This morning, during Morning Prayer, I said a little prayer for our married relationship, it being Valentine's Day and all. Nothing wrong with romance, even when you've been married for well over 30 years.
Then I figured, I may as well pray for the relationships of my siblings while I'm at it. But that quickly got complicated: two of them have been separated from their spouses for many years; one currently is going through a divorce; one is on his second marriage (which seems solid enough); the other two seem to be happily married. So a bit of a mixed bag.
Among my parents' generation, my parents have been happily married for 60+ years; another uncle and his wife for 50+ years, seemingly equally happy; another has been divorced for decades; and the other is on her second marriage which, from my rather distant vantage point, perhaps could be better.
As for my kids: they're all in their 20s. One has some sort of ambiguous relationship which, if there is romance and intimacy involved, he hasn't revealed it to us yet. The others have nothing cooking: no boyfriends, girlfriends, or even dates. I think the whole relationship-attachment thing is screwy for that generation. This NY Times article from a day or two ago: "Have more sex, please!" doesn't necessarily hit the bulls-eye when it comes to romance and happiness, but it does discuss the curious asexuality of that generation.
I prayed for all of them anyway, even if not all their relationships conform to society's Valentine's Day ideal. Romance doesn't happen to all of us all the time, but it's nice when it's there, and it's worth working for.
Happy Valentine's Day.
Happy Valentine's Day to you and your wife too, Jim! And Valentine's Day is not just for couples, it's for friends and kids too. I don't care if it's commercialized, I'll enjoy the candy and pretty card that I got from my husband. I always send the grandkids a card with a five dollar bill tucked in. And I sent a card to a friend who is going through a rough time and might need a little encouragement. I texted my sisters.; but then I text them about every day.
ReplyDeleteSts. Cyril and Methodius were the saints on the calendar today. There was a meme on Facebook, " Roses are red and violets are odorous; I wish you happy feast of Cyril and Methodius."
Jim says: even if not all their relationships conform to society's Valentine's Day ideal. Romance doesn't happen to all of us all the time, but it's nice when it's there, and it's worth working for.
ReplyDelete“Love and marriage, love and marriage, they go together like a horse and carriage” is perhaps one expression of this (Victorian?) ideal.
When I was a young scholar, first in graduate school and then as a post-doc, I almost became a “romantic love” scholar. One of my graduate professors had written an anthropological paper on the issue; one of the postdoctoral faculty was writing a review article on the topic.
The anthropological data was very interesting. For most societies there are things that bind marriages together much more than either romantic love or sex.
In the case of societies with extended families, marriage is really a marriage between families, the spouses often have little say. A whole host of relationships are usually more important than the spousal relationships. Fondness for each other and sex are mostly way down on the list of important things in those marriages.
Even when extended families are not involved, the family household as a work unit often binds the spouses together far more than fondness for each other or sex. My grandparents were tenant dairy farmers. Those cows and all the work that supports them is very demanding on both spouses. Sex is mostly about producing and raising the kids who help with the farm chores. Fondness and affection help but are not essential.
The bottom line of the anthropological data was that romantic love was far more likely in societies in which neither extended family nor household industries kept a marriage together. Why marry? For love (and sex) but mostly for romantic love.
If we look at the evolution of our own society in the recent decades, increasingly personal development (education, then a career, and now even owning a home) have delayed marriage. I did not have all those in place until I was forty. Late marriages are less likely to end in divorce. In some cases, a lot of time is put into relationship counseling when people really need financial counseling.
Romantic love may help many people to get through life, however if it is not there, wanting it to be there may do more harm than good.
I have probably mentioned: I work with many people who live in India. The notion of an arranged marriage is still very much alive in those cultures, even if it is not the universal practice anymore. The repercussions of family alliances are very much a part of it.
DeleteI suppose we can't really understand the dynamics of the crisis between Joseph and Mary without understanding those aspects of it.
When I was a young person, the sociological wisdom seemed to be: you meet your life partner via the social networks of friends and siblings. I am sure that approach struck a balance between stability and, er, genetic variability. I consider it tried-and-true. Why my kids' generation thinks the 'scientific' matching of prospective dates via mobile-phone apps is superior, I don't know; I suppose it sounds more intelligent, but to me it sounds less wise.
To be sure, a lot of kids these days are scarred by divorces among their parents and in their families. But that was true of my generation, too.
Jack's post reminds me of my medieval classes in courtly love literature, a genre almost single-handedly invented by Queen Eleanor d'Aquitaine in the 12th century.
ReplyDeleteIt's not that sexual compatibility, mutual regard, and genuine affection did not exist in the marriage state before then. But it was more a matter of chance.
Eleanor and the courtly love writers promoted an ideal that allowed women to imagine a relationship in which they were seen from afar as romantic love objects. The lover's desire would be sublimated into chivalry behavior and great deeds. To appease the Church, the ideal did not involve consummation. The the greatest courtly love triangle--Arthur-Guinevere-Lancelot--became tragic because consummation occurred.
A lot has been written about what courtly love morphed into over the centuries, and arguments about whether it was good for women seem continues to be lively in feminist circles. Eleanor would be happy to know she stirred up such a volatile stew!
My hope for people who decide to marry is that they find mates with similar romantic temperaments.
I have always found someone's willingness to take the afternoon off to snake out a drain more endearing than than a dozen roses.
We believed in romantic love when we got married pretty young. Still do!
ReplyDeleteGood you found each other, then!
DeleteNeither of us would have wanted to get married without romantic love. We weren’t as young as Katherine and her husband when we married. I was 25 and my husband was 32. He’s not much of a candy/ flowers person, although he does always get flowers. He’s still a bit like a shy little boy when he gives them to me because of his not a candy/ flowers essential nature. His true nature means that he snakes out drains, changes the faucet washers, does all the gardening upkeep and planting, and he put up every piece of crown molding in our house. Fifty years so far and it’s still even a bit romantic.
DeleteJim, no real insights for you about your kids lack of dating. Our three sons dated in high school, college and afterwards even though none married until 30 and older. Their wives were 29, 30 and 33. Maybe just be patient. The average age of marriage is way older than when you married. But our sons are a different generation than your kids. The youngest of our three is 38. They tended to “date” in groups, meaning not one on one dinner dates. Or movie dates, especially since DVDs and streaming came in. But eventually each had a real girlfriend in both high school and college before finding someone to marry. My grandchildren are young, but I do know that the high school and college aged grandchildren of my friends and siblings date at least occasionally- high school dances, college parties. I love the photos they post of the high school kids all dressed up for the formals. I was very shy in high school, and definitely not a cute cheerleader type, so I only went to one high school formal with fancy dress. The boys still invited the girls then. Now it’s more ok for girls to invite boys also.
ReplyDeleteI didn’t read the whole NYT article, but enough to guess that while the NYT opinion writer may not agree, if there really is a real decline in casual sex among young adults it’s a good thing. Sex without love and romance must be rather empty. The comments after the article were interesting.
"If there really is a real decline in casual sex among young adults it’s a good thing". I agree with that, the hook-up culture doesn't benefit anyone.
DeleteWhen I was in high school there was a lot of " going steady". Mostly they were short lived relationships.
Oh, it was yesterday. It's already over. Thank the Lord.
ReplyDeleteLOL!
DeleteAlthough my parents married because they were “in love” they also married to get out of families with poor male spouses.
ReplyDeleteTheir relationship evolved to what I would call friendship rather than any societal vision of what marriage should be. At first dad as the bread winner gave mom an allowance. When mom asked him where his money went, he had no idea. So, she asked for his paycheck and gave him an allowance. Mom’s very successful money management was key to their ability to eventually own their own home, raise me and build a cabin. It meant that when the steel mills went to a reward system for productivity, dad did not have to put in the overtime hours to win those rewards. Mom’s money management taught me everything I needed to know to be a wealthy person on the money that I earned. You just have to save and spend wisely.
Mom loved to join dad in all the home remodeling and the cabin building that they did together. They even moved our two plus car garage to a new foundation at a different place. Mom had a keen eye for decorating so we had a beautiful home thought we rarely invited anyone to see it.
When dad was advised by a doctor to take up fishing because of the stress of his job, Mom joined him. For the first ten years dad had to put worms on her hook, eventually she became the better fisherperson. Her interest in fishing outlasted dads. In her last years, dad went fishing with her.
In many ways mom served as dads best friend as well as his wife and mother of his children.
When I became financially independent as a graduate student, my parents and I essentially became friends.
I think of marriage and parenthood as steps on the way to a higher relationship that of friendship.
This discussion reminds me that when I was growing up there was a lot of talk among girls and their mothers about what it took to "marry up."
ReplyDeleteYou could see some mothers in our neighborhood social climbing and grooming daughters to shoot for marriages that were socially advantageous. One of the neighbors used to like to say that it's just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor one.
And you could also see mothers actively discouraging daughters from seeking a marriage too far out of their working class families in order to keep the extended family as close as possible.
Nobody was outright arranging marriages, but the expectations our mothers had for us to "marry up" or not was crystal clear to all of us.
I think of marriage and parenthood as steps on the way to a higher relationship that of friendship.
ReplyDeletePerhaps you think that because you never married. Friendship is important in marriage, but I don’t see it as “higher” than romantic love. It is on a lower plane than the romantic love that is the foundation. I have several lifelong, very close friends, going back to elementary school days, whom I love dearly. But my relationship with my husband is so much more than even the closest of my friendships. If it was only friendship, even the “best” friendship, I would have stayed single.
Some women I know are content with less. They married without being “ in love”. They are practical, rather than romantic. It works for them. But it wouldn’t have worked for me. I am not that way. I didn’t want just a friend, a roommate, a sex partner, a business partner, and a co-parent. I wanted more than that and fortunately I found the more, and so I married. I had thought at one time that I probably wouldn’t marry. My friends often told me that I was too picky, too much of a romantic, but I wasn’t willing to settle. If I only wanted friendship, I wouldn’t have gotten married., So I waited to really fall in love. I’m glad that I did.
Romantic love can be impressive when it happens. It certainly happened to my cousin. She married a guy twelve years her senior when she was in her 20's. Stayed married to him until he died in his 60's. This in spite of his being alcoholic and the heaviest of smokers. Not the abusive or violent sort. He'd just get stewed every night. He loved her as well which made me wonder why people who attain such love can foreshorten the duration of it with self-destructive dependencies.
DeleteAnyway, it's been 26 years and she has not remarried or even tried or desired it. She has his ashes and they will be buried with her when the time comes in the plot I bought for my mother and eventually my self and another relative.
I can certainly understand people who don't want to remarry after a spouse dies. Even a good marriage is work. A lot of it. Speaking personally I wouldn't be up for it again in old age. So I hope my husband and I can be there for each other for a long time ( but not too long, I wouldn't want to be like that nun who lived to 118 years).
DeleteThere are other people who can't stand being alone and remarry fairly soon after their first spouse dies. And that is fine, everyone is different.
If my wife goes before me, I can't remarry. One of the deacon rules. I couldn't imagine it, anyway.
DeleteJim, Lol, same here. People have asked me what I thought of that rule, and I said it won't make any difference to me cause I'll be gone if I predecease Deacon K. Of course I want him to be happy but he knew the rule before he signed on.
DeleteMy sister is an elder law attorney and was mostly involved with estate planning. She’s 80 now and long retired. She commented once that when a spouse died, in old age after decades of marriage, the women were not in a hurry to remarry, and many did not want to ever remarry. There were a few who couldn’t imagine life without a man. But since there are fewer single men in that age group, many who wanted to remarry often did not. The men often remarried quickly, within 12-18 months. Some of the women told her that they were looking forward to being their own person, free to decide where to live, where to go when traveling, and not be responsible for taking care of a new husband who would expect her to cook and clean and do his laundry and generally take care of him - wait on him. I will happily continue to care for my husband in these ways as we age because of the love foundation. I would be unlikely to want to commit to 24/7 live- in care to a very close friend. A second marriage would probably be in the friendship-companion category and that would not appeal any more late in life than it did when I was in my 20s.
DeleteMy uncle married a widow when he was 80. First time for him. Seemed to be more a companionship type deal. Her daughters insisted on a pre-nup. I think a lot of second marriages are like that. They had a funeral service for him, and buried something in our family plot, but they gave me the ashes in a Ziploc bag as I was leaving. That was interesting.
DeleteI would want Dave to remarry if it would make him happy, and I have told him so lots of times. He has recovered completely from his heart attack and is in good shape. Lots of nice widows in the local parish who tell me how much they enjoy his sense of humor.
DeleteI don't need a maid or a cook. Never did. It would have to be love for me but there's no point to it at this point. I think you should at least have some future to share. I may have 20 years but how many will be crappy, I don't know. Marrying me would be financially positive for a woman, maybe too positive. Anyway, I gave up on romance 13 years ago as not in the cards. It was like a 150 centimeter tall guy giving up on a basketball career.
DeleteJean, I have also told my husband to remarry if he met someone who would make him happy. But he’s already 82 and I hope that I will be around for at least a few more years. All three of our sons have prepared a place for us - or one of us - down the road. All three bought houses that have in- law suites. So if I go first, I know my husband will be cared for and have companionship.
DeleteYou are very fortunate to be rich.
DeleteMany people who have lived in a house with a spouse prefer to live there alone after the death of a spouse even though they have opportunities to live with their families elsewhere. My father lived alone for ten years after mom’s death although he could have come to live with me. My mother thought he would remarry, but dad was not about to trust his luck. Dad not only had support from me with visits both at my place and his, he also had the support of his family in nearby towns and the neighbors in our hometown. In other words, he kept everything the same except for the fact that Mom was no longer physically there.
ReplyDeleteWe should not underestimate the continued spiritual presence of family members even after death. All my life I have experienced the psychological support of my parents even though mom has been dead for thirty years and dad for twenty. I don’t even have to think of them; they are just an unchangeable part of my psychological world.
The same was true for dad in the last decade of his life. When he decided not to have an operation for his lung cancer because it would likely have left him short of breath, he simply said to me “every night I have prayed to your mother, and now I am ready to join her.”
I don’t think this long-term effect of relationships has much to do with religion, i.e. church going because dad was not a church-goer. It has everything to do with relationships to others. I was very impressed with the book on Friends, and its evolutionary argument that brains developed to process information about a very small community.
Besides the enormous amount of information that my brain processes about the world, there is the inner rock solid core of my “friends,” e.g. my parents even though they are physically long gone, the good people whom I have encountered in academia, the church, and the public mental health system.
Yes, there were many enemies along the way. I pray the psalms daily, and they are very realistic about the existence of enemies. I have managed to avoid or recover from near disasters.
Jesus said it is all about love of God and love of neighbor. Spirituality, real Christian life, is where our relationship to God and neighbor come together in real life, not in abstractions of belief and values.
That is a really interesting and nice meditation. My dad and grandmother are still in my head giving color commentary on various family situations and current events.
DeleteI am grateful that, for all its dysfunction, my family talked about the dead openly, frequently, and often with much hilarity. The Memorial Day picnics at the cemetery were where you'd get the best stories!
Once you were dead in Raber's family, you were never mentioned again. I could sometimes get Ma to talk about her sisters, but Bud would just clam up.
Yes, nice reflection about the continued spiritual presence of loved ones in our minds. I often recall conversations with my mom and dad, and imagine them commenting on some current problem or situation. A lot of times I have dreams about dead family members. Usually it is as if it took place some time in the past.
DeleteMaybe Deacon Jim can comment: Isn't marriage a vocation? That is, some folks are called to the marital estate. They want to be husbands and wives, stewards of children, and to work to build family life.
ReplyDeleteCertainly, we don't expect people to marry someone they can't work with or find off-putting.
But romance does not strike me as necessary to a sacramental marriage. If people can live in a perpetual swoon over each other, that's real nice. I know one or two couples who work at "staying in love," which apparently involves outfits and toys. I admit that embarrasses me.
I just don't think that's at all necessary to a happy and peaceful life.
I don't think we put any more thought and planning into marriage than you did. I did have some "red flag" things that, if I had seen them in someone I was considering marrying, they would have been a deal breaker. I remember my grandmother telling me that if I ever saw evidence of a "mean streak" in someone I was dating, or if they treated their family members with disrespect, it didn't bode well for the future.
DeleteI had a couple of aunts who never married, and didn't seem to want to, though they had boyfriends at different times. They were "career women" , spent their professional lives in education.
Not really what I asked, but thanks. I hope I didn't give the impression of being a gold digger. If I were, it certainly backfired.
DeleteNo, you don't strike me as a "gold digger". :-) I am sure there are some in the world. I think I've known one or two. I think the way these things work now, people destined for financial success tend to end up with one another. People with college degrees marry one another. "Marrying upward" isn't as prevalent anymore, perhaps not as possible anymore. Somehow the social strata have hardened in America.
DeleteI was riffing on the idea of a vocation to marriage. I guess it took me rather far afield. Sorry about that.
When I discovered five years ago that Betty and I had the basis for friendship with her intellectual and spiritual interests, it also became apparent that both of us have substantial health issues and very little nearby family support (and the distant support is somewhat iffy, we would have to go there and give up everything in our present environment).
ReplyDeleteSo, the commitment we have is very much to support each other in health and sickness. We have a lot of talent and resources for that except that neither of us should live alone for medical reasons.
Betty has had a very different life than mine, struggling through her birth family, two failed marriages, two impaired children and multiple illnesses, and a far more challenging work environment. A far cry from my contemplative existence! However, I have had a lot of experience at being friends to mentally ill people who have similar histories.
From the very beginning, many people who have met us have assumed that we are a long-time married couple. That probably comes from our style of communication. We always listen to one another and so in conversation with others often know what each other is thinking beyond the words that we are saying.
Betty and I have both a lot in common and a lot of differences, and a lot to learn from each other. Our relationship has grown from year to year, and we except that to continue.
I prefer to use the word friendship to describe my experience both because it is what happened in my family relationships and because of the theory that intimate relationships (friends) shape our brains. Betty and I are in the process of sharing our mental and emotional lives.
“Romantic love” even “falling in love” seems to be very shallow in comparison. I see those expressions as very cultural bound; I have a lot of questions about the consumer culture behind them.
Jack, I’m glad that you and Betty have such a satisfying friendship. But don’t project your (limited) experience on to all by saying that their love experience is shallow. Romantic love changes through years of marriage, but is far better than even the closest of friendships for many of us. On a higher plane.
DeleteThe consumer culture uses the reality of romantic love for its own commercial purposes. But that doesn’t negate the wonder of the romantic love that millions do experience. If it’s shallow - infatuation rather than love - the couples usually break up. But when it lasts, evolving and growing stronger as the years go by, it is anything but shallow.
Yeah, I can't see the point in people holding one type of love up over another. People make all sorts of connections in life. Some people may not be capable of romantic love. Some may simply not have encountered it. Some may feel that it's too intense to last and distrust it, though clearly that's not the experience of many here.
DeleteI guess that's why I asked Jim whether a sacramental marriage could exist between people who were committed to each other and loved each other, but who were not "in love" or who preferred not to express their love in romantic ways. It seems to me that this is the way it was for Mary and Joseph, though who can really know?
In past centuries arranged marriages were common, maybe even the norm in some places. I think the church considered these sacramental if the conditions such as consent were present. It is to be hoped that love developed over time, but it wasn't present going into the thing, because the couple would barely have been acquainted.
DeleteI have the greatest form of love greater than all others. Love of lasagna.
DeleteYum! Someone gave me a recipe for lasagne soup that sounds pretty good. I made chicken tortellini soup tonight when I heard ice pellets hitting the north window. Our three months of March started up this week. It will be crappy until mid May when we have our first 90 degree day, then it's summer.
DeleteHot Italian soup while ice pellets are hitting the window. Wonderful thought.
DeleteI envy the relationships Jean and Jack had with parents and grandparents. I think that Jim, Katherine and Stanley had similar relationships with their parents and grandparents.That is something I did not have. Three grandparents died before I was born. I was not close to the grandmother I knew. I barely knew my father, and my mother was distant. She loved us, but was never particularly warm or loving. Perhaps that’s why I waited for a real, romantic relationship before getting married. I wanted love, not a roommate.
ReplyDeleteJean, I have never really understood the couples who “ work” at “staying in love”. Outfits and toys?.. I’m afraid to ask….!
When I was growing up I was influenced by the models around me. I surely did not want to work in the steel mills like my father. I was interested in science and fell in love with the liturgy. The Benedictines who said the extra Masses in our parish taught college. Given my national merit scholar status I decided the best place was the Jesuits where I could teach something like astronomy, counsel students, and say Mass on weekends in a parish.
ReplyDeleteMarriage never occurred to me. There was no experience upon which I could imagine a marriage with a woman who shared my intellectual and spiritual interests. It was not until graduate school that I began to meet women who shared my intellectual interests but none who shared my spiritual interests.
Dating was a nightmare, probably for the women as well as myself. Essentially, I was vetting women for friendship based upon our ability to share intellectual and spiritual interests. Some of the feedback I got was “Really nice guy but can’t talk to him.” “You don’t know if you really like me.”
I always felt I was being asked not to be myself. I am a very intellectual person with a lot of intellectual interests. I am not an extravert, dislike meeting new people, and was completely uninterested in developing courtship skills.
I always felt my date wanted me to put all my interests aside and focus on her. That would have been o.k. if she had a lot of interests that she wanted to share with me. Also, my dates wanted me to put aside the basically shy introverted person and display my courtship skills. I was interested in finding someone whom I would be comfortable with for the rest of my life. One feminist divided men into husbands and lovers. I am definitely a husband.
When I was forty, I finally settled down to a permanent career in the mental health system about the same time my dad retired. My family and I began spending a lot of time together. At the same time, I became a member of the voluntary pastoral staff of a parish with a lot of married people as my friends. I decided I was no longer single because I no longer interacted with singles, I decided I was a family person who was also a solitary contemplative.
In both academia and the mental health system I met many young attractive women who were impressed by my social status. It would have been easy to fall in love with many of them. I am a good listener and a very caring person, but I have the ability to love with my mind without becoming personally involved.
I would have married a woman if I had gotten her pregnant. I am not sure that I would have stayed married even if there were children. If as a married man, I had finally found a woman with whom I could share my whole life not just a part of my life. I think I would have left the marriage. I don’t think I was capable of making a life- long commitment to any of the available women.
Very early when I was an undergraduate, I decided that the world in general (our institutions as well as many people) was very messed up, and if I did not fit well into it maybe that just meant that I was doing something right. I think our marriage system is as messed up as our educational systems, our healthcare systems and our churches.
I am a planner and statistician. Betty and I probably have about ten years to spend together in our present health, but we have the challenge to create a home-based support system, both physical and virtual that will help us if one or both of us become in need of much care. I see a house church based on the Divine Office, Commonweal, great spiritual books, and gardening as some of our opportunities.
This convo seems to focus mostly on personal responses to the role romance might play in a relationship.
ReplyDeleteIn these days when half of marriages end in divorce and marriage is no longer a mark of "settling down" into stability and responsibility, is romance even a good thing? Does it entice people into relationships that can't last beyond the romantic stage and into the grim realms of child care struggles, querulous parents, sickness of one's partner, and unexpected and financial woes?
I was listening to a program about dating apps yesterday and was struck by the number of people who say they make a concerted effort to make their intentions clear: I am in this to explore serious lifelong commitment, no Good Time Charlies, please.
It struck me that maybe we are moving toward a more practical and intentional discernment of a marriage vocation.
Anyway, I'll just leave that thought there and wish everyone joy in their marriages, friendships, families, and lasagne!
"It struck me that maybe we are moving toward a more practical and intentional discernment of a marriage vocation."
DeleteIf that is the case I think it is a good thing.