From: wallich@ncd.com (Ken Wallich)
Newsgroups: alt.romance
Subject: Re: Getting Married: Grounds for Insanity Plea?
Keywords: Off Your Rocker
Date: 19 Nov 92 20:41:22 GMT
Reply-To: wallich@ncd.com (Ken Wallich)

keithg@cnmhnet.UUCP (keith garrard) writes:

>In article <stone.721680394@cwis> stone@cwis.unomaha.edu (Travis Stone) writes:
>>why people should marry?  It strikes me as a silly and unnecessary

>I looked at it like this; I figured that marriage was for life,
>and I notice that the average life expectancy is 75 years old.
>That would mean that if one gets married at age 20, then they
>would be stuck with one person for 55 years!  I just know
>that they would have to get bored with each other.  

This brings up another interesting point.  Although the concept of
romantic love has been around for thousands of years, isn't marrying
for love a fairly recent phenomena for the majority of the population?
I don't know about most cultures, but in the ones I'm familiar with,
it was more common for relatives to 'matchmake' a couple, than for a
couple to join out of "love".  Even with the stories of romantic love
that have been around, the romatic portion of the stories is always the
wooing and the struggle of the couple to fight against insurmountable
odds to finally be together.  After they are together, the couple is
no longer interesting enough to write stories about.  Kindof like real
life, huh?

Even if they did get together because of mutual attraction, it
certainly wasn't the case that there were dozens or hundreds of other
likely suitors available.  Before tens of thousands of people started
crowding together into cities, people lived in much smaller
communites, and that would very much limit the number of suitable
mates one might choose from.  With less variety, wouldn't one be less
fickle?  Life expectancy was generally shorter, so women generally
married and had children by their early 20's, and men and women often
died in their 30's and 40's, so at best, they would have been together
for 20 years.  There was far less leisure time for most people, and as
those with children can attest, even in our leisure-rich societies,
children tend to take up as much free time as you can provide.  

So, since people tended to have children rather quickly after marriage
(I've been married 9.5 years, and we don't have any children, this
would certainly have been considered even more deviant behavior in the
1700's than it is now), didn't spend that much 'quality time' together
when they were married, and had a shorter life expectancy, they had
far less time to 'become bored' with each other.

Is the whole concept of marriage, and spending 50 years of your life
mated to another a generally unatainable goal?  I know couples who
have married, had 3-4 children (or 7, in the case of my family), and
lived their whole lives together, but they had very little time
*alone* together during their lives.  When the children had grown and
left the nest, the couples I've seen are usually so used to each other
they stay together, but they generally haven't seemed like 'soulmates'
to me.  Just two people who are very used to each other.  This
certainly isn't the case for *all* long term couples, but in my
experience, it has been the case for the *majority* of couples I know
who have been married a long, long time.  I haven't met any older
couples who never had children, and remained happy and together the
majority of their lives.  I'm sure such people exist, but are they the
norm, or a statistical anomaly?  If they are together after all that
time, are they still romantic?  We tend to idolize them, and feel that
they have some magic that allowed them to stay together, but perhaps
they are just generally boring folk who don't like to make waves, and
were always too scared to do what they really wanted, and chose
instead to live lives of quiet resignation.  Not necessarily a life
I'd choose for myself.

So, my argument would be that for *most* independent, outgoing people
who are happy with themselves, there is too much time as an adult to
spend it all with one person.  I'd guess that the maximum time the
average couple could stay excited and romantic with each other would
be 10-15 years.  Of course, having children severly reduces the
'quality time', but it does increase the tension in other areas.
Couples with one child could probably look at 20-30 years of wedded
bliss.  This would indicate that if you made really good decisions
about who you coupled with (not necessarily married), and you first
got coupled around 20 (like I did), you could have 2 wonderful
long-term relationships with children, or 3-4 wonderful long-term
relationships without.  For people who desire 1-2 children, you could
have 1 longer relationship with children, and 2 without, still be a
couple long enough for the child to become an 'adult', and spend the
majority of your life in committed romatic relationships.  Should this
be the ideal?  It certainly seems to be more possible than one mate
for the rest of your life, but more difficult than the norm, which
seems to be relationships that last less than 5 years, with or without
children.  Of course, we always idolize what is the most difficult to
acheive.  

When people worked in the fields all day, tanned muscular people were
considered unattractive because they were common.  Pasty-white, chubby
bodies were idolized for their attractiveness, since very few could
obtain this ideal.  Now that the majority of the population works
indoors, exerting very little physical effort in their jobs, tanned,
muscular people are idolized because their form is harder to obtain
than the chubby, pasty-white form.  When being married with children
at an early age was the norm, an individualist who remained alone to
experience the world was idolized by many.  Now that it seems easier
to be alone than to be in a long-term relationship, we idolize those
who seem to 'have it all together', and stay in a long-term
relationship.  Perhaps people should begin to change their opinions of
what would is an 'ideal' relationship?

--
Ken Wallich
wallich@ncd.com  
ken@wallich.com
Newsgroups: alt.romance