Touring the Valley: marriage

Showing posts with label marriage. Show all posts

Whose Fault is it Anyway?

Before "no fault divorce," people who wanted to dissolve their marriages faced serious obstacles.

Typically, one partner had to go to court and prove that the other partner was at fault. Reasons could include adultery, desertion, extreme cruelty, and habitual drunkenness. The judge would hear the evidence and then decide whether the claim was sufficient to justify granting the divorce. Divorce cases were reported in the newspapers, sometimes in great detail.

There was supposed to be one victim and one villain, so if both parties were deemed to be at fault, the judge might refuse the divorce. Or the judge might decide the situation just wasn't bad enough to warrant a divorce.

Here is a newspaper report of a case from 1845, in which the judge decided the evidence wasn't good enough.

As recently as 1969, a judge ruled that, since both spouses were cruel to each other, they could not be divorced.

In this case from 1848, the court ruled that a spouse's confession to adultery wasn't enough. Because of rulings like this, people who could afford a private detective would sometimes have their unfaithful spouse followed and photographed so they could be caught in the act, in front of witnesses.

In some cases, a couple would privately agree to manufacture a case, just so they could get free of each other. For example, they could arrange for a private detective to "catch" the husband in a hotel room with another woman. Or, a spouse accused of bad behavior might enlist friends to testify against him. Judges took a dim view of these cases. Here is one from 1900.

To 21st-century minds, this 1900 case probably seems like a marriage that should be ended, but the judge did not agree.

Some states had more lenient laws than others. Spouses who could afford it would sometimes go to Nevada and stay for six months (the required residency) and then file for divorce. Those in a hurry might take a trip to Mexico, where divorces were nearly always granted upon request.

Mexico fought back.

In the meantime, courts began declaring Mexican divorces invalid in the U.S.

As noted above, most of the people traveling for divorce were women, as were most divorce-seekers within the U.S. They often found themselves blocked by laws that limited the autonomy of married women. Ironically, lack of control over their own lives may have been a contributing factor to wives' desire to escape their husbands. Then they were blocked by a male-dominated legal system, petitions denied by judges who didn't think their circumstances were bad enough to let them go. In one frustrasting case, a woman who wanted to divorce her husband because of his drunkenness, was denied because he drank only on the weekends. In another, "incompatibility" wasn't sufficient to free a woman whose husband was a Peeping Tom.

For decades, various organizations campaigned for "no-fault" divorce, whereby spouses could end their marriages without needing to make or prove accusations. First legalized in California in 1969, the concept gained support throughout the country. Today, some version of no-fault divorce is available in all 50 states, although some still also offer a fault-based model.

Critics argued that no-fault would lead to a massive surge in the divorce rate. After legalization, there was a temporary increase in divorces, as the backlog of people who had been eager to divorce worked their way through the system. But then the divorce rate gradually dropped. Additionally, studies have shown that the female suicide rate dropped significantly after the introduction of no-fault divorce.

In recent years, some bloggers and politicians have campaigned for an end to no-fault divorce. Many of these people openly admit their intent is to restrict women's choices.

It's Coming From Inside the House

The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (1799), Francisco de Goya y Lucientes

I was about three years old when this happened. I woke up during the night, and I could hear some kind of wild animal snarling, growling, and snuffling in the darkness. Frightened, I called out for my mother. She sat on the edge of the bed and asked me what was wrong.

"There's a bear in the house!" I told her. "I can hear it."

"That's not a bear," she said. "It's just your father, snoring."

I learned to sleep with the bedroom door closed.

It has always mystified me that people are usually not awakened by their own snoring. All that noise is right there, inside their heads, and they sleep right through it. In Dad's case, it seemed particularly ironic, in that he was very bothered by noise of any kind. Loud conversations, popular music, distant train whistles -- any sound the world produced set his nerves on edge, especially at night. In his youth, the sound of crickets chirping became so maddening that one night he went outside with a hammer in his hand, determined to smash them, one by one. It was a hopeless quest.

To preserve his sanity and get some rest, Dad wore earplugs to bed. Decades later, Mom, airing yet another grievance, said that she thought he did it on purpose so that he wouldn't have to get up and take care of a crying baby (or, perhaps, a toddler who heard bears).

I once asked Mom how she could possibly sleep next to someone who made that much noise. "It's easy," she told me. "I just fall asleep before he does." Mom was a deep sleeper.

The Sidewalks of New York

This would have been around 1995 or 1996. Danny's soon-to-be-ex-wife was explaining why she loved New York more than she loved him. She said that one sunny day she was out walking on the street, and she saw a handsome young man on roller blades headed her way. He passed her with a big smile on his face, and she realized it was JFK Jr.

I didn't tell her about all the times in L.A. that I had encountered celebrities at the mall, at grocery stores, or in restaurants. That wasn't really the point. In her mind, New York was vibrant and exciting, full of possibilities, always surprising. She didn't understand that many people would have described Los Angeles exactly the same way. Her career was just beginning, and she didn't want to start over in a new town. In the meantime, all of Danny's career opportunities were in L.A.

So, Danny moved to California and his wife stayed in Manhattan. I think she kept their apartment. He started a new relationship with a lovely woman and kept on pursuing his career in the entertainment industry. All his possibilities ended when leukemia took his life.

The ex-wife went on to have exactly the successful career she wanted. I don't know anything else about her, but I imagine she still enjoys her walks.

Will You Love Me Tomorrow?

"Opera Reminiscences: Desdemona and Othello" (1829), William Heath

"Love at first sight" happens, but is it effective as the basis for a long-term relationship?

The first time my grandfather saw my grandmother in the schoolyard, he said, "That's my girl!" They married a few years later, and were together for life.

I had a teacher in elementary school who married her husband the day they met. At the time she told us her story, they had been married 15 years.

I know a couple who married just two weeks after meeting. They are still happily together 30 years later.

Hubby and I felt instantly connected the night we met. That was 40 years ago.

The Cleveland Clinic is a bit skeptical.
PsychCentral isn't convinced.
The counselors at Brides recommend slowing down.
Psychology Today says it isn't real.
Love at first sight is a theme or plot point in many movies.

Finding the Perfect Soulmate

Not long ago I read an article by a young man who had been amazed when he learned that many people from his grandparents' generation had simply chosen spouses who lived nearby, rather than conducting extensive searches for ideal soulmates.

The author of the article was convinced that these old folks had missed out on something important. Nearly everyone he knew was using dating apps to seek the perfect mate, and they were willing to spend a lot of time and travel great distances to find exactly the right person.

Rather than "settle" for the cute girl who just happened to live next door, these guys had very specific lists of what they wanted. Details were important. For example, the profile of a beautiful young woman with an impressive list of interesting and desirable attributes was quickly rejected just because she was a fan of the wrong baseball team.

The sense I got from this article and from others I have read is that many people think they can find true love only with someone whose personality is a near-clone of themselves. The ideal partners will not only have a similar sense of humor, but will have identical taste in food, art, music, and sports. From the very beginning, they'll be able to finish each other's sentences. There will be no disagreement, no disappointment, no discontent, because they will always be on the same page.

It is pretty exciting to discover that both of you can quote all the dialogue from The Princess Bride, take your coffee with triple soy milk and no sugar, enjoy mountain biking, want a pet iguana, have a secret crush on Edith Piaf, and hate green Skittles. And when you both spontaneously recite the same quote from the Dalai Lama at the same time, there is a spark, and the deal is sealed. Nobody else in the world could be such a perfect match. It's destiny.

Five, ten, fifteen years later, it's not unusual for those magical soulmates to find themselves no longer on the same page. One of them spends too much money on useless junk. The other one is a tightwad. They can't agree on whether to have another baby. One of them is lazy, and the other is a control freak. Somebody spends too many nights working late. Somebody gets drunk at parties and flirts. One of them screams a lot, and the other refuses to talk. Neither one can understand how someone who once seemed so perfect turned into this unpleasant stranger. They both want out.

In the meantime, the old guy who married the girl next door has been happily married for sixty years.

Grandpa didn't choose that girl just because she happened to be conveniently close - although that helped. Their families knew each other; they'd lived in the same neighborhood for years, maybe for more than one generation. He and she went to the same schools, knew the same friends, watched each other grow up. He knew who she was before their first date.

Maybe her favorite color was purple and his was green. Maybe she liked chocolate and he preferred butterscotch. The details didn't matter. What mattered was that they shared the same basic values.

Her ice cream preference wasn't important. What was important was that she was kind-hearted and honest. The music he played on the car radio was trivial. What mattered was that he worked hard and she could trust him. They forged a powerful bond, not by seeing the same movie ten times, but by holding hands all night as they watched over their sick baby.

They cared about their kids, and about each other's families. They had plans for the future. They could talk to each other about what was on their minds. Sometimes they argued, but they always made up. They had a few ongoing disagreements, but nothing that kept them from working together to build a life that meant something to both of them.

They might not have thought of themselves as soulmates. But over time, that is what they became.

_{reposted by permission}

In the Meantime

While I'm scrolling through the digital photos of my most recent stroll through the neighborhood, I hope you'll take a look at my other blog, For Better - Or What? It's all about giving and receiving love and forming a closer connection with your spouse. The location is www.forbetterorwhat.com.