An Examination of Marriage Part 1

I am more than half-way through reading Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert. I have been reading it much slower than most books, because I have been trying make sure I absorb all of the information and give myself time to think about it as well. I have been enjoying the book a lot, there is a lot of fascinating information in it and the topics that it explores are very interesting.

"There is no greater risk than matrimony, but there is nothing happier than a happy marriage."
-Benjamin Disraeli, 1870

Gilbert says that she first got married at the age of 25 without understanding anything about the institution of marriage or thinking much about it. (I am sure that this is true for a lot of people.)

During the book, she speaks with some Hmong women and finds that they have very different marriages than Western women. They don't expect their husbands to be their best friends, intimate confidants, emotional advisers, intellectual equal and comforter during their times of sorrow, instead they get a lot of their support from other women. Hmong women also do not put their marriage in the center of their emotional biography the way that Western women do, Gilbert says in the book.

Gilbert also says that because women have so many choices they live in danger of becoming paralyzed by indecision and are often terrified that every choice they make might be the wrong one. (I know that I definitely suffer from this!)

"There is one critical gift that a traditional Hmong bridge almost always receives on her wedding day which all too often eludes the modern western bride, and that is the gift of certainty. When you have only one path set before you, you can generally fell confident that it was the correct path to have taken," the book says.

Another point made in the book which I found interesting is what women expect from their marriages. Gilbert says that women ask for and expect happiness from their marriages (which is actually a really big request if you think about it.)

A recent study actually found that women want to be inspired by their husbands. So, are we asking too much of love and marriage?

"Marriage becomes hard work once you have poured the entirety of your life's expectations for happiness into the hands of one mere person. Keeping that going is hard work," the book says.

I think that maybe women do sometimes expect too much from their marriages. That is something that I never thought about before reading this book. We all kind of expect to get married and then live happily ever after. No wonder every one says that marriage is hard work. Perhaps we should instead have our husband be just a part of our happiness. We need to find our own inner happiness and rely on friends and family for emotional support and inspiration, so that it doesn't all fall on one person. It seems like asking for all of that could let you down and lead to failure.

Another topic that is very interesting in the book is about the failure of marriages. Gilbert says that marriages based on love are just as fragile as love itself, and anything that the heart chooses, it can unchoose later.

In the mid-1800s social conservatives were saying that the trend towards expressive individualism in marriage would be the breakdown of society. They predicted that allowing couples to make life matches based purely on love and the whims of personal affections would lead to astronomical divorce rates and bitterly broken homes. The fact that this has actually played out today is pretty eerie I think.

The Holmes-Rahe stress level scale actually says that the death of a close family member is less stressful than a divorce. Divorce is second on the stress list, only behind the death of a spouse.

The divorce statistics say that the younger you get married, the more likely you are to get divorced. You are two to three times more likely to get divorced if you marry in your teens or early twenties than if you wait until your thirties and forties. However, 25 is the magic cut off point, if you get married before the age of 25 you are more likely to get divorced than if you wait until the age of 26 to get married, the book says.

"An old Polish adage warns: Before going to war, say one prayer. Before going to sea, say two prayers Before getting married, say three."

Some other interesting things raised in the book:

• In the Symposium by Plato, there is a mythical story of why humans have such deeps desires to be in a romantic relationship with others. The story says that humans used to be two people joined together, seamlessly united into one person. Zeus punished the humans for their neglect to the gods by cutting these humans into two, so for the rest of time, people have been born sensing that they are not whole and have spent their lives searching for their other half. "This is the singular fantasy of human intimacy: that one plus one will somehow, someday, equal one."

• Gilbert also examines the difference between infatuation and love, stating that infatuation leads to "intrusive thinking" where you can't concentrate on anything but the person you have fallen for. She even says that scientists have recently found that the brain scans and mood swings of an infatuated lover look similar to the brain scans of a cocaine addict. Infatuation is an addiction.
  

• "Real, sane, mature love - the kind that pays the mortgage year after year and picks up the kids after school - is not based on infatuation but on affection and respect."