The Romance of Domesticity

Marriage Thrives in Reality, Not in Our Dreams
by Nathan Schlueter
posted January 11, 2011

Excerpt:
I once had a disagreement with a colleague who was an economist. His daughter had recently been married, and though he liked the young man well enough, he told me that he had advised his daughter always to keep her job, “just in case.” While lifelong marriage is fine when you can get it, he told me, it is foolish and naïve to trust in it overmuch.

On the contrary, I argued, a withholding of trust in the initial promise strikes at the very root of what a marriage is. There is a difference in kind, and not merely in degree, between a relationship rooted in an unconditional pledge of fidelity and a relationship with an exit strategy.

This is not merely a philosophical distinction; it has incredible consequences for human experience. Marriage is not a contract—or at least it is not like any other contract—for it establishes a community that, in turn, transforms the individuals that comprise it.
 Full essay image by David Boyle