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A book with a title that encompasses two basic polarities of the human condition, life and death, male and female, cannot but attract a large readership.
A reviewer confronted with a popular presentation of a profound theme finds himself in a dilemma. The author's central and challenging hypothesis, namely that the only remaining purpose of marriage is individuation, has been woven into a web of generalisations, spanning sociological themes and psychological opinions. I miss an index, and some relevant references to the body of literature, including painstaking studies, which abounds on this topic.
Inevitably, the question of who this book is aimed at raises itself. Jung's concept of individuation is complex, intricate and hard to grasp even for the initiated. To the general public, the notion of an individuated individual surely remains puzzling and elusive, the more so when presented as a creed. Even a life span of dedicated work does not suffice to complete the process, which can never be total.
The author begins his book with a myth, implying as most readers of this Journal would agree, that myths live on just because they express, in symbolic terms, natural phenomena and experiences that form part of our heritage. Even so, the author disputes that the state of marriage has, any longer, any collective or personal meaning, but instead argues that marriage has become sick and meaningless. I can only agree with this view up to a point. Marriage is more than an institution, or just a legal contract between a man and a woman. It is also a vehicle and a symbol for the urge towards the intrinsic encounter of the opposites, such as male and female, which represents union, continuity, reconciliation and integration—a state towards which all living things are drawn to infinity. The striving towards completeness which, I feel, marriage facilitates will not be dead until life too has been extinguished.
The author states that ‘the goal of marriage is salvation, individuation’, a