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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 Next Chapter>> Production Notes | College Lecture | Glenn's Home Page   NOTE: This work has been ABANDONED as too long-winded and repetitive, but you are welcome to get whatever you can from it. The essential ideas are best summarized in a single page. Most of my new philosophical musings on relationships, etc. are now found in Kilroy Cafe. —GC, 5/09

A Change of Needs

The Case Against Marriage - Chapter 26 - 8/3/07

When we are poor, all we can think about is money. We become preoccupied with it, and when an opportunity to make more comes along, we jump on it. Remembering the pain and uncertainties of poverty, we may eagerly sign a long-term contract that guarantees us a steady income. Unfortunately, the contract can lock us into the past, forcing us to labor for yesterday's worries long after they have faded.

A funny thing happens after we have enough money: It stops being important to us. Everyone would love to have a million dollars, which if carefully invested could solve ones money woes for life, but if you had $100 million, would you be 100 times happier? No, because your money problems have already been solved, and your focus is going to turn to other issues. With the extra $99 million you would only buy more things you don't need and probably be burdened by them. It can never make you as happy as the first million did.

This illustrates a recurring problem of human perception. People tend to project recent history into the future in a straight line. For example, if the price of gold has risen dramatically for the past five years, they assume that it is always going to rise, and they buy gold. They don't understand that a past trend is no guarantee of a future one.

Future needs, as they eventually turn out, are rarely a straight-line extrapolation of the present. There is usually a satiation point where the original disequilibrium has been resolved and the trend goes flat or heads in the other direction. The price of gold can't go up dramatically forever. Eventually, it is going to stabilize and even drop to a more rational level.

This "satiation" phenomenon is especially relevant when predicting ones own feelings. If people see that something made them happy in the past, they think it will always make them happy and that their happiness will be proportional to the quantity of that thing that they obtain. If a million dollars will bring them euphoria, they assume $100 million will make them 100 times as high. They fail to realize that once a need is satiated, it fades into the background, and unexpected new needs come to the fore.

When we are romantically unattached, loneliness preoccupies us. We long to be touched and to have someone care about us. When it finally happens and we find love, our natural inclination is to try to nail down this success with a long-term contract. Remembering how terrible loneliness was, we want to guarantee that it never happens again. Unfortunately, once we commit to a contract, we may discover that it solves only the problems of the past in a straight-line fashion and inhibits us from solving the less predictable problems of the future.

Marriage commits you indefinitely to daily social interaction with your partner. After your painful loneliness, this seems to be just what the doctor ordered. After a period of marital bliss, however, a new concern may loom in your mind: a desire for independence.

What would it be like, you wonder, to wake up in the morning and do anything you wanted without having to negotiate with anyone? How would it feel to be able to set your own goals and control your own environment? What would you do if you had no one pick up after or tiptoe around? Wouldn't it be Heaven?

To some married people, this is as wistful and romantic a dream as marriage may seem to those who are single. They lust to be alone! Sociability may be pleasant up to a point, but it is harder to make changes in a team, and you are often held down by the limitations and demands of others. Loneliness is replaced by the tyranny of the group, which often discourages individual achievement. A group tends to operate by a principle of the "lowest common denominator": You do only those few things that everyone can agree on.

In marriage, much of your time is not yours. It is "community property" that can be spent only with permission. If you make a plan for substantial amount of your own time but fail to consult your spouse on it, you could be in trouble. There is often a jealousy thing going on below the surface: "If you spend so much time doing that, you aren't going to have enough time for me!"

After you have done the marriage thing for a while, you may long for a time when you possess no one and are possessed by no one. You may secretly dream of going to a luxury hotel on a tropical island and staying there all alone. It is the kind of fantasy you keep to yourself, because insecure spouses would never understand. Having an affair is one thing, but wanting to be alone, away from their neediness, is beyond their comprehension.

Some people never have a chance to experience independent living. They move from their parents' home, to living with someone, to marriage, to raising children. They never have an opportunity to control their own life. Independence is a great mystery to them, like marriage is to a virgin. "How do you do it?" they ask. When you wake up in the morning all alone, how do you decide what to do with your day? Won't you go mad if you don't have sex on a regular basis? And is it even safe to be alone? What if you have a stroke or heart attack and no one is there to notice? Aren't you going to die?

Independence is a critical life skill. To accomplish the most you can in your time on Earth, you not only need to get along with others; you also have to get along with yourself. If you know yourself and what you are capable of, you are going to make better decisions for others. If you don't know yourself, many of your decisions are going to fail because they don't take into account your own limitations.

When they suddenly find themselves alone, many people panic. They turn on the TV, start drinking or engage in some other distracting activity to make the perceived emptiness go away. They lack the skills of independence and self-direction. Without this personal center, they have probably made a lot of bad decisions in their life and will continue to make them without any self-awareness.

Comfortable independence is when you find yourself alone and consider it a joy. Now, you can do all those things that other people prevented you from doing. When you are self-directed, you don't panic and waste time. Instead, you try to make the most of your time and you don't let any of it slip away.

To be kept in tune, the skill of independence needs to be practiced at regular intervals: not just once a year but preferably every day. Maybe independence should be your default position, with relationships being temporary departures for only as long as the joy is real or a need is served.

Continued in Chapter 27