[marriage] "Maybe it's more like Silly Putty and the plastic egg it comes in."

[hermionesviolin]

Dave Chen recently linked to the Salon article "It's hot! It's sexy! It's ... marriage!: Am I the only person who actually enjoys being hitched these days?" by Aaron Traister | Jul. 15, 2009.

It's a really good article.

Marriage (and long-term committed relationship) has been a topic of conversation recently in a couple of different arenas.

Probably my favorite line from the piece is: "Maybe we shouldn't treat the institution and its dirty little companion as some sort of precious Fabergé egg that is either shattered and worthless or pristine, untouchable and priceless."

One of the things I remember actually liking from Lauren Winner's book Real Sex was her pointing out that we have this idea that if you're not rapturously In Love with your partner All The Time then ur doin smthg wrong.

Comments

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, yes to that last statement!

I have watched most everyone that got married around the same time Josh and I did crash and burn and I think it's because people have this idea that they will always feel exactly the same way they do for their partner during that initial rush of hormones when they're dating. That shit goes away. It still rears its glorious head from time to time, but infatuation fades. Living with someone, moving together, having kids together (or not), being together for deaths in the family and births, buying shit together, compromising, figuring out how to make careers together, watching your partner epically fail--all these things create emotions that are more complex and ultimately richer but so. damn. hard. I think people give up way too easily sometimes.

[chrispardus.livejournal.com]

I have seriously entertained the idea of marriage with precious few people I was seriously in love with in the recent (and distant past), though due to how my commitment to those relationships versus their commitment to those relationships and how they panned out, (and the current astrological positions on how they are viewed/iconoclastic idealisms) I question the institution of the practice of marriage, sadly.

[(Anonymous)]

One of the major things that pop songs do is take what is fairly mundane (continuing the species, thus the urge for sex and pair bonding) and turn it into something cosmic. Which is fun--and maybe deeply satisfying--to believe, especially when you're in that infatuation stage, where the world really is better because your beloved is in it.

"You are the sunshine of my life./That's why I'll always stay around you." But some times it's cloudy, or there's a monsoon. If you really think it's always going to be sunny, boy will you be in for a shock.

RAS