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A cursory glance at this book's table of contents does not create a state of mind that is hopeful for the success of marriages. The title, and the subtitle even more so, feel like warnings: Marriage and Its Discontents: Variations, Vexations, and Violations. Indeed, in recent decades, two individuals living together in a de facto or common-law marriage has become a popular alternative, promising more of an escape hatch, if only a fantasied one. Legally sanctioned marriage is otherwise a momentous and intimate union of bodies, minds, finances and futures.
To be fair, there is no distortion in this book. Marriage is an inherently risky proposition. Each prospective marital partner is engaging in the most intimate of relationships with a person who is, in ways that matter, unknown, and whose Oedipal or pre-Oedipal conflicts may emerge only later, around such milestone events as childbirth, or crises related to health, finances, or aging. There is also the hurdle of relinquishing a major degree of autonomy, such that the most important life decisions are now made jointly, at first by new partners.
As suggested in the chapter on infidelity, and elsewhere throughout this book, dissatisfaction and conflict with one's marital object choice may differ according to its pre-Oedipal versus Oedipal origins, the former being more foundational and presumably less amenable to psychoanalytic reconstruction.
Using psychoanalysis as its frame of reference, Marriage and its Discontents addresses a matter of nearly universal concern. This review has been structured to mirror the organization of the book itself,
Robert C. Abrams, Weill Cornell Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, Box 140, 525 E. 68th Street, New York, NY 10065
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considering the principal four sections, and the eight chapters within them, before ending with a concluding statement. The comments on chapters are not intended to be complete or inclusive, reflecting only points of interest to me.
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