
Tied in Knots: The modern marriage is an elaborate feat of performance - pepys
https://newrepublic.com/article/138903/tied-knots
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stonogo
The relationship described in the majority of the article is probably better
described as 'friends with tax benefits.' It is to marriage what fine art is
to reality: an interesting exploration of interpretative possibility. But it
is not what people describe when they use the word 'marriage.'

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mcphage
Yeah, exactly. I'm always looking for more insights on how different people
make marriage work because... shit is _hard_. But while the first two essays
mentioned might be valuable, I don't see any real insight in the book the
article is about. (And honestly, for all the claims of their intellectual
superiority, I have trouble believing that anybody who would say that quote
about 'feeling betrayed' has any idea how people work. People are complicated,
not simple intellectual abstractions).

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gibbitz
Shit is hard.

I started to write a comment and decided to move it here since I'm talking
about the "feeling betrayed" quote as well. It seems the reviewer didn't
understand the passage, but I felt like I have a direct experience that
relates. I once gifted my wife with a coupon for a relaxing child-free night
out by herself that resulted in a fight. It became clear that she was felt I
wanted her to "go away". My wife is not particularly narcissistic and their
are other issues at play, but I think it's easy for some people to get their
identity and self-worth tied too closely to being married (Good Mother, Good
Husband, Happily Married, etc.). When something (like having separate
addresses) challenges these assumptions about the relationship, it's hard for
people outside the relationship to understand (as indicated by the reviewer).
When you are inside the relationship, you can lose yourself to these roles and
when the other person doesn't fit them, it can feel like a devaluation of your
self coming directly from the other person. That's how she felt in that moment
and that's how I read the quote. Maybe we're too abstract or simple or
intellectual. Evaluating our feelings in attempts to not repeat fights in the
marriage has led to these types of abstractions as rules-of thumb or codes-of-
conduct. Learned laws of living together.

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Vampires123432
I started reading the article, but it kept droning on and on. Eventually I
found myself staring blankly at the page, nodding every once in a while to
give the impression that I was paying attention.

~~~
gr33nman
I see what you did there

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sp332
This is a book review of "Marriage as a Fine Art". It just doesn't get to
mentioning the book until about halfway down.

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PeterWhittaker
There is a killer quote within: _incorrigible intellectuals, constitutionally
incapable of a simple anything, much less a straightforward answer to a
straightforward question_.

It's not that I am a total utilitarian, but I have long been suspicious of
intellectuals who value intellectualism for its own sake. Just what are you
planning to do with all that intellect and critical faculty you have spent so
long refining, pray?

Absolutely nothing to do with marriage, of course, but otherwise the article
would have had precisely zero value for me.

