In my Humanities class entitled "The Dysfunctional Family and the Western Tradition", I use the marvelous work of John Bradshaw as a lens through which to interpret four masterworks of Western literature: the book of Genesis, Euripides’ Medea, Ibsen’s Doll’s House, and Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. We’re just finishing up Ibsen this week.
I first read A Doll’s House in a comparative literature course in college. It was a class taught from an explicitly feminist perspective, and nothing else we read that semester lingered with me as long. (Interestingly enough, it was the only thing we read written by a man.) For those who don’t know Ibsen’s famous play, it’s the story of a married couple, Nora and Torvald Helmer, trapped in a profoundly dysfunctional marriage built on an unhealthy patriarchal model. We meet Nora as a featherweight of a woman, giggly and flirtatious and manipulative, seemingly addicted to shopping and candy. But through a series of stunning revelations, she is transformed. At the end of the play, she leaves her husband — and her two young children — to go off and "find herself." Written in 1879 in Scandinavia, it remains a stunningly modern work; it is very useful both in teaching a course on family systems and on feminism.
The famous exchange between Nora and Torvald at the end of the play is much on my mind:
NORA: What do you consider my most sacred duties?
TORVALD: Do I need to tell you that? Are they not your duties to your husband and your children?
NORA: I have other duties just as sacred…. Duties to myself.
TORVALD: Before all else you are a wife and mother.
NORA: I don’t believe that any longer, I believe that before all else I am a reasonable human being just as you are—or, at all events, that I must try and become one. I know quiet well, Torvald, that most people would think you right and that views of that kind are to be found in books; but I can no longer content myself with what most people say or with what is found in books. I must think over things for myself and get to understand them.
This week, the students are writing papers analysing this exchange. From a family systems perspective, at least that articulated by Bradshaw, it’s Nora who is clearly in the right. Nora’s duty to self-actualize did not cease at the moment she married or became a mother. She married and reproduced too young, and now must do later what she ought to have done earlier, but she still must do it.
My students, of course, are conflicted. Having taught this course many times, I know why. All of them agree that if Torvald and Nora had no children, she’d be right as rain to leave him. But she’s the mother to two little boys and a girl, and clearly, she’s walking out on them as well. My students — few of whom are parents, but many of whom were children of divorce themselves — are usually angry at Nora. Most young people, I’ve found as a teacher, are a charming mixture of cynicism and idealism: while they tend to doubt their own chances of ever finding true and enduring love, they have an almost child-like faith in marriage itself. And they have, not surprisingly, a very elevated sense of what a parent’s duties are. They are much closer to the rigid Torvald Helmer than to his suddenly liberated wife.
In what I regard as one of my best posts this year, I wrote a tribute to my mother in March: "My life doesn’t just revolve around you": a note of gratitude for a feminist mom. I wrote:
But my mother’s greatest feminist lesson was this: she made it clear that we could not expect women to drop everything for us. Relationships mattered, families mattered, love mattered — but personal happiness mattered too! My mother knew that someday her sons would be in relationships with women, and she knew enough to know that how she met our needs as small boys would be reflected in many of our choices when we became boyfriends, lovers, and husbands. So she showed us two things:
1. She loved us very, very much and always would
2. Her happiness was not solely contingent upon us
I grew up with absolute certainty about both of these things, and it was and is one of the greatest gifts my mother could have given me…my adult feminism is linked in no small way to the lessons she taught me. Motherhood, I learned, is a role — but it need not be an all-consuming identity. The fact that my mother had a life outside of her children gave me the confidence to live out my life without fear that I would destroy her if I made mistakes or deviated from a planned path. Her commitment to her own happiness allowed me to make a similar commitment to my own — and for that, I will forever be tremendously grateful.
My parents had a very different marriage from the Helmers. They lived in Santa Barbara in the 1960s and early 70s, not fin-de-siecle Northern Europe. But for feminists, the notion of the "sacred duty to the self" is one that transcends culture, time and place. Then, as now, most people think the Torvalds of the world are right; while the books to which Nora refers demanded women’s obedience, the popular literature produced today by pro-family advocates stresses the destructive nature of divorce and the duty of parents to sublimate their own needs for those of their children. We live in an era of reactionary social views, where an increasingly vocal element (the Wade Horns and Maggie Gallaghers of the world) seeks to bolster not only heterosexual marriage, but the notion that divorce is almost always fundamentally bad for all involved.
As someone who was raised by a single mom and has himself been thrice divorced, I realize I could be accused of constructing an interdisciplinary humanities course that justifies both my own world view and my life experience. My fellow Christians, who are often raised with an idolatrous perspective on the family, push me to reconsider whether my own views owe more to my own sinful nature and the secular culture than to an authentically God-centered outlook. But to me, the most important thing Jesus ever said about the family comes in Matthew 10:35-37, a passage on which most pastors ought to preach regularly, but hardly ever do:
For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law— a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household. Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
When was the last time you heard a really good sermon on that?
At the core of my being as a Christian, as a feminist, as an armchair psychologist, as a professor, as a youth worker, as a husband and, someday, a father, I believe that putting Christ before family means more than rebelling against a non-believing parent. It means more than being willing to be as Abraham was with Isaac. To be in relationship with Christ is to be on a unique and special journey, a journey of transformation, of change, of redemption. It is a journey that can often be walked with a parent, a child, a spouse, a sibling, a friend. But when husbands or wives or children stand in the way of continued growth, then the duty to the self (in relationship with Christ) trumps any other obligation.
Ibsen, the master psychologist, was hardly a Christian. Nora Helmer’s famous decision to leave her husband is rarely seen as a choice compatible with the Gospel. And of course, in my classes, I don’t introduce an explicitly Christian perspective on her choice. But here on this blog, where I try (with varying degrees of success) to tie together the various strands of my life, I can make the case that self-actualization and personal discovery are not at odds with the call to follow Jesus. Divorce, especially when children are involved, will be agonizing. But when we leave marriages that can’t be saved, when we choose to believe that parenthood and husband-hood and wife-hood do not mean an end to one’s obligation to oneself — these are not inherently selfish choices. Sometimes, following the cross means walking away from everyone who loves you. Sometimes, following the cross means choosing the obligation to transform over the obligation of the marriage vow.
I suspect few who read this will agree with me. My secular friends see no need for me to drag in Scripture; my conservative friends may be angered at what they see as a serious misreading of Matthew 10. But while I may indeed be mistaken, cloaking selfish self-justification in the rhetoric of personal growth and the language of the Gospel, I remain convinced that the "duty to the self" and the "call to the cross" are more compatible than most of us ever imagine.
As someone with a BA and an MA in Literature, I must say that the theme for your Humanities class is awesome. I wish my professors had been as original with their class themes; even my grad-level seminars were glorified survey courses. However, because I wrote my thesis on Shakespeare, and am biased towards his version of dysfunction, I would have to suggest that you include at least one work of his in future versions of this course, if you can. I would suggest “Titus Andronicus”, “Richard III”, or of course, “Hamlet”. Trust me, the dysfunctional families in those three plays served as the basis for many papers. Of course, I would never tell anyone how to teach their class, my suggestions are just something to think about. Keep up the good work, the world needs good teachers like you.
I’d just like to point out Lynn Gazis-Sax excellent post, “With my Body, I Thee Worship” (as well as the Disputed Mutability post it point to). I do not think I could sum up my beliefs on marriage better than that stunning last paragraph.
Great post. I have to wonder if Nora’s decision to leave Torvald would have been different had it taken place today. She could divorce Torvald, but still have visitation rights to her kids and such.
I grew up with the slogan, “Family First!” and “Blood is thicker than water.” Naturally, idolization of the family was engrained in me at a very young age. When my father screws up and I call him on it, he usually says, “You have me up on this pedestal! I’m only human!” That is why I find the Biblical Womanhood post on, “Daddy is the king of our home” to be especially dangerous. It manifests the “Christian” idolization of the family to an extreme point. No, your daddy is not a king. He is not royalty. He is not God. And your mother is not a saint (though I have been known to say such things about my mother, which I no longer do). I really wanted to scream when I read that article. The notion that my parents are indeed human is quite liberating indeed.
I mostly agree that you are right about Nora. And while I do agree that one does have a duty to be true to yourself and to grow as a person, etc., and that leaving a spouse sometimes is required for that, I don’t feel the same way about children. It isn’t that my life revolves around my kids, because it doesn’t and when I describe myself, mother isn’t the first thing that comes up, but I do think that my responsibility to my children trumps most everything else. Because I made them. I helped to bring them into this world and therefore my main responsibility is to them, especially while they are young because I am their parent (not because I’m their mother–their father bears the same responsibility that I do.) And, in fact, the story about Abraham and Isaac was one of the main catalysts in my turning away from Christianity (and toward atheism). Because once I was old enough to understand it, I just couldn’t bring myself to worship a god that would demand something like that of me.
Scripture’s just a big cloud of metaphors and underspecified statements that can lead you to good or to ill. Whatever you choose to do, you’ll always find some words in there to justify or condemn it. And that is true of any of the large, ancient books of collected wisdom from any culture. It’s also true of evolutionary psychology.
I can’t help but think that the principle involved here is way bigger than feminism–that as soon as you go around saying that your obligation to self-actualization is more significant than your obligation to your children (though ideally if this is the case you’ll think about that before having kids) then ALL obligations to others become diminished in value relative to our self-obligations. But, like the Gospels, there are some people who will take that idea to evil ends, and some to good ends.
The incident with Jesus and the ointment seems relevant–”For you always have the poor with you; but you don’t always have me.”
Here’s some synchronicity - when I opened this post another window on my desktop was displaying “Tony was told he had to put work before family to get anywhere, says Cherie Blair”. I’ve also heard it said that if every Cabinet minister put his family before his work (”his” *is* appropriate since most are men) then the Government would collape overnight.
I can make the case that self-actualization and personal discovery are not at odds with the call to follow Jesus
I have no problem with this, as long as you don’t forget that Jesus’ version of “self-actualization” involves a redemptive vision not only for yourself but all your relationships. Christians have no right to focus on improving themselves at the expense of anyone else. Self-sacrifice is a good thing. When Paul talks about “living a life worth of the calling” and putting on the “new self” in Ephesians 4, he immediately calls on the Christian be “completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love” and to “be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” Why? we are to be “imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God”
Sometimes a deep commitment to Christ alienates you from others - but only sometimes. It is FAR more likely that a primary commitment to yourself will alienate you from others. Love, after all, is “not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.” Choose ye this day whom you will serve and all that.
I cannot in any way adequately express my contempt for a person who would leave his or her children in order to “find themselves.”
It happened to me, sort of. My wife committed suicide, leaving me with two preadolescent children, one of them a special needs child. My rage and disgust at this profound selfishness is deep and endless, but I suppose I can cut my wife a little slack because at least she didn’t go join an ashram or explore a single lifestyle that she never felt she got enough of (we married young also) or spend a lot of time dealing with her “issues” in a big puddle of “you-go-girlosity.” She just swallowed a lot of cheap vodka and antidepressants.
But somebody who would want to leave their kids, and then LIVE? Your students are right, Hugo. If no children were involved leaving would be fine (I’m one of those MRAs who believes divorce should be far easier before children, far more difficult after). But to leave your kids, the people you created and made a pact with to protect, nurish and love until they’re grown? Revolting.
And yes, this applies at least as much to men as to women. Hugo, if the shoe were on the other foot–if Torvald were leaving Nora to go “think things over for himself and get to understand them,” would you be so supportive?
Chief, I’m sorry to hear about what has happened to you.
I have a different extreme — my mother spent my childhood so caught up in her wife/mother role (she married young as well) that she completely lost her sense of self. As a direct result, she’s suffered severe, crippling depression. It took the family a very long time to convince her it was all right for her to put herself first just to seek help, let alone to try and establish her own identity.
I don’t know what my life would have been like if she’d left it to try and do that on her own; I can’t even imagine. However, I do think that if she’d had more of an idea of her identiy before having children, she would have been happier all around, and suffered less down the line. And I do think that if the situation she’d been in had continued unchecked, without her seeking help, she might have killed herself, leaving my family in that same situation (albeit with slightly older children).
It’s definitely a tangled issue when there are children involved, but women defining themselves in ways other than mother- and wife-hood may be a way to make families stronger in the long run. And ideally, that shouldn’t require leaving the family (even if she did not have much of a sense of identity before marrying and having kids), it just means allowing the family to be one of the important things in the mother’s life.
“And ideally, that shouldn’t require leaving the family (even if she did not have much of a sense of identity before marrying and having kids), it just means allowing the family to be one of the important things in the mother’s life.”
Reb, we can agree on that much (and my wife’s suicide, I’m convinced, had little if anything to do with “losing herself in motherhood” though it was still a monstrous thing to do to a seven year old and five year old). I guess what would help with this would be more of an effort to impress upon both men and women that childraising is (or should be) a lifelong commitment, not for the faint of heart or anybody who thinks they might have other weighty issues to pursue before the job is done. Eighteen years from the birth of the youngest–if you don’t have the spine to make it your primary (though I agree, not necessarily exclusive) mission for that length of time, don’t even try.
I have real issues with the idea that personal growth happens by going off and “finding yourself.” Growth can happen in the middle of the homework and the commute and the dinner that gets eaten every night. Yes, it’s probably easier if you can go off to a monastary or something and think big thoughts. But God doesn’t promise us that growth is going to be easy.
I’m grateful that we live in an age where you can leave a marriage without having to leave your children. I can sympathize with Nora, and Laura Brown (of The Hours), but I’d be pretty judgemental of a real parent who just walked out of his or her kids lives in search of “growth.”
Let’s be clear that there’s “abandoning your children altogether” (as in disappearing off the planet) and getting a divorce with regular visitation and a commitment to stay involved in the kids’ life. I’m certainly not endorsing outright abandonment. But I am convinced that there is such a thing as a positive divorce experience for a child: that was what my parents showed me.
Self-discovery, ultimately, is a means to an end — it makes one more available to be of service to the world. Sometimes, even in a troubled marriage, that self-discovery can be achieved. Sometimes, it can’t. I’m writing in defense of those for whom it can’t.
“I have no problem with this, as long as you don’t forget that Jesus’ version of “self-actualization” involves a redemptive vision not only for yourself but all your relationships. ”
Wouldn’t it be much more acurate to say that we have transcribed Jesus’ self-actualization into a redemptive vision, while his vision itself was not redemptive, but wholly transcendent?
I always felt that Nora left because she wasn’t respected. She had to pretend to be all flighty and friviolous because that was the only way to get money and help out her husband. When Torvald found out what she did (to more or less save his ungrateful life) he got angry. Instead of being touched, he was furious because “what would everyone think?” Nora couldn’t stay because he was a horrible husband, and she couldn’t stay with the kids because she a) couldn’t afford them and b) wasn’t responsible enough for herself, much less someone else.
Hugo:
Nuts — you started the week sounding thoroughly evangelical and then start channeling Deepak Chopra — eeesh.
Stephen
Don’t worry, Steve, it’s a Monday through Thursday thing. I move from the insightful to the insipid as the week rolls on.
At the time the play was written, in most Western countries the father automatically got custody if there was a divorce. So if Nora left the children, in no small part it was probably because she had no choice. Something you might want to remind your students. In 1879, there was no way to choose the children without being stuck with the man. On a very basic level, we cannot as civilized people demand women stay in marriages with men they do not love, because that is rape.
And it’s worth noting that in the play, the fact that the demands on Norah are indeed that she submit to rape is not hidden. Ibsen makes Norah’s refusal to have sex with her husband on a certain night as the turning point in the play; it’s clear that her very survival in that home is dependent on her doling out the sex in the proper increments. It’s shocking, but clear that female submission in marriage makes sexual relations a form of prostitution instead of bonding.
On a very basic level, we cannot as civilized people demand women stay in marriages with men they do not love, because that is rape.
Indeed
But I am convinced that there is such a thing as a positive divorce experience for a child: that was what my parents showed me.
I’d need some pretty serious convincing before I signed off on that, Hugo.
Hugo, your adoration of Nora leads you to a very condescending view of your students’ criticisms of her–why, the silly things are just young idealists! You aren’t seeing Nora’s perspective, or Torvald’s; you see from the perspective of a child, not from that of a parent.
You’re also remaking Ibsen’s play as a very simple moral lecture about the value of “self-actualizing”. Did it dawn on you that, perhaps, Ibsen didn’t make Nora 100% heroic for a reason?
“On a very basic level, we cannot as civilized people demand women stay in marriages with men they do not love, because that is rape.”
But we can damn well insist that they hold it together for the sake of a family unit they helped create. After the youngest is off to college she can go on her self-actualizing, navel gazing, quest of self indulgence all she wants.
Chief, I’m just trying to make sure that you’re actually saying what I think I’m hearing. You believe that if a wife doesn’t want to have sex with her husband anymore, for whatever reasons she has (some of which can be “navel-gazing,”) the husband has the right to rape and she should not leave, because that would make life more difficult for the children. Is that what you are saying?
Antigone:
I thought that Nora felt betrayed. She put her husband before herself in his hour of need and assumed he would do the same for her. And then she discovered he wouldn’t, and she was devastated.
Jeremy’s take is about how I’ve always seen Nora. And, I agree with mythago; I’m not sure you’re meant to see her as 100% heroic. But Torvald is deeply flawed.
Technocracygirl,
No, I’m saying that both parents have an obligation to hold the family unit together until the youngest child is grown. As far as not wanting to have sex with her husband? IMO No, he doesn’t have the right to rape her. But if it happens consistently he does have a right to quietly, discreetly seek sex elsewhere.
I think the really powerful thing about the play is that we see Nora both as a victim and as an agent. I don’t think we can really celebrate her choice at the end, but we can see how it’s neccesary, and how she has to have that choice.
The Chief-> Many of my close friends went through parents divorcing in childhood and grew up to be extremely well-adjusted, kind and responsible people. The process WAS difficult for them at the time, but I think being a child in a home where a marriage is not working but the parents hold together the family unit anyways would be much worse.
But if it happens consistently he does have a right to quietly, discreetly seek sex elsewhere.
What’s ‘consistently’? If she only puts out every other night? If she develops a health problem? Why are we assuming that the reason for refusing sex is purely spite on the refusing spouse’s part?
No, I’m saying that both parents have an obligation to hold the family unit together until the youngest child is grown.
It takes two to hold a family unit together.
Why should there be an obligation for the parents to stay together until the kids are grown? I think that’s absurd. I think there’s an obligation for parents to be there for their children, no matter what their marital situation is. my own father stayed with my mother for the sake of me and my sister, and now that I’m grown and understand just how miserable he was, I’m devastated for him that he wasn’t able to spend his 30s and 40s with a woman he loved and instead put up with the crap my mother gave him just so my sister and I wouldn’t have a “broken family.” If he had left when we were young, we’d have adjusted, and we probably would have spent more time with him than we did when we were all living under one roof.
One also wonders why screwing around, no matter how ‘discreet’, is supposed to help hold a family unit together. If you can stay married for your kids’ sake, why not also keep it in your pants for their sake?
I really don’t want to drift this thread, and I’ll discuss all this in depth on my own, brand new, shiny blog soon. But quickly..
1) I will make exceptions for health problems. I’m an ogre, yes, but not so much an ogre that I would expect sex if she suddenly became paralyzed from the neck down.
2) It may not necessarily be spite (though frankly, I think that’s the cause more often than not), but which ever party–and I know it’s not always the wife, just usually–is withholding the sex is the one with the power to start offering it again.
3) Sex is a basic need. I find for myself, at least, going without sex is a little like a low grade vitamin deficiency. No, it may not kill me but it makes me plenty miserable. A woman who, out of some passive-aggressive mean streak, won’t acknowledge this and refuses to sleep with me after I made a made a vow to have sex with her and only her is not worthy of my loyalty. YMMV.
I find for myself, at least, going without sex is a little like a low grade vitamin deficiency. No, it may not kill me but it makes me plenty miserable.
FWIW, this isn’t a universal experience. My own experience, when I’ve had occasion to go without sex for long periods (years) of time has been more intermittent: stretches where it’s intensely difficult alternating with stretches where it’s actually quite easy. Also, there’s a fairly regular monthly cycle to which days it’s likely to be most difficult, and that means that, at the more difficult time of the month, you can tell yourself that in a few days your hormones will swing the other way.
Amanda Marcotte wrote:
“On a very basic level, we cannot as civilized people demand women stay in marriages with men they do not love, because that is rape.”{
So terribly true. Yet we do expect men to stay in marriages with women they do not love, or at least to support them and their children materially.
At the very least, that is slavery.
(Sorry, y’all, I let my inner MRA out for a moment)
Fact is, though men have in recent history had an easier time of it with divorce (sure, you lose your kids, your house, your job [if it wasn’t already gone], your friends, the respect of your peers, but at least you’re not called a slut), oppression, unless you are of Hugo’s class or above, goes both ways.
I agree, Oriscus.
A woman shouldn’t have to stay with a man she doesn’t like. But if you think about it, this has come to the situation in which a woman has absolutely no responsibilities to a man in a marriage. The man most certainly will have responsibilities to her because of the marriage (in the case of divorce), especially with a long-term stay-at-home woman and a working man.
Viewed in that light, marriage is simply a means of hooking a man financially. Which may be fine, but at least make it clear to young men what is going on.
So terribly true. Yet we do expect men to stay in marriages with women they do not love, or at least to support them and their children materially. [from Oriscus]
Child support is not support for the parent, except in the case that one parent is doing most of the daily child care and is living in the same house as the children and eating the same food as the children. Alimony is for the parent with less resources. Child support is support for the children that a male and a female both agreed together to bring into the world and support. Breaking the tie between mother and father is not the same thing as breaking the tie between parent and child.
Viewed in that light, marriage is simply a means of hooking a man financially. Which may be fine, but at least make it clear to young men what is going on. [from G]
Isn’t it scary? I agree with you. That’s why I think that before one gets married, one needs to talk to one’s partner about unspoken assumptions. If one expects to be a stay-at-home parent, one needs to discuss this before marriage. If one expects to have a career and not give it up once kids arrive on the scene, one needs to discuss this before marriage. If one (to pull from another thread) needs to have sex every three-four days to keep on an even keel, [viz. _Cryptonomicon_] this is something which needs to be disscussed before marriage. And all of this is not contingent on gender.
I do like the idea of marriage. I just think that everyone needs to go into it with their eyes wide open and realizing that their unspoken assumptions (everyone has them) are not necessarily shared by their partner.
In Ibsen’s day, people were starting to think that maybe the unspoken assumptions that society had (a woman wants to be a wife and mother, and that is the be-all and end-all of her personality, for example) weren’t true for all people at all times. People (like Ibsen) were starting to realize that there *were* unspoken assumptions, and started bringing them out to air.
I’m not certain where else I’m going with, other than to say that unless all of your unspoken assumptions are the same as your significant other’s, one day, you’re going to run into one and have a very nasty bruise on your shin. If you’re lucky, that unspoken assumption is one you can work around or compromise on. If you’re unlucky (like Torvald and Nora) it’s a breaking point. And, if you’re lucky *and* willing to put the time and effort in, you can find those unspoken assumptions which lead to breaking points before your commitments together get too large. But that last is contingent on realizing that your partner is, in fact, a human being who is not your identical clone, and who will have unspoken assumptions that are just as large and just as important as your own.
Ditto to Technocracygirl’s last comment. I think Hugo was too quick to draw lessons about modern-day “finding yourself” from the experience of Ibsen’s characters, in what Amanda points out is a very different historical moment. The choice for the modern woman is not so stark. There are many more opportunities for self-actualization both before and during marriage. It’s far more socially acceptable now for men and women to have that conversation about their different expectations *before* marrying and having kids. So when someone goes ahead and has kids anyway, and then decides he/she needs to “find themselves”, it is harder for me to sympathize with divorce being the heroic choice. Sometimes necessary, yes, sometimes the best of the bad options, even with kids involved. But I think we reach for that option too often nowadays because we *are* still under the spell of that myth of heroic escape from stifling wife/mother ideals.
FWIW, a high percentage of my students come from highly conservative backgrounds; first-generation college students make up 75% of the class. They were raised with views on the family (rooted in Asian, Latin, Armenian culture) not far removed from those Ibsen describes. I would make Nora out to be less heroic were I teaching a different set of students, actually.
“Child support is not support for the parent, except in the case that one parent is doing most of the daily child care and is living in the same house as the children and eating the same food as the children. Alimony is for the parent with less resources. Child support is support for the children that a male and a female both agreed together to bring into the world and support. Breaking the tie between mother and father is not the same thing as breaking the tie between parent and child.”–from Technocracygirl
I’m a child support worker, so let me just correct you here: Child support is for whatever the custodial parent damn well feels like spending it on. There is no accountability for him or her (usually her), no required budget, no report that goes to the non-custodial parent or anybody else. Much is made of the “deadbeat dad” who does everything to avoid paying his child support, and yes, such asshats do exist. Much less rarely discussed is the custodial parent who spends the extra money on ladies night at the local meat bar or those darling new shoes she just HAS to have.
Alimony, BTW, is rarely assigned any more and in my opinion should be killed off entirely. You ladies wanted equality, right? Welcome to the accompanying responsibility, including the responsibility to take care of yourselves.
You’re right that both parties should make very clear what is expected at the beginning of a marriage, and in my opinion should codify as much of it as legally possible in a pre-nup. The problem is when somebody–usually the woman–decides to change the rules. The old line is true: “A woman marries a man thinking he will change. He never will. A man marries a woman assuming she won’t change. She always does.”
Alimony is not as infrequent as people seem to think, cf.
http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/04statab/fedgov.pdf , Doc. 475, “Alimony Paid” line.
American men fork over $7 billion per year to women. Per year.
Legally, marriage is a job contract. You’re a stay-at-home spouse, upon disillusion of the contract you get severance pay (alimony).
Screw all this romance bullshit. You want a stay-at-home wife and mother? Then you hire one. When you fire them, or they quit, you pay severance. (Switch genders as necessary).
You have kids? Great, you now have to support them. If you don’t think your children are getting supported correctly, you appeal their custody. But if she’s getting new shoes but your kids are still getting food, shelter, clothing et cetera, than you really can’t bitch.
It would sure be nice to have a discussion about marriage without the usual whining about how women are all gold-digging bitches who want to live high off the child support check.
The old line is true
It’s about as true as the old joke many (generally now-divorced) women have about going to bed on their wedding night and waking up next to a stranger.
A woman who, out of some passive-aggressive mean streak, won’t acknowledge this and refuses to sleep with me after I made a made a vow to have sex with her and only her is not worthy of my loyalty.
You’re sort of contradicting yourself here, Chief. Both parents have a responsibility to maintain their marriage for the sake of the children, unless the issue is sex, in which case, hey, whoever’s getting laid insufficiently is free to go screw around, and forget what that does to the marriage or the children?
The reasons people do or don’t have sex are extremely complicated, and reducing it down to “selfish wife depriving poor husband of his due” is, well, reductionist and simplistic. Not to mention sexist, in that it assumes that it’s usually the woman and it’s usually all her fault. That’s exactly the kind of thinking that perpetuates the situation, because then the sex becomes purely about a power struggle. (And any experienced therapists can tell you about how many times they’ve dealt with the situation where, once the less-interested partner starts wanting sex more, the more-interested partner isn’t happy, because it was never just about sex in the first place.)
I’d say, instead, that whenever possible, parents have an obligation to try and make their marriage work for the good of the children. Merely not-divorcing is not the same thing as making a marriage work, and perpetuating dysfunction rather than addressing the problem (e.g. cheating instead of trying to heal the marriage) is also not what I’d call a healthy model for children.
“Screw all this romance bullshit. You want a stay-at-home wife and mother? Then you hire one. When you fire them, or they quit, you pay severance. (Switch genders as necessary).”
Sometimes you contract (i.e. marry) for an equal partner who also works, and the “contract” unilaterally turns into a stay-at-home partner.
I’d more likely put it this way: If you don’t want him, you shouldn’t be savoring after his wallet. Or be granted it by a court. Women should certainly have equal opportunity to work, now feminists have to work on the “responsibility” part of working. A man would be told to get off his butt, quit leeching and finally get a job if he was stupid enough to petition for spousal support. Maybe women should be treated equally.
We should. I, myself, think more women should stick their husbands with the majority of homemaking and childrearing duties.
“You want a stay-at-home wife and mother?”
Actually, I would’ve been happy either way–working or not–as long as she would pick one, stick with it and be satisfied. But nothing was going to make her happy. Working? She missed the milestones with her children and she didn’t like her job and the politics of it bothered her and it was too hard to be a mother at the same time and THIS IS KILLING ME! Not working? The kids were driving her crazy and she felt so unfulfilled and she never got a moment’s peace and it was boring and THIS IS KILLING ME!
But you’re right, screw the romance, let’s lay it all out in that prenup. How much sex per week. Who gets what if and when the divorce comes. How much “severance pay” she gets (with the possible exception of a Fortune 500 company CEO position I’ve never heard of a corporate severance pay package as generous as alimony).
No wait, better yet, let’s chuck the whole thing, especially if you’re a guy and you’re the one putting your head in the lion’s mouth. Guys, thanks to the miracle of sex-positive feminism some good nookie is readily available even if you don’t give her the ring and the contract. For the cost of drinks and a dinner–maybe not even that–she’ll give it up to you and feel “empowered” aftewards. You really don’t need her (or her, you) for much else unless you want children, and the chances are too great she’s going to take them and leave you in a few years when she’s “just not feeling fulfilled.” Just. Don’t. Do. It.
especially if you’re a guy and you’re the one putting your head in the lion’s mouth
“Especially”? Why do you think this is a bad deal for women? The no-strings deal seems just fine for women. No worries that he’ll ditch you and the kids mid-marriage for someone half his age, or that he’ll expect you to screw up your career by letting you take all the impact of childcare and keeping the house going. No having to put up with doing 99% of the daily grind and getting an indignant lecture about how he mows the lawns (once a week, in the summer) so you both do the ’same’ amount of work. No whining about how when you come home tired from work, make dinner, chase the kids, and check homework, the least you could do is suck his dick after he’s done watching the Victoria’s Secret special.
Instead, using the Chief Plan, you maybe have to reciprocate for drinks and dinner, and you can sleep with a guy who has actually made an effort to be attractive to you. If he’s a jerk or lousy in bed, you never have to see him again. Who could ask for more?
Too bad I can’t embed mp3s in a blog post. “Girls Lie Too” is such a nice background track for pointing out that egocentric, sexist whining about how They’re All Fuckers is a pastime for dysfunctional people of both sexes.
Mythago, are you trying to flirt with us? If you are, it’s not working.
LOL Jeeezus. I knew there was a reason I wasn’t married.
A man would be told to get off his butt, quit leeching and finally get a job if he was stupid enough to petition for spousal support. Maybe women should be treated equally.
I would hope not. My husband and I have a mutual agreement that I’m doing the main breadwinning, and he’s at home, and I think any court that let me walk off without any effort to help him get back on his feet after the divorce would be screwing him over, actually.
That said, I tend to think that most divorces, these days, ought to involve either no alimony or only a modest, short term amount of alimony.
Ya know, myth, I’ve always had somewhat of a blog-crush on you. YOUR COMMENTS ROCK OMG!
“I would make Nora out to be less heroic were I teaching a different set of students, actually.”
Just curious, Hugo - how would you teach Nora differently?
Mythago, are you trying to flirt with us?
Where is Mr. Bad and his “stop being paranoid and egotistical, you’re not being hit on all the time” lecture when you need him?
We, too, know there’s a reason you’re not married, G.
“Why do you think this is a bad deal for women?”
Please review my comments, Mythago. Did I ever say I thought it was? Obviously women get something out of this comparitively new behavior of giving sex for virtually no commitment or they wouldn’t be doing it. I was speaking as a man to other men. If the ladies are enjoying themselves, so be it. We have now outlined the ideal society–one in which anyone can get sex from anybody to whom they are at least reasonably attractive and they don’t even have to really like each other. Huzzah.
I will speculate, however, that many young women may be getting something out of it only for the moment. The long term may be a bit more questionable. Marriage and commitment seem to become more important to women as they get older, less important to men as they get older. (Everybody please spare me stories of your 90 year old aunt who banged every barbershop quartet she could find as a young girl, never married and is still just giddy about it. I’m speaking in generalities here, not exceptions). I suspect that some women who avoided commitment in their youth, or even threw out the husband they married young, may be in for some serious regrets as they get older, the bloom is off the rose and their biological clocks start ticking louder, louder, LOUDER. In other words, Maureen Dowd Syndrome.
I’m speaking in generalities here
You’re speaking about your own perception, not about objective reality. Maureen Dowd’s inability to find a husband, assuming she wants one, is not a ’syndrome’ of all women who aren’t fortunate enough to get the NYT to print their bleating. And honestly, are you really saying that men are less interested in sowing wild oats in their youth than in middle age?
The fact that you see uncommitted sex as women ‘giving it up’ says volumes. It would be a terrible thing if part of the scars you carry from your wife continued to be this desire to view women as the enemy.
Obviously women get something out of this comparitively new behavior of giving sex for virtually no commitment or they wouldn’t be doing it.
Yes, they get sex out of it. That’s no small something (and even if one should be waiting for more commitment than one chooses, it would be silly to deny that sex without commitment can be pretty darn pleasant).
We have now outlined the ideal society–one in which anyone can get sex from anybody to whom they are at least reasonably attractive and they don’t even have to really like each other.
On the other hand, why anyone would ever find it at all appealing to have sex with someone he or she doesn’t like will forever be a mystery to me.
Marriage and commitment seem to become more important to women as they get older, less important to men as they get older.
Not in my experience. In my experience, marriage and commitment seem to become more important to both men and women (speaking in generalities, and allowing that there may be lots of individual exceptions) as they get older, and, amazingly, this results in nearly everyone getting married.
“Nearly everyone?” I have no links so dismiss this if you must, but the last I heard the number of unmarried people in America had overtaken the number of married people. And the average age of men marrying keeps going up.
Mermade, if I were dealing with students who came from backgrounds that were less conservative, where divorce was more common and individual happiness more of a stated priority, I’d be more critical of Nora, merely to stimulate debate. Good teaching is always about deflating rather than reinforcing students’ assumptions, and those assumptions vary at different colleges.
I have no links so dismiss this if you must, but the last I heard the number of unmarried people in America had overtaken the number of married people.
Hey, I didn’t say nearly everyone stayed married. When you add up the people who haven’t married yet, and the people who are now widowed, that makes up a sizeable percentage of the currently single. Another fraction are divorced. Nearly everyone does get married at some point, and most people who get divorced remarry. Marriage is under challenge, yes, but it’s not so unpopular that most people (men or women) who want to marry are in dire danger of winding up facing a lonely old age with their cats.
The difficulty with marriage, these days, isn’t that people aren’t getting married; it’s that they’re finding it hard to make their marriages last.
Obviously, mileage varies a whole lot for some specific demographic groups.
Women should certainly have equal opportunity to work, now feminists have to work on the “responsibility” part of working.
Wow, G. What part of the “mothers going to work” era did you miss? (It’s always been around, it’s just it used to be that if you rich enough [i.e., middle class or above] it was status if you didn’t, and since rich people are what the stories are written about…)
Marriage and commitment seem to become more important to women as they get older, less important to men as they get older.
I would really love to see some stats on that one, because, like Lynn, everything I’ve read is that those things are more important to both genders as they mature.
And there are reasons it matters whether any decline in the portion of married people comes more from people not getting married or more from people getting divorced; if fewer people are married because more people are getting divorced, then advising women to lower their expectations before they get married won’t do anyone much good (especially if it’s mostly women who are initiating divorces). Unless, you know, your goal is earlier marriages followed by even more divorces.
Of course, how people should set their expectations, and make their choices, before getting married is somewhat separate from the question of what women (or men) should be doing after they’ve married, when the marriage hits trouble.
”
And there are reasons it matters whether any decline in the portion of married people comes more from people not getting married or more from people getting divorced; if fewer people are married because more people are getting divorced, then advising women to lower their expectations before they get married won’t do anyone much good (especially if it’s mostly women who are initiating divorces). Unless, you know, your goal is earlier marriages followed by even more divorces.
Of course, how people should set their expectations, and make their choices, before getting married is somewhat separate from the question of what women (or men) should be doing after they’ve married, when the marriage hits trouble.
—
Well, the main reason I see for divorce on the part of women is “he isn’t fulfilling my needs” or “we grew apart”.
I’d say that has a basis in expectations. I guess I’ll leave the details of that to the reader, I don’t want to get banned here with my thoughts on that.
Well, the main reason I see for divorce on the part of women is “he isn’t fulfilling my needs” or “we grew apart”.
I’d say that has a basis in expectations.
Possibly. In some ways, everyone might be better off lowering their expectations in terms of marriage being non-stop romance. Sometimes your wife won’t want to have sex with you, and sometimes your husband won’t bring you flowers any more (and the reverse, if you happen to have the marriage where it’s the wife who wants more sex, or the husband who wants more tenderness).
But what I’m thinking of is the sort of advice that says, hey, women, your time is running out (even if you’re only, say, just recently out of college), don’t be so picky that you let your time slip away. Or don’t be so independent that you aren’t running around as worried about not finding a husband as Mrs. Bennett in Pride and Prejudice was about not marrying off her daughters. On the contrary, do be so picky, up front, about the guy you’re going to marry, so you don’t feel compelled to spend your life trying to change him afterwards. Do pass on your Mr. Collins, and hold out for your Mr. Darcy. It’s better both for you and for your future husband that you be choosy at this point, before you’ve married him. There will be plenty of occasion for both of you to disappoint and forgive each other later, even if you’ve managed to get your Darcy.
To some extent, I favor Ben Franklin’s advice in marriage.
Lynn, I am very much in agreement with you. You write so well and sensibly!
It’s been put forward that for the first 6 months to two years of a relationship, the brain is flooded with all the sorts of chemicals that make you feel good. (In certain circles, this is called “New Relationship Energy” or NRE.) You want to be around the other person for the chemical high, and are more likely to dismiss the negative aspects because you’re in a small form addicted to them.
That’s why I’m in favor of bringing back the idea of the long courtship, so that couples can look at what they’ve got with non-drug-induced eyes, and make as reational of decisions as they can about a very important aspect of their lives. Men and women, thankyouverymuch.
Sorry, Chief, but it’s your job to make your point, not mine to disprove that “I heard that….” isn’t true. I mean, it’s not that hard to find data.
On the other hand, why anyone would ever find it at all appealing to have sex with someone he or she doesn’t like will forever be a mystery to me.
Probably because you think of potential sex partners as people, rather than as enemies to be bribed or tricked into ‘giving it up’.
Blog Drift… the death of intelligent debate.
This thread began with a “teacher” trying to explain (justify) why he’s propogandizing impressionable youth with his own twisted religious beliefs and social agenda. But now….
It’s become a group hug about how to properly improve personal relationships…. Are ALL you people from California? Grow a backbone and take a stand. Where in hell is all the obviously justifiable righteous indignation that this should inspire? (Note that I did not say, “Self-Righteous Indignation”) The man has condescendingly admitted to massaging the data and inputs to fit his personal views and passing it along as “knowledge” to a bunch of half-developed teenagers…. i.e.:
“As someone who was raised by a single mom and has himself been thrice divorced, I realize I could be accused of constructing an interdisciplinary humanities course that justifies both my own world view and my life experience.” ….
… What? For crying out loud, “Accused”? How about tried & convicted by his own hand? …Of intellectual child-abuse!
Please, somebody, get this “arm chair psychologist” away from our youth and into some “couch-based” therapy where he belongs. Perhaps there’s an analyst somewhere who can help him deal with the psychic damage his mother did to him during her pursuit of self.
Michael, buddy, I did two years of analysis, three to four times a week, on the couch, full-on Freudian thing. My shrink even had the perfect name: Dr. Victor Levine. Wonderful man.
Kudos for being nasty under your own name.