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THE INSTITUTION of marriage has frequently been attacked. Throughout history it has been criticised, lampooned, abused and rejected. In the twentieth century it has been reviled twice; in the twenties and again in the sixties. Soon after the revolution in Russia, marriage was reduced in importance, being regarded as a restriction on personal freedom. In the West at that time, there was also a shift of energy away from the processes of the family, especially in the United States. There, the focus was on the wildness of Flaming Youth and the poignant wanderings of the Lost Generation.
More recently, we have seen the 1960s revulsion against the nuclear family, and marriage in particular. Interest swung instead to the horizontal ‘family’, the gathering of peers, of ‘brother and sisters’.
My purpose in this paper is to revive and explore the idea of marriage as the arena for the struggle between a man and a woman. For a long time it has been thought that marriage is the problem between men and women, whereas I would like to offer the idea that it is, rather, the setting of a stage where the problem between men and women may be worked out. Furthermore, I suggest that problems between men and women are necessary in order to stimulate, excite and develop relationship.
Thus, throwing out marriage leaves men and women with no incentive to fight, to try themselves out with each other, to be different from and misunderstand each other, to keep each other stirred up and alive.
The brother-sister archetype has emerged during the last fifteen years as a substitute for marriage. In 1973 I found myself preoccupied with the Greek gods Artemis and Apollo, partly in response to the brother-sister imagery emerging on all sides. It seemed to me that the old pair, Zeus and Hera, who had ruled the Olympic Pantheon for generations in a parental