What’s love got to do with it?

by ELAINE KLAASSEN

In this month of June weddings, I have to wonder about human pair bonding. Do people really bond anymore? In our disposable culture, we toss things out when they get broken. Sometimes we even toss things out when they’ re still good. Does this apply to relationships?
Do humans have the capacity to bond for life, like ducks, or albatrosses, swans, geese, or seahorses do? How does a duck know which duck to mate with?

Do they just pick one arbitrarily, or is there a mysterious chemistry? Since they’re not always monogamous and don’t always live together in the same place, why do their unions last? Are they happy? Or are they just afraid of being alone?

There was a guy in my high school named Paul whom everybody called Shope. Or maybe Shobe. Anyway, whenever kids would gather around for those intense teenage discussions about the meaning of everything, Shope, or Shobe, would pooh-pooh romantic love, saying that any two people who decided to live in partnership could get married and stay married. Two people could just arbitrarily decide to be together. Of course, in those days, we assumed all marriages were heterosexual, produced offspring, created families and never ended in divorce. Most of us assumed there was one person ONLY in the whole universe that could be “the one.” We assumed (without actually putting it into words) that women needed to be married for economic survival (we weren’t cynical enough to call it “legalized prostitution”), and we took for granted that whomever we married would not be abusive, would be responsible with money, wouldn’ t be chemically dependent and would limit their sexual activity to our marriage. That was in 1961. Since that time the divorce rate has skyrocketed. Is that a good thing? Does it mean people have a better chance at happiness, since they aren’t required to stay in a bad situation?

The reason I’ m asking all these questions is that in April, a youngish friend of mine, Brixton de Cervantes Saavedra, who is politically progressive, environmentally active and wears nose rings, wrote an article about lasting marriage, which she posted in an online journal. In it she expresses dismay at the flakiness of people’s commitments nowadays and a longing for the longevity of the marriages of yesteryear. It’s obvious she’s not longing for those horrifying legal unions in which one or both parties were economically and socially trapped in a dangerous prison. In those cases, thank God for the legal protection of divorce. She’s expressing, I believe, a primordial longing for togetherness, akin to that found among the animals that mate for life. I think she’s talking about the almost obsessive need humans have to find a unique “complicity” with one particular person, and to then look out for that person, share the journey, and just BE together. My 16-year-old calls it finding someone you want to make into your “top priority.”

I think Brixton is also talking about why it is virtuous and righteous to take marriage seriously. She is looking for a way to make sure it lasts—how to be happy together—how to peacefully negotiate conflict, thereby avoiding infidelity and abuse—to the benefit of the couple themselves and to the benefit of the larger society. All cultures/religions have done a lot to control human sexuality and provide for the care of children by creating very specific models for marriage. Because the societal model is so entrenched, it’s hard to make an original marriage, and some of the growing pains might be reflected in the high divorce rate.

My friend’s picture of a lasting marriage is not so much about heterosexual home-building or complying with societal expectations as it is about the virtues of spiritual character-building that come with commitment in any kind of marriage. Brixton’ s article led me to find out more about long-lasting relationships.
I talked with an acquaintance/friend (I’ll call her Meredith) about her unusual marriage (going on 33 years) and wondered if she wanted to stay married because it was the moral thing to do. Her answer was no, there are many other, and better, reasons to stay married. From everything she said to me, I understood that she and her partner were truly bonded. She’s an old hippie. She said, “Our auras blend when we hug.” They did then and they do now. The importance of physical attraction is a given. She came to Minneapolis because she believed she was meant to meet someone here. And she did. She says it’s very important to follow one’s intuition. She had pictured a guy with a ponytail, a bandana and sandals, but instead met a guy in business attire with short hair and a pocket calculator.

In spite of coming from similar rural backgrounds, they had one serious conflict: religion. She was pursuing Eastern wisdom and he participated in a fundamentalist Christian sect. Although they currently are not religiously involved, she said it wasn’ t always easy. The different religious languages they used led to a brick wall. They used to “be on spiritual paths that were not defined the same way intellectually.” She said there were sporadic fights over the years and they did consider separating a few times. But they didn’t.

Why? Not only do their auras blend, but they have always laughed a lot. She said, “If you go out with someone and you’ re not laughing, look elsewhere.” The other important ingredient, she said, is forgiveness. In the beginning, two people always think they’re better than each other, because that’s human nature. People need to get past that. And they have to remember you can never fully know another human being. My impression is that she delights in the process of getting to know another soul.

I talked with a dear friend in St. Paul whose partner is from a culture where men rule. Interestingly, they both believe that equality is essential to a marriage, and they work at it consciously. She says, “If you’re not careful, one partner will rule and the other will acquiesce. There’ s a high price tag on that … in the beginning you don’ t know what equality means ... you need an agreed-upon definition ... the definition isn’t stagnant.” I think they’ ll probably stay together forever because they are so evenly matched, in spirit and intelligence —and because she giggles constantly when she talks about him.

Another dear friend, Marie, talked about her 12-year marriage by phone from California. She believes she and her partner will always be together, not because of their wedding vows, but because of “the [unbearable] thought of not being together.” She believes a true bonding of spirits (in addition to being attracted to each other’s images) makes marital longevity extremely probable, but there are no guarantees. She said when their bonding was recognized, that was when the true marriage took place. “Right from the beginning I knew down deep at the core of my being that she was good for me and I needed to be with her.” After that came the decision-making: Each of them had to ask, “Do I really want in?” Once they agreed on that, they said, “Let’ s do the best we can to be as happy as we can.” Marie doesn’ t want unhappy permanence. She honors the bond and would do anything not to hurt her mate, that is, threaten their bond. That is completely different than complying with a moral obligation to live in the same house, no matter what.

Read Brixton’s article on the next page and see what you think about lasting marriage. Is it about primordial bonding, everlasting love, sheer will power—or all of the above?