Rachel’s Musings

Jaclyn Geller remarks in her dialog with Bella DePaulo:

Historians argue fiercely about when the transition from pragmatic to “affective” — personal – marriage, took place in Europe. It’s been placed anywhere from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century.

I am not a historian but based on what I have read (for example in Stephanie Coontz’ work), I would argue that romantic marriage didn’t take off until the eighteenth century. It might’ve been around before then but it didn’t turn into the motivating factor for marriage until fairly recently.

The industrial “revolution” happened somewhere between 1760 and 1830 depending on the historian. Coincidence? I think not. Though it would be difficult to prove, these dots can be connected, the two are related. Romantic marriage comes along with the idea of nuclear family, both reduce our connections to the larger community. These connections were in the way of people moving to the industrialized centers, so utilizing the limiting idea of the nuclear family helped industrialization.

Does anybody know of someone (or multiple people) who have studied this (the interaction of the emergence of romantic marriage and industrialization)?

Research on interaction of the emergence of romantic marriage and industrialization
Here are some links to papers/articles that might be promising, though they look at the nuclear family, rather than romantic marriage but I think the two are closely linked:

• How industrialization has led to an increase in the nuclear family structure (No sources cited)

I am reading the first part of an interview Bella DePaulo did with Jaclyn Geller, the author of “Here Comes the Bride.” I am enjoying reading it, so I thought I’d share a few quotes and my reactions. Of course, I highly recommend reading the whole post.

Geller argues that using the term ’single’ to describe ourselves implies always a dichotomy with married. Single is never complete. Thus she is looking for a better term.

I think there are many terms that would better serve us [than using the term 'single']. In her excellent book, Beyond Straight and Gay Marriage, Nancy D. Polikoff suggests a few different phrases: “valuing all families;” “intra-dependent.” In my book I suggest reviving the term “spinster,” which in England, before the onset of the modern marriage mystique, just meant a financially independent woman who supported herself by spinning – by manufacturing textiles.

Because spinster has such a negative association nowadays, Geller suggests using “spinster by choice.” I have toyed with that idea – I actually like the word “spinster” itself and now knowing a little more history makes it more attractive. It also reminds of the redefinition of the word “queer.”

It’s important to realize that matrimony is a fluid, ever-changing institution. It’s not “natural” or “timeless,” in the sense that it has an origin. If we’ve been around as modern human beings for, let’s say 150,000 years, then marriage is actually a pretty recent phenomenon, dating from about 4,000 B.C.E. It emerges in the ancient near east, as part of a state-sanctioned system of male dominance.

Marriage is (relatively) modern and certainly patriarchal.

Now, one thing ancient, medieval, and Renaissance marriage was not is romantic. The belief that eroticism can by institutionalized is a modern one. Historians argue fiercely about when the transition from pragmatic to “affective” — personal – marriage, took place in Europe. It’s been placed anywhere from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century.

And certainly the idea of a romantic marriage is very new. That’s also the conclusion that Stephanie Coontz draws from the history of marriage: Marriage used to be between “yoke mates.” Only recently it started to be between “soul mates.”

And here’s part 2, which I haven’t read yet.

Dave Letterman is getting married! Better late than never! And this proves that men are not commitment phobes! Or so at least, the headlines scream. The message is clear: Marriage is the ultimate goal. No matter what else you accomplish in life, you are not a real success until you marry. And all single men are commitment phobes. Argh!

Another puzzle piece fell in place for me today. I was listening to an Aurora Forum conversation between Juliet Schor and David Loy. I’ve known about Juliet Schor’s work on conspicuous consumption and overwork, so I was interested in hearing her ideas for a new system. But it was a comment by David Loy that struck me. Loy argues that consumer capitalism is a religion, in fact the first true global religion. As all religions, consumerism then attempts to fill a fundamental human need: Giving us a sense of meaning, a sense of self. However, consumerism, by definition, cannot give us that since it is built on the notion of more: “consumer capitalism as it’s functioning now [is] constantly persuading us to buy more, and what I would talk about as a sense of lack.” This sense of lack creates what Victor Frankl called an existential vacuum. How? That’s the puzzle piece that fell into place. Loy draws on Buddhism to explain the mechanism but I prefer to use science. As Susan Blackmore summarized research on the self: “every time I seem to exist, this is just a temporary fiction and not the same ‘me’ who seemed to exist a moment before, or last week, or last year.” There is no self. Deep down, we understand that our self is an illusion, this creates an ungroundedness. “We experience this ungroundedness as something as a sense of lack, as a sense that there’s something wrong, something missing.” To counteract this ungroundedness, we construct the self by the stories we tell ourselves. Timothy Wilson calls these stories “self-narratives.” We used to draw these stories from religion: There’s this being out there who knows everything and gives my life meaning and me a sense of self. Loy suggests that this grounding is now provided by consumer capitalism: I am what I do and what I own. In addition, consumer capitalism redirects our sense that there’s something wrong. Instead of filling the vacuum with connections to other people and stories to create a sense of self, consumerism tells us that we’re lacking stuff. And if we only have enough money and stuff, we will have found the key to filling the vacuum.

So, the key link between the existential vacuum and consumerism is that sense of self (or lack thereof). Loy argues that therefore we need to acknowledge the religious dimension of the issue. I don’t think that’s necessary and possibly even dangerous. I do think it is very much important that we need to understand the tremendous importance of the self-narratives. They ground us, they give us meaning and a sense of self. History shows that religion can give us that grounding but unlike Loy, I think that grounding is still inauthentic because it is imposed and thus can be easily commodified, something Loy calls “junk religion.” To develop an alternative, we need to understand how self-narratives develop. According to Wilson, self-narratives are interpretations of our behavior, most of that occurs when we interact with our environment, including other people. Other people reflect back our behavior, so interaction is important. Community is important.

There’s still a puzzle piece missing – or maybe several pieces: I think that our narrowed definition of relationship has also created some detrimental effects. The word “relationship” is now almost exclusively reserved for that “special relationship” we have with one other person who we – so goes the cultural narrative – ultimately marry. The claim that I, as a single woman, am not in a relationship is absurd to me. I have tons of relationships but only if I use a broader, connecting, definition. I sense that this narrowing of the definition has also something to do with our overconsumption and all the other problems but I haven’t quite figured out how yet.

Our current capitalist system, especially the unregulated variety in the US, is built around ideas that are fundamentally not life affirming. The system is built on the idea of growth, which ultimately is unsustainable. The idea of growth drives critical aspects of the system: Growing companies, growing profits, growing monetary wealth, growing markets (including by increasing the population), growing consumption, growing GDP. Without growth, capitalism would collapse. The current financial crisis has made a farce out of growing monetary wealth. The recent stock market increases – possibly most of the growth since the 1980s – has been driven by bubbles, inflated by Credit Default Swaps and other financial inventions that brought the whole world’s economies to their knees. To get out of this crisis, we are told, we just have to grow the economy again. Let’s inflate the next bubble! That’ll fix everything. Millions of people got hurt – not to mention the billions that didn’t benefit from the system to begin with: The world’s poor.

We need a new system. A system that is life-affirming and sustainable. Sustainable means that we’re not creating an environmental disaster, especially when expanding the system to everyone on Earth (as would be the case, for example, if everybody in the world would live at the living standard in the U.S.). Life-affirming means that we’d improve all creatures’ lives as much as we can. I am not quite sure how this system would look like but it certainly would have to do away with our (Western) addiction to growth. There’s just nowhere to grow to anymore! Another essential part of this system (or worldview or way of living) would be a limit to world population. The world population has increased dramatically in the last century and a half. This is a reflection of increased standards of living – less children die and people live longer – and withholding of birth control. There are already guidelines on how to control world population, though they’d probably need updating since we probably need to reduce the population to a sustainable level.

If we don’t shift gears, I am not too optimistic about our future (others are also sounding the alarm). I sense that we’re on a train racing ahead under the banner of growth pretending that the canyon up ahead is not there. Business as usual. Heads firmly in the sand.

From the American Humanist Association:

Now that President Obama has taken the first step to rescind a dangerous Health and Human Services (HHS) rule, you need to take the second step, today. The current HHS rule is bad for women’s health and bad for patients’ rights. It allows healthcare workers to refuse to provide virtually any family planning service that conflicts with their personal religious beliefs.

This rule, which was issued by the Bush administration as one of its final policy initiatives, puts women’s health in jeopardy by denying their right to vital health services and information. It also makes their right to reproductive freedom potentially captive by conservative religion. Finally, it ignores important civil rights law that balances an employee’s religious beliefs with an employer’s ability to provide patients with access to healthcare.

For more information on the rule and how it’s bad for women, click here.

We need your help to make sure that Obama is successful in rescinding this discriminatory and oppressive HHS rule. So please show your support for Obama by submitting your comments to the Federal Register (this opens a PDF with instructions). The public comment period lasts only 30 days, and we need as many voices as possible to stand up for women’s unfettered access to reproductive healthcare. Submit your comments today!

Here’s another way to voice your opinion thanks to the National Partnership for Women & Families.