An article about marriage and divorce

There has been so much going on lately, and I am so far behind in the narrative here, that I hardly know how I could catch up. But here is a fairly self-contained discussion.

In the middle of letters about other things, I happened to mention to D one day:

I have been trying to think clearly too, and it's not easy. Today's Time Magazine has an article reminding me of the colossal cost of divorce on the children of a marriage -- any children of any marriage, controlling for all other variables. So why would I think about it? Because Wife has become frankly so awful, in all the dimensions that you identify. But is she so awful that the damage caused by staying with her is greater than the damage caused by tearing the household apart, however flawed it be? Show me the calipers by which I can measure those things, and I can then answer the question. Until then, I have no idea.

I guess I haven't mentioned in so many words that the idea had crossed my mind, but after my last eight posts -- basically everything in July -- it shouldn't be a real stretch to figure out. Anyway, it's at least a topic of discussion and some research. But I want to weigh all the factors, and the article in Time certainly raised some points that I couldn't ignore.

D went out to pick up the magazine and read the article, and then she replied as follows:

I read the TIME article on marriage with increasing dismay the longer I read the article. Since when does TIME print hysterical and nasty articles as thoughtful commentary? I admit she lost me when quoting Leonard Michaels: "Adultery is not about sex or romance. Ultimately, it is about how little we mean to each other." Really? Does this strike you as a true comment on our love or our agonized discussions about our marriages? I respectfully, but firmly, demur.

There is a sharp edge and tone to this article that slashes, but the understanding seems superficial. Is the collapse of marriage really the single most important force causing hardship and misery in America? How is Flanagan measuring these factors? Yes, children who are poor often have no fathers living at home, but that's not the whole story. Let's drop the pretense and address the real issue; Flanagan doesn't mention the African American birthrate outside of marriage (so politically incorrect!), but it's about 70%. Does she really want to say that 70% of a certain ethnic group is living in misery and hardship because the children are not born within marriage? This seems to discount the efforts of female parents - single parents - as fine as any I've ever known. It also dismisses the influence of grandparents and pastors who direct and guide so many African Americans. Perhaps she ought to look at our president before making such sweeping generalizations. I'm in the trenches; I know how difficult poverty is, but single parenting is only one of many factors that limit the success of my students. Interestingly, Dad usually isn't far. He may be behind in child support, and that's unfortunate, but every state in America has separated visitation from child support, understanding that seeing Dad is more important to the child than the regular check, particularly in the Black community, where women have a far easier time getting a job than the 'threatening' male. Sigh* This issue is just so complex. Articles like this one don't help clarify the issues.

Two of the authors Flanagan quotes I have read extensively. David Blankenhorn is an evangelical Christian who has made a career out of promoting traditional fatherhood. That means a hard line against gay and lesbian parents and a view of fatherhood that seems rather idealized. The quote Flanagan uses is typical of his evocative language, but there's not the slightest attempt to back it up with evidence. Judith Wallerstein's work is far more interesting. She has done the only longitudinal study of divorce we have, and the results are sobering. Divorce does appear to deeply affect children for years afterward, but even then, you have to realize that the population she is looking at knows they are going to be interviewed about the impact of their parent's divorce for years to come; it is impossible to know how that awareness affects their view of divorce. The population she studies is also reasonably well off and white. Race and class matter. Again, the complexity of this issue is daunting; why such a screed?

Are middle class people who get divorced really the selfish creatures Flanagan portrays? Are we really unwilling to put in the hard work and personal sacrifice necessary to make marriage work? Who does this describe except the cardboard political figures she so gleefully mocks? All the couples I worked with found divorce enormously difficult and painful. They cared deeply about their children, and realized that no extra-martial affair offered the security and rewards of a strong and loving marriage. The idea that people are somehow more narcissistic today than yesterday, fifty years or hundreds of years ago...is suspect. Yes, we get more divorces today. But the average marriage lasts about as long as it did one hundred years ago. Back then, it just ended through death instead of divorce. That wasn't an improvement.

I'm sorry Flanagan's cancer treatment confined her to bed watching reality TV, but perhaps now that she is well, she needs to have more compassion and less judgment for the millions of individuals who face divorce. Ultimately, Tolstoy is still right; each unhappy family is unique. That means the decision to divorce is rarely black and white and neither is it usually selfish or just done for sex and romantic letters. Society has managed to survive even when marriage was not allowed, as in the African slave communities. Humility and kindness might convince me that she understood her subject. Good grief.

OK, that wasn't quite the response I had anticipated, but she raised good points. In reply I wrote her as follows:

I'm not sure what to say about the TIME article. Or rather, there are bits and bobs that I can say, but they don't add up to a coherent picture.

In the first place, I should point out that I didn't give the article a lot of detailed contemplation when I read it. I was still trying to recover from all the emotional hubbub of the week, and this just added to the noise. That's the context in which I mentioned it to you. I can also add that TIME does not always insist that its commentary be measured or thoughtful: I have seen an explicit statement that the editorial policy is both to inform and to entertain (actually "to titillate" but it was written in the 1920's) ... and every so often they print something totally off the wall in the hopes that it will capture people's interest.

I had never heard of Leonard Michaels before this, so I looked him up in Wikipedia. Turns out he is a (recently deceased) author and lit professor. From what I found about him on-line, the quote about adultery (that "it is about how little we mean to each other") seems completely in character. That may, in fact, be what adultery really did mean for him. But it should be no surprise if we have to add, "Your mileage may vary." (Check out, e.g., this article.)

The question of single parenthood is a vexed one; there may be inadequate empirical data, but I almost wonder what kind of data could be adequate. At a purely intuitive and totally unscientific level, it makes a kind of emotional sense to me that the physical presence of fathers should be important and that having a father who lives around-the-corner-and-down-the-street (and who drops in a lot) just wouldn't be the same. But I don't begin to pretend that proves anything. David Blankenhorn may push an overly idealized vision of fatherhood, but the point that Flanagan quotes him to make is a pretty modest one: namely (as I read it) that the emotional bond between parents (both parents!) and children is way more important than any amount of cash. To me, this only echoes the very same concerns you express when you describe how damaging it is to children to listen to denigration of either parent by the other.

As for whether "we" in the middle classes are just too selfish to hang in there, ... well, what can I say? Certainly I tried to hang in there a very long time. (How long has Flanagan been married, come to that? Not that I'm competitive, or anything ....) But there is a point where one feels pushed against the wall. Yes, it is true that there were fewer divorces in former times, but the explanation that marriages simply ended in death doesn't seem fully adequate to me. We have (after all) no evidence what would have happened had the spouses lived longer. What's more, I think there are other factors. In particular, there were times and places where survival outside of a stable marriage was so tenuous that couples had to stay together just to stay alive. Generally, I think this meant that the wife had to stay with the husband no matter how badly she was treated, and no matter how many "dalliances" the husband enjoyed on the side ... because without him she had no means to buy groceries, and no roof over her head while she ate them. Is this a world we want to return to? Where wives are totally dependent on their husbands for everything, and so marriages can remain permanent because husbands have no motive to leave them and wives have no power to? Personally, if I had the power (like Rochester in Jane Eyre) to lock Wife in the attic -- or, more genteelly, to hire servants that would do all her work and prevent her from causing any damage -- I should be less interested in knowing where my rights are in the case of divorce. As long as I could do what I wanted anyway, why would I want a divorce?

But there is no way we are going to return to that world. And I have to believe that people in the past were just as rotten as we are today. If there is a difference in outcome, it must be that the circumstances are different -- in this case, that we have decided widows and divorcees (especially with minor children) shouldn't be left to starve in the streets. So we have changed the laws, and that has made it easier to divorce. No surprise, then, when the numbers go up.

A lot to think about ....