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The Case Against Marriage
A Book in Progress by Glenn Campbell “Read it or weep!” Chapter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Production Notes This is a ROUGH DRAFT of a book that still needs a lot of work. I have set it aside for now but expect to come back to it later Your feedback is encouraged, but I recognize that the chapters don't yet flow together as they should. FamilyCourtGuy<at>gmail.com |
As we have noted, the legal contract of marriage is chiefly a financial one, merging the economies of two individuals into one undifferentiated "community." This may not seem too dangerous at first, but you know it's only the beginning. What happens next can be truly terrifying.
If the couple has the means to do so, they will soon buy real estate together. Typically, they will be agreeing to a mortgage commitment of at least 20 years. It is this contract, more than the marriage itself, that begins to lock them into place like mammoths trapped in tar.
Once they have a home in their possession, what do they do next? They start filling with stuff! I mean STUFF, piles and piles of it, 90% of which they don't really need. The real estate and the contents therein becomes an outward expression of their romantic oneness. The stuff they acquire is largely aesthetic in nature. It is suppose to convey to themselves and visitors who they are, individually and as a community.
Humans have always been pack rats. As a rule, whatever space they have for stuff they will fill with stuff. The storage of food can be handy of course, especially if you anticipate a famine. Famines may be rare in the industrial world, but the same impulse is still expressed in modern homes. Nothing that might remotely be useful in the future can ever be thrown away. No wall can be left blank, and every aesthetic sense must be catered to. Any unused floor space will eventually be filled with something useless, until the entire living space is stuffed with stuff and the couple looks around for larger quarters.
Legally, a wedding heralds a new financial arrangement, while socially and psychologically, it declares to everyone the supposed strength of a couple's bond. Commercially, however, a wedding is an important launching point for economic activity. It is the start of a massive movement of furniture, art objects, consumer goods and maintenance services into a newly opened market.
Getting married is the beginning of the Great Accumulation.
Since the couple has supposedly "arrived" at a permanent plateau of stability, they feel more comfortable accumulating things. The collecting of merchandise is also a bonding activity. Even if the couple has nothing in common intellectually, they can still do two things together: have sex and go shopping.
Commercially, a wedding is a prelude to interior decoration, at least in the short term. In the long term, it is a prelude to a garage sale, a big one, where all that useless stuff is finally sold off at a tiny fraction of what the couple paid for it. The garage sale usually happens at the time of the divorce or when both partners drop dead and their heirs are forced to get rid of it for them.
Stuff is a substantial part of the substance of marriage. In the absence of children, marriage consists largely of acquiring stuff, rearranging stuff ("Honey, can you help me move this?"), maintaining and caring for the stuff you have (including the home itself and any pets that might be running around in it) and eventually the contentious division of stuff at the time of divorce.
Is this all life consists of—stuff?
Some couples live in trash heaps, but the highest ideal of marriage is to live in a pristine museum, surrounded by objects of sentimental value and non-personal items that radiate artistic good taste. Everything you have done or accomplished should be available on display: your diplomas, photos of you with various dignitaries, mementos of every vacation you and your spouse have taken, visual documentation of your entire genetic lineage, and trinkets from every major event in your life.
It would be difficult to get a public museum to put on a display like this unless you happen to be very famous. If you own the display space, however, you can do anything you want with it. If the hagiography concerns yourself and your family, that's your choice.
Once they have reached the plateau of marriage, couples with the means usually set about creating a shrine to themselves. They consult with each other on what the shrine will look like and the objects that will be included in it. "Do you think this painting looks better on this wall or that one?" Every object is seen as an expression of who they are, who they were or who they want to be.
It is a never-ending project. Once the museum seems finished, the completion date can be endlessly extended by a process called "remodeling," where you tear things down and rebuild them again. Shouldn't we add a sun room out back? Don't we need to rearrange the flower garden? Shouldn't we turn the basement into an entertainment center? As long as funds are available, work on the museum can continue indefinitely.
It certainly looks like there is a relationship going on. The couple is working together toward common goals. They are getting along with each other, and they have plenty of things to talk about: their current and future remodeling. They conduct research together, including reviewing the religious works of Martha Stewart and Bob Villa. They travel together—to Home Depot and the plant nursury. It looks like they are living a full and productive matrimonial existence.
But are they?
Marriage seems like a step forward from selfish isolation. No longer will you be preoccupied only with yourself; now you will be sharing everything you have with another. You have found your "other half" so you no longer have to be lonely. You give to them and they give to you, so you no longer seem to be self-absorbed.
But what do we call it when someone builds a shrine to themselves, when they are occupied only with their own needs and when they cut themselves off from the needs of the outside world? Isn't this "narcissism"—an unhealthy preoccupation with oneself?
In this case, however, the narcissism is shared by two. They may be generous or selfless with each other, but if they are not sharing anything with the outside world, they are still self-absorbed. By reinforcing each other's self-serving delusions, they can cut themselves off from any real accomplishment. Any resources devoted to the shrine obviously can't be spent on anything else, like projects to advance the good of others.
Once you have created the perfect museum and a comprehensive shrine to yourself, what happens to it? Eventually, you die; the museum is disassembled and the house and its contents are sold to strangers. Most of your life's work is translated into money, which is split among your heirs.
As tasteful as the museum might have once been, there is nothing left to remember you by.
Continued in Chapter 26
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