Harvey Lacey makes an interesting statement of belief here.
“I believe when we look at marriage as a contract with obligations and expectations by partners with common goals we will see less divorces.”
Although the statement struck me as a bit reductionistic at first, upon re-reading I deemed it possibly useful. But if there is indeed truth in the statement, it must be wrung out like fouled water from an old rag, then run through my Brita pitcher before putting it to good use in the dog’s water dish.
With that mental picture in mind, I offer some of the contractual obligations and lofty expectations which characterize my man-woman (or woman-man) marriage contract, first ratified in the year 2001. Here’s a summary of the original 79-page agreement, for the first time made public.
1) General Clause: I expect my wife to be obliged to expect no more from me than I can be reasonably expected to be obliged. And vice versa.
2) The “Cookie & Nookie” clause. Self-explanatory.
3) The “Sexy Costume” clause: …
All right, this is really boring, it gets into sickness, health, richer and poorer, death, etc. The sentences get really long because it’s hard to jargonize that old-time traditional divine mystery stuff into the proper legalese. So let’s skip to the interesting amendment section:
First amendment: (April 2002) I expect my wife to have conjugal relations with me once a month. I hereby drop the “Sexy Costume” clause. My wife expects flowers and candy once a month plus one night out, two in her birthday month.
Second amendment: (March 2003) I expect a monthly conjugal visit from my wife if my house chores are complete. I get a reprieve on the chores if she cooks three or more sub-standard meals in one fortnight. (Meal standards are dictated by the Geneva Convention, or something like that.) My wife hereby drops the flower and candy clause altogether and expects one night out quarterly at “not such a cheap-assed hole-in-the-wall dive” as she said the last time (Feb. 14, 2003).
Third amendment (April 2003): Conjugal duty switched from monthly to quarterly. Minimum expenditure for night out set at $60.00US. Union representation of the so-called “lazy-assed workforce” blocked by a 50% vote stalemate.
[...skipping the tedious amendments of the so-called "failed prohibition era".]
15th amendment: (November 2005) Physical relations will be henceforth delivered on a vaguely-defined “as-needed” basis. Likewise nights out, “meal preparation services” and flowers and what-not. Diaper duty is now 50-50 and strictly enforced by the Nookie Point System established in the infamous 11th Amendment.
The year 2006 was a historic year. There wasn’t really a formal amendment, however in March of that year the original agreement was suspended and my wife seized the title of Supreme Dictator. All four of our children were conscripted into mandatory central intelligence service to report on “Dad’s current whereabouts” and “what did he manage to do this time”, etc. I don’t remember much else from the beginning of that year, other than being expected and obliged, as well as forced, to go to many of “Dad’s special meetings”. I do remember that high-sodium food products and Miller High Life were both strictly rationed, firearms were confiscated and hidden by the Supreme Dictator and the TV remote control unit was placed in a lock-box with the car keys. My wife’s attorney was fired during this period and mine moved away, or went permanently missing or something.]
16th amendment: (March 2007) The original oligarchy is hereby restored! Flowers are blooming in Wintertime, a hearth fire (in which we burnt the original contract) is glowing with the warmth of springtime love, etc. [However, I should add that the cigar ban from the 9th Amendement was left in full effect. So there truly is no earthly paradise, even in obligatory contracts.]
I hope that didn’t embarrass too many of you readers with so many personal details from my eventful life and marriage. I realize it was horrific, graphic and deeply disturbing, even though some might say the story has a happy ending. It sure was a learning experience for me, at least I think I learned some things about, you know, obligations and goals and stuff. Well, as Harvey says, “Some things get better when they’re exposed to the light of day.” And as the man in the MHL video says, “C’mon boys, we got a lot o’ common sense to deliver.”
my husband and i are both lawyers, so we like to have a sit-down regarding our marriage contract on at least a weekly basis. you’d be surprised how long these meetings last, i had to hire a nanny, etc. i can’t imagine how people who aren’t lawyers manage it. the billing hours alone! but hey, if it lessens our chances for divorce, IT’S WORTH IT.
Pauli, I read your mastication of Harvey’s words as something of an indictment of the clericalistic and legalistic implications in the terms he uses; your parody criticizes them as if he were describing and advocating only the clicking, insectoid sterilities of pre-nuptial agreeements (together with, perhaps, the absence of other elements).
Maybe he was and you’re on target, but maybe because I myself have come (rightly or wrongly) to see Harvey’s usage of words as often and just to the contrary quite loose and elastic (when not impenetrably allegorical) I myself read that clause quite differently, less as a reference to form than to content, evoking the notion that, because gay marriage transcends (or transgresses) the traditional forms of man-woman love and sex, as well as the traditional religious sanctities, because what they sought most was not rewards, sensate or divine, but instead obligations, what we would then notice most from gay marriage instead in much more pronounced relief would be those more essential elements that bind human fidelity, the elements that turn seven year marriages into thirty and fifty year marriages instead of serial monogamy or terminal divorce.
But that was just my reading of it, and even if I am correct in it, Harvey is likely to be proved a bit of an optimist: once the novelty wears off there is every likelihood we’ll see in gay marriages both the same superficial and idiotic failures as well as the same deep, understanding successes we see now in straight ones. Why wouldn’t we?
Law degrees would have helped us a lot.
In a sense it will make things easier when they allow “threesome marriages” since that way there will be someone to break “ties” in the negotiating process. Of course, some people think that would cause other problems, but I guess we’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it.
Loved it. Too slammed at work to comment.
Too slammed at work…
I disagree that anyone can get too slammed at work. In fact I’m headed to the fridge right now.
LOL, I wish I could get that kind of slammed at work. It would really help me cope with the Dilbertian insanity.
And BTW, Pauli, that was very funny. I actually laughed out loud. You know—LOL and all that. Except for real. LOL.
ALOLFR — actually laughed out loud for real.
Very funny! I must confess that we went to the wife as Supreme dictator almost right away and have never left that stage. I would like to open negotiations, but am much too scared.
On the slightly more serious side, I think most kids getting married seem to think that this nebulous thing called love will be all they need. It is a good start to be sure. Then all the messy real life things happen like cooking, taking out the trash, cleaning and budgeting. It was easier in the old days when Dad went to work and Mom stayed home. Most women dont want/expect that anymore. Most men havent fully accommodated to domesticity yet. It’s a wonder more people dont divorce.
O, BTW, I have managed to keep the A New Power Tool for Every Major Project clause intact so I guess Im not totally repressed.
Steve
I think most kids getting married seem to think that this nebulous thing called love will be all they need.
Steve, I agree with what you are saying. I believe that Love(1) is all you need, but love(2) is what most people are thinking about. Love(1) is about sacrifice, patience, giving up things, etc., and it sometimes called “agape”. Love(2) is about feelings, ecstacy and getting off, to put it bluntly.
You’re also right that love(2) is more nebulous whereas love(1) takes more concrete forms. “Deeds are love — not sweet words.”
Chesterton said that love(2), or “eros”, is like the heat it takes to weld to pieces of metal together. But after they bond the metal cools off so it can be put to good use. So passion plays a part, but a smaller part than young people realize.
Having lots of kids is helpful because they take a lot of your “free time” away from you, they break your shit, they demand your attention, they rob your dignity, etc. This is a good thing for your immortal soul as well as your marriage. After a while, Christ’s remark about the camel and the eye of the needle starts to look more like a French poodle running through the Arc de Triomphe.
I’ve watched this play out with interest. I got in late last night, almost ten, a man my age needs beauty sleep, and didn’t immediately reply. Mostly because it was instinctively a wise butt one along the line of “I knew I shouldn’t have pulled Pauli’s finger.”
I disagree with three (so far) of Pauli’s perceptions on marriage.
Probably the most important and most obvious of course would be the one about love being about sacrifice. I don’t see love being about sacrifice. What do you sacrifice for love?
I know some might view my ignoring my lust for racing cars and motorcycles as an example of sacrifice for love. I don’t see it that way. What I see is the experience of loving with my wife is more rewarding than the thrill of racing.
I also noticed that Pauli’s perception of marriage is biased towards sex. I guess that would explain his inclination to suggest marriage is about sex. Implying that homosexual marriage has to be about sex which suggests that homosexual marriage has to be bad because well, homosexual sex is bad.
Again, I don’t agree with his perception. But then sex isn’t why we’re together even though there’s sex because we’re together.
It also seems to be that we’re on different wave lengths when it comes to child rearing. I don’t take it quite so personal. Kids break stuff because that’s what anyone or thing does when they are not aware of the uses or limitations of things. Some of that stuff might be my stuff but all in all, it’s still just stuff. Maybe Pauli can give me an example of a child robbing me of my dignity. Or better yet we might find a discussion on dignity helpfull.
I stand by my position on a contractual agreement. The reasons we have contracts is intentions and obligations are two different things when under pressure.
What do you sacrifice for love?
me
I would say that in a good marriage it is a willing sacrifice of “me”. In the best of marriages me is usually replaced by we, on the big issues. A marriage that is full-time we seems too cloying IMO. More like co-dependence. The successful negotiation of we to me on smaller issues is necessary for a good marriage.
A weak marriage is almost always me with occasional we only when necessary, and then usually with resentment.
Children. After all these years, I think people have children mostly because other people do or because it is a side effect of sex or babies are cute. I think a minority of people actually sit down and figure out how having children will affect their lives. How they plan to raise them. What they plan to do if their kids dont meet their expectations. I guess I just think that kids and parents would be better off if they thought, and more importantly talked, about these issues before they had children.
Steve
Really? Pauli you believe you sacrifice yourself for love?
I understand the concept. I just don’t find it applicable in my life.
If I offered you a peach with one hand and in the other I had an apple You’re partial to apples. Is choosing the apple a sacrifice?
Steve, the other evening at a graduation party a couple of thirty something fathers cornered me for advice on a having an enduring marriage.
As I see it the rules are:
1. Fight fair, there’s books on this.
2. As human beings we need to accept we are going to fall in and out of love our whole lives. If we’re lucky we do it with the same person.
3. It starts out with a round hole and a square peg. Over time we end up with a singular fit. The peg isn’t quite so square and the hole isn’t as round as it once was. The important thing to keep in mind about this is it isn’t a painless process.
4. I’m big on monogamy. One of the reasons I’m big on monogamy is sex is a learning game. The more we do it the better we seem to get at it. And it is better when it’s a team sport and not an individual one.
5. Nothing can replace the comfort one can get from looking across the room or bed at someone and know they know you probably better than you know yourself, and the love you.
As for the we and me and marriage. I don’t see it being either or as much as being a with.
I think ya’ll are all talking about the same understood end, forging a “we” from an “I and I”, and just arguing about the means, immediate, mediate, intuitive, negotiated, and all the rest of the spectrum we utilize to get there.
We sacrifice ourselves a bit at a time. A day here, an hour there, an aching back from carrying small people (but not that small), varicose veins, etc. Sometimes we sacrifice resignedly at first and more joyfully later on as .
We give up numerous futures, things that might have been and all that. Astronaut, bartender, senator, garbage collector… not necesarily in that order. To provide another intensely personal example, I was on my way to become a world class drinking champion and plasma donor when I met my beautiful wife. Arguably she made the bigger sacrifice, but as they say on the internets, YMMV.
…sex is a learning game. The more we do it the better we seem to get at it.
Stud bull, baby.
Perhaps sacrifice is too ominous a word to some ears, recalling a torch-lit scene with drums poinding, white warpaint on wild, staring faces and a terrified virgin with hands chained together. In a sense, the kind of sacrifice I’m thinking about is much more mundane and more akin to the white marytrdom than the red. To clarify — most here would agree that service is a necessary component in any relationship. The highest level of service can be easily seen as sacrifice, even of one’s life in a heroic act, as we say of service-men, “All gave some, some gave all.”
An example of giving all in a marriage can be seen in the case of a spouse who goes into a persistent vegetative state. The healthy spouse still honors the clause “’til death do us part” in his/her vows even though this sick person can no longer communicate or perform normal functions. But the marital duty and obligations continue for the healthy spouse because marriage, although much like a contract in some ways, is more than merely a list of contractual obligations and expectations.
Even when the service or sacrifice doesn’t stand out in a singular way it can be heroic if done for love, as St. Therese asserted that “to pick up a pin for love can convert a soul.” This is obviously an ideal, but I think marriage is about ideals as even the so-called “gay-marriage” proponents are swift to point out.
I think RJ is right and we are saying some of the same things in different ways. I would ask Harvey about his “with”. I think that there are times when couples do better to temporarily not be with the other. A boys night out or ladies lunch if you will as examples. Taking an evening class or weekend retreat to advance one’s career. These are things that may primarily benefit one person much more than the other. I think a good marriage allows for these behaviors and allows for growth in the partner without being threatened.
Would you see these temporary wants/needs for separation as aberrant or harmful to a marriage? I am not talking about sexual activities as I am a believer in monogamy also.
Steve
“I don’t see love being about sacrifice. What do you sacrifice for love?”
sorry to be rude and all, but this is just an incredibly dumb question. for starters, obviously you have never been pregnant (sacrifice part 1: 3 mos. of nausea. tried it?).
Best comment! (Pauli)
Interestingly enough, from within the perspective of love, as Pauli seemed to be counterposing it to a more explicitly negotiated pact of mutually negotiated individual trade-offs, “sacrifice” would be occluded and disappear: sacrifice? how can there be any sacrifice from within love? At most only gratitude for the opportunity to exercise a will to duty.
Not that, to the perception of an objective outsider, every spouse and parent does not in fact sacrifice in the course of creating their respective com-unions of marriage or family, but when one from within the union begins to speak of sacrifice we are hearing the voice of the prior individuality piping up.
The responses are interesting. It seems we are all in the same pond. Just some of us seem to see it as a mudhole while others view it as paradise.
(sacrifice part 1: 3 mos. of nausea. tried it?)
Yup! I can strill vividly recall the horror I felt when my DH made seafood gumbo, which ordinarily is one of my favorite dishes. I couldn’t even sit in the same room. I mean, what was he thinking? But no one understands who hasn’t experienced it.
Ah, those were the days.