How to be happy though married!

Title

Creator

MacKinnon, John G.

Language

English

Source

Panorama Volume XXI (No. 4) April 1969

Year

1969

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Abstract

This paper discusses a sensible approach to the problems of persons arising from their condition as man and wife

Fulltext

■ This paper discusses a sensible approach to the problems of persons arising from their condition as man and wife. HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED! The quest for happiness is a very important locus about which we humans try to or ganize our lives; and most of us think we are organizing our lives about possible hap piness when we get married. That many of us find our selves to have been mistaken in thinking that being mar ried is the way to happiness, is a fact which merits care ful consideration. Later on, perhaps, I may imply why a good many people fail to secure happiness through marriage. First, however, a few ge neral ideas. We do want happiness. We try vigorous ly, although not always wise ly, to manipulate events, sur roundings, people and even ourselves so as to achieve this goal. Our success is usual ly quite spotty. One of the things we do in overwhelm ing numbers in this manipu lative process is to pair off two by two of opposite sexes and live in that pattern. The experience of the race has demonstrated that “sin gle blessedness” is no better way, but rather a poorer way, to achieve happiness than ' wedded bliss.” If people had not absorbed this racial wisdom, marriage would not be as popular an institution as it is. Whenever I read or hear some woe-crier declaring that marriage is falling apart, disintegrating before our ve ry eyes, I say, “nonsense!” There is no more popular institution among human be ings than marriage. Indivi dual marriages break up, of course, in numbers that alarm the woe-criers. But by far the majority of people whose marriages are terminated (by death of divorce) diligently set about seeking to estab 44 Panorama lish new marriages. Having gotten out of the married state, the thing they want most is to get right back in. As Jong as people have this mood toward marriage, I do not concede that marriage is on the way out. The simple fact is that die vast majority of us do not want to live a life-time alone. We need continuing companionship. Only a very lew choose to go it alone; and another very few to team up in a situation without full intimacy, or in which such intimacy is abnormal and under question. Hence we do not usually pair off as apartment, or house, mates of the same sex; but rather as partners of opposite sexes, and secure social confirma tion and approval by getting married. This is the way we humins live our lives. The woc-cricrs to die con trary notwithstanding, this is the way we are going to continue to live them. But sometimes we get bit ter because this accepted and popular pattern of living by pairs doesn’t automatically bestow happiness upon us. However, marriage is only one of the human institu tions upon which we call for happiness. Others are education, the church, social life, work, entertainment, material goods, etc. None of these, either, bestows happi ness automatically. We are not greatly surprised that these other things often fail to make us happy, but some how we expect more of the institution of marriage. We get bitter when it doesn’t come through. This isn’t fair to marriage, which is, after all, only one of the hu man institutions we have de veloped to help us come to terms witli life. If we could look at the whole matter objectively, as it would seem to a man from Mars unacquainted with hu man customs, human values, or the human psyche, a case could be made that in mar riage we have devised an ut terly impossible institution; and to expect happiness from it is the height of unrealism. We expect two relatively im mature individuals, or indi viduals just barely mature and with little experience in maturity, to sign a contract to share the rest of their lives; to live together and be responsible for and to April 1969 45 one another day after day for all the days they shall live, whatever changes of status or personality may take place. None of the other institutions from which we seek value (or happiness) requires anywhere nearly as much. Contracts with them are always assumed to be revokable at will. No other human relationship is so de manding: friendship, occupa tion of a common domicile, relationship with employer or employee, commitment to an educational program, commitment to a church. Even the commitment to children has an expected du ration of only a couple of decades. But in marriage you are expected to be stuck with your partner for the rest of your life, which, so far as you are concerned, is forever. To me, it’s no won der that a quarter of the marriages in our culture end in divorce. I’m a little sur prised that more of them don’t. To me it’s no shock that a good many marriages that don’t end still fail to yield much happiness to the participants. Instead, I’m surprised that as many peo ple are reasonably happy though married as are. I think we should recog nize that whatever failure marriage suffers in delivering happiness is probably less due to marriage than it is to our concept of happiness. Probably we fail to achieve happiness, in marriage as elsewhere, because we de mand an unrealistically high degree of it. We are be mused by Aristotle’s law of the excluded middle — we are either happy or unhappy and there’s no in-between. If we cannot settle for lesser degrees of happiness, for ups and downs, but insist upon idyllic bliss all the time, nei ther marriage, lack of mar riage, any other institution or its absence is going to make us happy. We need to set a more realistic goal. In terms of a more realistic goal I would guess that marriage — considering what an in trinsically impossible institu tion it is — doesn’t do too badly. Marriage is the only insti tution we have to keep from having to go through life alone. For all its defects and impossible demands, we have 46 Panorama not been able to dream up a better one lor general con sumption. We want to know what to do, how to behave, how to think and act in and about marriage so that we can derive from it more and better values. To begin with, I wish for far wiser selection of mates to begin marriages with, than often occur. Nature has thrown us a curve by install ing in us a powerful sex urge which frequently befud dles our judgment in select ing a mate for life. Of course, having said this, I must pause to consider that without this sex urge, may be we would have devised a different, less trying, but possibly much less rewarding way of arranging to live two by two. At any rate, concerning the matter of selecting spouses, I must declare that marriages are not made in Heaven. I think the Christian church, advertently or inadvertently, has contributed to this im possible fiction by the cus tom of “sanctifying” mar riages, by perpetuating the thesis that God joins people together in marriage — “whom God hath joined to gether,” etcetera. Of course, I am not saying that anybody can marry any body and be happy. But I do believe that for any one individual there are large numbers of potential spouses in the world with any of whom he would have an equal chance of making a good marriage. In the second place I wish we could learn to deal with and put in its proper place the experience of romantic love. This is, of course, ve ry closely related to the po werful sex impulse which so often befuddles our thinking and acting in the selection of mates. It involves the sex impulse but goes, I be lieve, considerably beyond it to be a longing toward con summation with a whole personality. But, from the very na ture of it, romantic love rare ly lasts very long. Its du ration is brief compared with the duration of a life-time; or what is left of a life-time from age 20. It is normal for a rela tionship between two people April 1969 47 who get married to begin witli romantic love. But this cannot be relied upon as the continuing basis for a satisfactory marriage. If there is not something else, or if something else cannot be developed to take over as the principal glue, a mar riage is not likely to last with much satisfaction. Then, in the third place, I wish people could learn to respect one another as persons. I am not propo sing that spouses should treat each other in exactly the same way they treat mem bers of the general public, but I will say that they should treat each other at least as well as they treat other people. Failure of marriages to re sult in happiness is due, in no small fneasure, to the de structive special ways we treat our spouses. These ought, of course, to be avoid ed. Among our special destruc tive treatments (which we would not think of directing toward others than our spouses) are such actions and attitudes as assuming a sort of position of ownership (like: “she’s my wife, she belongs to me"), and the right to control actions and even the attempt to control the thoughts of a spouse. Also it is a far too common practice for married people to try to make one another over, to correct alleged defi ciencies in behavior and character and to force one another into a predetermined pattern. Closely related to this is a tendency to criti cize one another, as we would certainly not presume to criticize anyone else. We should feel a special responsibility toward our spouses to try to do those things, say and think those things which will add to their stature and status as human beings. Finally, it is important to find and cultivate common interests if a marriage is to have much chance of yielding happiness. To share sleep ing and eating with another person is not enough. There is a lot of life left over after we have eaten and slept. An important part of shar ing a lifetime is to pool ener gies, concerns and interests during much of that left over time. 48 Panorama Very few ways of earning a livelihood today involve husband and wife in a com mon enterprise they can share. For both to work at different jobs (certainly a common pattern) does not fulfill this need. Hence, in the lime left over after eat ing and sleeping and after earning a living, it is im portant for spouses to find some common interest they can share together. I must close with merely pointing to the common con cern of children and noting that it, like everything else, is no sure-fire guarantee of happiness in a marriage. This common interest some times causes intolerable problemts; sometimes it goes as tray and sometimes, it doesn’t work. Yet it contains more, and more intense, potential for happiness in marriage than anything else. But in order to yield that potential it must be treated with the same high degree of wisdom, positive emotion, and com mitment as anything else in life which is expected to re sult in value. — by Rev. John G. MacKinnon in Church of the Larger Fellowship, Uni tarian Universalist Letter. SOMETHING OF VALUE If a man does away with his traditional way of living and throws away his good customs, he had better first make certain that he has something of value to replace them. — African proverb April 1969 49

pages

44+

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