Screw Marriage: Bring on the Communes

Since it was a good movie, I had taken up the recreational reading of Lauren Weisberger’s “The Devil Wears Prada”, from which the Screenplay was loosely based. What stands out is the struggle between boyfriend and girlfriend – both are working, both have careers and so both have individual and independent Agendas and Interests. So they fight. So there is always tension. Drama. Drama. Drama.

No, I am not about to bemoan the loss of the Good Old Days where Men and Women had complimentary and compatible Agendas – Men took care of the Barn and the Fields while women took care of Home and Children as well as being the Family’s Social Interface to the Larger Community. It was indeed splendid, and one can remember such Days wistfully, but one can hardly wish them back. Our Social Revolutions had veritably salted that earth and now such institutions are dead, and the best we can do now is to remember them with some respect.

But we can no longer continue as is. We have only to consider that the Institution of Marriage was integrally from that same dead and gone past. With this new Equality between the Sexes, what sense does it make to continue the fiction of Husbands and Wives? We now have Male Husbands with Female Husbands, and the contest is over whom gets to screw whom.

Yes, yes, yes. People cannot be expected to go it alone. Especially women with children. We know children need parental authority and role models. Well, I am reminded here of Hilary Clinton’s book from several years back – “It Takes a Village”. Indeed, there is the answer right there – return to a Village kind of Organization. Rather than relying upon the Nuclear Family level of Organization – a Wife and a Wife Beater and a cluster of abused and dysfunctional children – we could go to a form of Community Living. Women would live with and close-by with their female friends (come on, we know deep down inside that any Woman’s real Best Friend is always another woman), and children could be clustered more together than they are now. And Men could visit when they are sober enough to behave themselves.

Such a System would be compatible with this New Era of Equality between the Sexes. After all, considered practically, one could hardly have an easy time joining such a Commune unless one had a good job, or enough personal promise and potential to be sure of having a good job or career. Each person would be his or her own Individual while still being integral to the Group as a whole. The hyper-dependency that traditional married couples place on each other, which results in such serious clashes between differing career interests and personal agendas – all would be smoothed out by the buffering effect of communal living. If Debbie is away at the office so very often, then one could drop by and have tea with Susan. Or if Jack was called away on an extended business trip, then Bob could take over coaching the children’s Team during the interim. And the Men would not be confined with nagging shrews, nor the women with abusing and angry wife-beaters. Indeed, hasn’t anybody ever wondered of so many anecdotes describing just how often individual men and individual women cannot get along with each other when cooped up privately with each other. And yet we can see how few people argue and fight when they are out in public. Only when trapped in the same rooms does aggression and hostility come to a boil. And then, it was the World of Marriage that gave expression to the all too true clique “Familiarity breeds contempt”. In a larger Community, those who are temporarily experiencing friction, can keep some distance for a while… until “absence makes the heart grow fonder”. Or roles can permanently be substituted and exchanged. Does it really matter whether it is Jack or Bob, Debbie or Susan? Life can be a Dance, where one changes partners once in a while. Who needs to keep score anyway? ‘It takes a Village’ should mean just one big happy family.

Also, I should remind the guys especially, that Marriage hasn’t the advantages it used to have. Really. Women really were once our virtual Slaves. It may not have been right, but it sure was convenient. But now marriage is simply a great big liability. All detriment. No benefit. Yes, men continue to get married, but simply out of some sense of Cultural and Traditional momentum and inertia. They are carried along by some sense of Social Habit to marry the women they are fond of. It’s expected. But what for? In the old days it was like recruiting a live-in maid that would have one’s children, and whose property would become one’s own property. But now it is quite the opposite. Now, Marriage makes your property into Her property. The Divorce Judges take from Him and give to Her. Always. Never the other way around. A friend of mine had a very wise Father who told him, “Don’t waste your time getting Married. Just find a woman you hate and buy her a house.”