve in myself before I am wifely material?)

Previously, whenever skeptics and pessimists would scoff, “No one can have a happy marriage,” I would cluck and point to my parents. “They’re happy. They’re together. And we know other couples who are, too. So you can’t say that.” Lately, however, the idea of getting married has become less and less appealing. Seeing family members rip one another’s emotions to shreds over a simple impending marriage seems almost not worth the struggle, and seeing a close friend suffer through a divorce he never wanted makes me wonder if you can ever truly know or be happy with one individual person. Change is inevitable; in the past, I always thought marriage was the contract that meant a couple would work to change together and accept one another’s changes. I am beginning to second-guess that assumption. What is in a contract? What is a promise? It all comes down to trust.

Which brings me to this article. I have only seen one family follow this perceived-as-married-but-not-officially-wedded model, and they seem no different from any other family I have encountered. Thus, I had never considered reasons for actively choosing not to marry. I think there is something to be said for this, as it does force each partner to think of the relationship in a more active, participatory way. In this light, a wedding seems more like an end than a beginning: it marks the end of the effort to “keep” the other person. Maybe the option of leaving should always be open. I once had a professor who said that marriage should expire every seven years. At the end of those seven years, the couple would have the option of renewing. However, a lot can change in seven years, and if those two people were no longer compatible, then they should be given freedom to part ways. The more I watch relationships as a third-party observer, the wiser this suggestion seems.

Because I took such an interest in this article, I decided to forward it to several friends to find out their opinion on the matter. Rather than summarize their replies, I will simply quote snippets below.

What does it mean to get married if you are truly in love? After all it is a contract that is not necessarily binding, but I think like what the article mentioned, it has real and material consequences…. Marriage imputes roles in people -- husband, wife, in-laws on top of the roles they already play and it (in)directly exerts pressure to conform or live up to these additional roles…. Of course, marriage CAN be liberating -- it can assure the persons involved that the other half will not just 'walk out' of the relationship, or at least attempt to salvage a floundering marriage…. However, be it marriage or UNmarriage, it requires the respective necessary 'sacrifices', and to give up part of that makes what a person is to make room for another.—A

The Time article prompted me today to check out from the library Marriage, A History by Stephanie Coontz. For now, I can only say that it (marriage) works for me!—M

I do like the idea of "I want to be with you because I want to be with you, not because I'd have to jump through a thousand hoops to not be with you any more."…. Of course, that's not to say that I think that marriage is a silly idea or that I don't want to get married. I do want to get married SOMEDAY, just not right NOW. I'm in no rush, and I think that trips up a lot of people. They worry about biological clocks or very outdated views of virginity and so they get married just so that they can live together and have sex, because they think that if they have sex before they're married that they'll go to hell. And granted, I think the latter type of people have a very different view of marriage in general and are more willing to go the extra miles to not get divorced, but that doesn't make it any better.—K

I had a problem with marriage because of its religious and patriarchal connections. I agreed with many other "Committed Unmarrieds" that marriage was not necessary and that as long as you and your partner are equally committed to each other, who cares what other people (including society) thinks. But now that T__ and I are more committed to each other, I'm thinking more about how our relationship affects other people…. Also, although I understand why others would not want to get married, I think our society pushes for it, definitely through the legal system…. Maybe things will change, but probably not in the close future.—S

[follow-up] Quote of the day: Patience, Suffering

"Patience. A minor form of despair disguised as a virtue." - Ambrose Bierce

Quote of the Day: Patience, Questions, Living

“Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps, then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer." - Ranier Maria Rilke

Snapshot Book Review: The Mole People

The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City by Jennifer Toth

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is definitely one of the most fascinating non-fiction topics I have read about in a long time. Perhaps I am particularly vulnerable to this subject because I live in NYC and therefore spend a significant portion of my time riding public transit and passing homeless people, but this book opened up an entirely new window to me not only in terms of the possibility of people living in the subway tunnels under NYC (which I had never before fathomed), but also in terms of my views of homeless people and why they act the way they do. In spite of Toth's conclusions--and I must remark that she seems awfully brave to have done all the exploring and interviewing she did in order to write this book!--it seems like homeless people are merely "normal" members of society who have decided to remove themselves from the systems we have set up in order to nurse their particular neuroses or grievances with life. Abuse, prostitution, dependency, addiction, drugs, alcohol, violence--all of these things seem components of these people's lives, amplified by the fact that they are living unconstrained (for the most part) by societal rules. Even underground communities with "mayors" and "nurses" are not simply idealistic replacements for those aboveground, as Toth reveals just by documenting conversations with some of their inhabitants.

The book itself was well-organized by "topic" or type of person/relationship, although I wonder why Toth did not choose to write this book chronologically and allow the reader to learn about the tunnel people in the same progressive manner she did. This may have made for a much more compelling read, particularly because ultimately, she does not seem to be trying to make a particular argument with the book. It is my understanding that this whole thing started out as an academic thesis, and if that is true, then its format really hasn't progressed much beyond that. (E.g. the very informative but very dry and oddly placed Chapter 17: The Underground in History, Literature, and Culture.)

I may be partial to a good story, and The Mole People could easily have been written as one. I realize that not all non-fiction works best as a narrative. However, I also realize that most non-fiction does not "work" at all if it is boring. Ultimately, this book was an interesting read because of the journalistic truth to it as well as the unusual subject. The paragraph/sentence-level writing is good, but I do wish Toth had written it as a narrative. Either way, she is one brave and accomplished woman.

View all my reviews.

Anti-Antidepressants

Depression is such a controversial condition. First of all, is that even the proper term for it: “condition”? Is it an illness? A disease? A disorder? Either way, it means that something is wrong with you, and only lately has anyone decided to claim that the defect is medical.

Forty years ago, if someone said, “I’m depressed,” the reaction they received was usually along the lines of, “Oh suck it up,” “Get over it,” or, if the listener was feeling particularly compassionate, “Don’t worry, things will get better.” Now, the moment anyone hears the word “depressed,” their reaction is, “For how long?” “Can you eat?” “Can you sleep?” “Do you ever think about killing yourself?”

Back in 490 BC, Empedocles tried to measure different amounts of the “humors” in the body (blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile) to determine whether someone had depression (see Pre-Twentieth Century Theories Of The Aetiology Of Depression). Today’s measurements, while significantly more respected, are equally as elusive. Who doesn’t contemplate suicide at some point in their lives? Psychological diagnoses are tough to make because no one can physically see what is wrong with another person; you can only see the behavioral manifestations. Neurologists would beg to differ—“Look at the synapses! That serotonin is being absorbed too quickly to do its job!”—but we don’t test every patient’s brain who arrives at the doctor's office and says, “Doctor, I think I’m clinically depressed.” No—this person is asked a series of questions, the doctor makes his/her best guess, and then something is (or is not) prescribed.

This, then, leads to another source of controversy: overprescription. I agree that antidepressants are overprescribed. If someone has a bad day or has had trouble sleeping over the past week, the immediate response should not be to label them “depressed” and to toss them a bottle of Zoloft. Overprescription is a serious problem, because it is the mark of the lazy doctor and ultimately doesn’t solve anything. If the person truly has issues that have manifested themselves as depression--anatomical or not--these outer manifestations will merely multiply into other problems, which will then require another medication, and the next thing you know, some poor hapless patient is wobbling out of the pharmacy with two shopping bags full of pills.

However. This is not to say that antidepressents are merely ineffective sugar pills or, worse, suicide-instigators that should be abolished. In spite of all the research that has been done, the predominant attitude toward depression is still, “Get over it.” Only people who have suffered traumatic events in their lives “deserve” to be depressed. And then, once these people have taken enough medication and gone to enough counseling, they should finish their prescriptions, say goodbye to their counselor, and rejoin the world of “normal people.” God forbid someone who seems "together" admits to being depressed. “Everyone feels sad,” will be the scoffing reaction. “What do you have to feel sad about?”

Unfortunately, "feeling sad" is not all there is to depression, and antidepressants do not make you feel “happy.” If they did, everyone would want to be on them! Instead, no one wants to be on them—including the people who need to most. It’s my opinion that whether or not the treatment is prescribed, all depressed people will find an antidepressant of some sort to alleviate their disorder. Is it any surprise that the darkest and craziest artists and thinkers were the worst drunks and drug addicts? Think of Edgar Allen Poe! Beethoven! Freud…! If the world of medicine can’t or won’t provide the help they need, people will find ways to self-medicate. And wouldn’t we rather have a team of doctors trying to return functioning members to society rather than slews of people merely trying to avoid pain?