You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
I wondered whether the life that was right for one was ever right for two!
My Antonia, Willa Cather.
Mating certainly has an instinctual basis, but marriage does not. The latter is a psychosocial and political institution and, as such, is a compromise. Conflict within it is inherent and ubiquitous. Like life, it is perennially problematic.
Skill in satisfactorily negotiating these inherent conflicts is what produces a “satisfying” marriage. Marital harmony is grounded in the mutual acceptance of a system of values based on a shared understanding of the meaning of life and of human nature. This shared understanding lends a legitimacy to the rules of everyday life, everyday life being the arena in which marriages survive or fail.
Ingrained attitudes and modes of sensibility define a people. When the social order is stable, marriages, by and large, are stable. A creative society has beliefs and institutions that are flexible, but not too flexible. This flexibility allows for incremental changes at a pace that individuals can absorb while maintaining a sense of continuity. Large groups, like individuals, are subject to the compulsion to repeat. When traditions are jettisoned the opportunities for finding satisfactory means of repeating are lessened and lead to regression in the individual and confusion and disorder in the social sphere. Since the end of World War II a myriad of forces have combined to produce rapid and widespread social disruption. People have come to equate happiness with rights and immediate satisfactions with happiness. The self-of-the-moment has become an object of worship without any awareness that happiness requires a teleological vision, the essence of which is moral.