Today's Quote: Marriage

This month's Atlantic magazine features an essay that no doubt sparks a bit of controversy: The Case for settling for Mr. Good Enough by Lori Gottlieb. It's a lengthy and thoughtful piece, written from the perspective of a woman in her 40s who has decided to have a child by herself, attributing her lack of husband to being too picky in her 20s and 30s.

She questions what it means to be single and what it means to be married. At one point she describes marriage in the following, non-romantic way:

"It sounds obvious now, but I didn’t fully appreciate back then that what makes for a good marriage isn’t necessarily what makes for a good romantic relationship. Once you’re married, it’s not about whom you want to go on vacation with; it’s about whom you want to run a household with. Marriage isn’t a passion-fest; it’s more like a partnership formed to run a very small, mundane, and often boring nonprofit business. And I mean this in a good way."

I guess it's a little more optimistic than Marge Simpson, who once said: "Marriage is a constant battle for moral superiority." Or more on point, Edna Krabappel who said, "Ha ha ha. Children, most of you will never fall in love, but marry out of fear of dying alone."

Still, the comparison with running a nonprofit enterprise strikes me as spot on. I would say that it is definitely desirable to want to take vacations with your spouse, though. In fact, I think taking a trip with someone is a great test to the long-term potential of the relationship. You are in close proximity for a length of time. It's an opportunity to connect and have fun together. And of course all traveling involves lots of opportunities to negotiate and deal with unanticipated problems compounded by lack of sleep and stress!

In all seriousness, Gottlieb makes some good points about how we think about romance and marriage. She theorizes that "settling" means more and is increasingly difficult the older you get because you get more set in your ways and accustomed to the independence of being single. Still, there is much to criticize. It is hard for me to understand the perspective of a never-married, single mother in her 40s on issues of marriage, but she has a bit too much confidence with some of her assertions.

Like this one: "...every woman I know—no matter how successful and ambitious, how financially and emotionally secure—feels panic, occasionally coupled with desperation, if she hits 30 and finds herself unmarried.

"Oh, I know—I’m guessing there are single 30-year-old women reading this right now who will be writing letters to the editor to say that the women I know aren’t widely representative, that I’ve been co-opted by the cult of the feminist backlash, and basically, that I have no idea what I’m talking about. And all I can say is, if you say you’re not worried, either you’re in denial or you’re lying. In fact, take a good look in the mirror and try to convince yourself that you’re not worried, because you’ll see how silly your face looks when you’re being disingenuous."

My guess is that there are plenty of single 30 year-old women who are not in denial and perfectly fine not jumping on the marriage bandwagon. Here's one right off the bat from Feministing.com. (The shortened response is here.) Yes, there may be a large segment of the population that has unrealistic expectations of marriage and child-rearing and find themselves running out of time. But I doubt it is universal. Hardly anything is.