Marriage: Sacred Or Smashed Institution?
Committed relationships are under attacked proclaims Time magazine's cover story.
In the cover story for this week's Time magazine, Caitlin Flanagan writes about what she deems the assault of marriage and the loss of the American ideal.
Lately, we've been hearing other views—that the tumultuous economic times would inspire searches for committed relationships.
Yet, Flanagan takes very recent examples from wedded history and lists the affairs that have occurred one after the next (Mark Sanford, governor of South Carolina, Senator John Ensign of Nevada, John Edwards, Jon of Jon and Kate, and more).Divorce 101
Flanagan calls it as she sees it. These were selfish acts; these men knew what they were getting into every time they hit send on their keyboard. She guesses that as the steamy affairs were unfolding, the men were having the time of their lives.
According to Flanagan's research, Americans have more partners than ever before and more couples experience shorter cohabitation relationships. Furthermore, both marriages and divorces are frequent. She goes on to write, "An increasingly fragile construct depending less and less on notions of sacrifice and obligation than on the ephemera or romance and happiness as defined by and for its adult principals, the intact, two-parent family remains our cultural ideal, but it exists under constant attack." Read the whole story here.
Readers, do you agree that the marriage construct is suddenly under attack?
Discussion
Agreed BookMama.
On my end, I get tired of these "back lashes" , if you will, that are really only showing symptoms but never really attempt to broach the underlying problem.
As you said, no one knows how to create the happy marriage but many expect love to make it all work. Analagous to that is the mindset that "just because I got my BA I should automatically get a 6 figure salary." Granted, the example is a bit extreme, but so is the mindset that love will take care of everything and marriage will fix a bad relationship.
Oddly, I don't disagree with the idea of the traditional American being challenged. In its own way its become a conformists ideal, one that holds such mythical attraction to the masses because we are taught in so many ways that we should grow up wanting to be happy married couples...but no one is showing us how. I like the idea of challenging the ideal if only so that people can actually start defining what it really means to them.
Of course this is just broad generalization. Some of us out there are happily married and know the secret...or at least are really good at creating it on the way. Kudos BookMama!
Under attack? No. Suddenly - no way.
But I do think marriage and committed relationships are in trouble. Everyone wants them, but no one knows how to create them. Maybe the problem is that we expect love to make it all work.
I find that if I can get past Flanagan's sarcasm and anger at feminists, she often has some good points.
