{"id":62,"date":"2009-06-24T17:55:25","date_gmt":"2009-06-24T21:55:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/cbracy\/?p=62"},"modified":"2009-06-24T17:56:22","modified_gmt":"2009-06-24T21:56:22","slug":"on-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cbracy\/2009\/06\/24\/on-marriage\/","title":{"rendered":"On Marriage, or Just Finished Reading: On Beauty by Zadie Smith and Netherland by Joseph O’Neill"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\u201cAt our very first meeting, Juliet Schwarz turned to Rachel and asked if she loved me and, if yes, what it was about me that she loved. (\u2026) <\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019Love,\u2019\u201d Rachel desperately replied, \u201cis such an omnibus word.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

Here was an irony of our continental separation (undertaken, remember, in the hope of clarification): it had made things less clear than ever. <\/span>By and large, we separators succeeded only in separating our feelings from any meaning we could give them. <\/span>That was my experience, if you want to talk about experience. <\/span>I had no way of knowing if what I felt, brooding in New York City, was love\u2019s abstract or love\u2019s miserable leftover. <\/span>The idea of love was itself separated by meaning. <\/span>Love? <\/span>Rachel had gotten it right. <\/span>Love was an omnibus thronged by a rabble. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n


\nAnd yet we again climbed aboard, she and I.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

<\/span>Netherland, Joseph O,Neill<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

I\u2019ve been puzzling over marriage a lot lately. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

I\u2019m very proud resident of the first state to legalize gay marriage, and so have been watching the recent marriage debates with a strong interest, not because I\u2019m gay (not that there\u2019s anything wrong with that) but because I really believe in the institution of marriage. <\/span>Or I thought I did. <\/span>Or I believe in a different institution than the one people are fighting over. <\/span>But I really love weddings and have been doing my fair share of participating in planning\/prepping for friends\u2019 weddings this summer. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Anyway, it\u2019s led me to rethink a lot of what I thought I was sure about. <\/span>I\u2019m heartened to see people fighting for what I think is their civil right to marry who they want (my own parents\u2019 marriage would have been illegal at one point) but looking at all the ugliness in this debate, I gotta say, I\u2019m feeling pretty cynical about the institution I thought I believed in wholeheartedly. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The Christian right spends a lot of time talking about the redefinition of marriage, but from where I sit it seems to me that they\u2019re the ones with their priorities out of whack. <\/span>Since when did marriage and family become about intolerance, judgment and exclusion? <\/span>(Wait, maybe don\u2019t answer that). <\/span>In addition, I feel like the right (along with the wedding industrial complex) has played a big part in setting up this unrealistic, Leave it to Beaver, unattainable fairy tale standard for what marriage should be. <\/span>It\u2019s no wonder so many people get divorced if their measure for failure is that they didn\u2019t live up to a fantasy.<\/p>\n

\n

For their part, a lot of my friends on the left seem happy to throw the whole thing out, baby and bath water, so I can\u2019t say I\u2019m really in their camp on this one either. <\/span>Sure, it\u2019s not perfect, it\u2019s an inherently sexist arrangement, blah blah, but there is something to be said for two committed parents raising their kids in stable, secure households, working through their issues together as a family no matter what the dysfunction.<\/p>\n

\n

I guess I\u2019m feeling like there\u2019s nothing left to hold on to\u2014seems like these days it\u2019s either Ward and June or anything goes. <\/span>If those are my options, what\u2019s the point?<\/p>\n

\n

In the face of this discouragement I happened to recently read two works of fiction (ironically) that I thought depicted the beautifully flawed, human side of marriage that comes from two imperfect people making a lifelong commitment to each other. <\/span>How on earth could that possibly be easy? <\/span>Zadie Smith (\u201cOn Beauty\u201d) and Joseph O\u2019Neill (\u201cNetherland\u201d) have written, gorgeous unvarnished stories about marriages that have at the core of them deep love, commitment and hope. <\/span>In other words, they\u2019re nothing like the fairy tale marriages that the pro-marriage crew is trying to cram down our throats. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The recent commentary about Netherland has focused on the fact that President Obama seems to be reading it, and so, therefore, devotes a ton of attention to the political themes of the story (post-9\/11 NYC, the immigrant experience in 21st<\/sup> century America). <\/span>For my part, I thought the politics were secondary to the relationship themes, tools used to tell the story of their marriage. <\/span>Hans and his wife live through 9\/11, and the stress of the experience serves to highlight tensions they\u2019re already experiencing. <\/span>In the wreckage of his marriage, Hans finds refuge on the cricket fields of Staten Island with West Indian and South Asian immigrants to get as far away from his upper-class banker\u2019s life in Manhattan and seek comfort in the familiarity of the game he played as a kid. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Two of my best friends are getting married this summer. <\/span>I\u2019ll be spending a good chunk of my summer planning with and feting them. <\/span>In the midst of it all, I\u2019m hoping they don\u2019t fall victim to the unattainable fairy tale expectations society is trying to foist upon them. <\/span>I hope when the going gets tough their first instinct isn\u2019t to bail. <\/span>I hope they don\u2019t become ashamed because things aren\u2019t as blissful as they\u2019ve been told they\u2019ll be. <\/span>I hope they can find beauty in the struggle. <\/span>Now that I think about it, maybe they\u2019ll be getting some books as their wedding gifts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cAt our very first meeting, Juliet Schwarz turned to Rachel and asked if she loved me and, if yes, what it was about me that she loved. (\u2026) \u201c\u2019Love,\u2019\u201d Rachel desperately replied, \u201cis such an omnibus word.\u201d Here was an irony of our continental separation (undertaken, remember, in the hope of clarification): it had made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2061,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cbracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cbracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cbracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cbracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2061"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cbracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cbracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cbracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions\/72"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cbracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cbracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cbracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}