Wow, Julie, thank you for this article -- one more reason you're my favorite feminist! As a middle-aged single woman (proud spinster!) and late second-wave radical feminist (I was too young to be in the thick of the second-wave) one of my "pet peeves" for years has been the promotion of coupledom to the exclusion of all common sense. Some rare couples are great and pretty happy, and more power to them, but I think in general and often specifically that it's such an anti-social unit at heart, that I started calling many/most couples (including married couples) "two-headed monsters" (kind of an offshoot of "the beast with two backs"). The only coupledom that makes any sense to me anymore would be those fully participating in a larger peaceful cohesive social group such as in some present-day "matriarchal" societies. I've been a member of a number of heterosexual couples that lasted at least several years each and finally split asunder and good riddance, so I know of what I speak. It wasn't just me (or him), it was in large part the state of coupledom itself. I can't speak of lesbian coupledom, though I did observe it firsthand among friends years ago - it seemed better than male-female, but not by much. Nowadays I'm "coupled up" with cats (actually 6 cats, so of course we're not a "couple," though each cat thinks he or she owns me and the whole lot think I'm their mother/servant, which is as it should be for people with cats -- still way better for me than putting up with some self-centered man.... 🙃🐈⬛)
My parents married in 1954, at the time my mum was often referred to as an old spinster, she was the last of her siblings to marry. My mum always said to me, I was too busy working and going out dancing to settle down. However my mum had a traditional view on marriage, she always commented on the weddings that were lavish and over the top and her lasting comment would be “ they will be divorced in a year”.
Mostly came true, my mum raised us to be independent of men and become career women, there have been times in my marriage I have wanted to exit but thinking about what my parents would think held me back.
My parents were married for 65 years until death, they were literally joined at the hip, finished each other’s sentences and always talking together. My mum passed first, then dad quickly after he couldn’t be without his rock. One last comment on marriage, from my mum “ marriage is hard work, you just have to get on with it”. So, with that message imbedded in me, that’s what I do.
I lost my life partner to covid in 2020. I miss her dreadfully and often feel alone in the world. This is despite us having had different friends and interests and working in different jobs. Not being joined at the hip, and each of us enjoying our own company as well as each other’s maybe contributed to the longevity of our relationship - 37 years. We were civilly partnered but not married, and I very much agree with Julie’s views on marriage. But there’s something irreplaceable about having someone who knows your devils and your deeds, as Joni sang, and who loves you and has your back regardless. I miss the teamwork too: sharing the care of an ageing parent, supporting family members together, dealing with crises, whether those be domestic - burst pipes etc - or deaths and illness. The only crisis I have had to endure without her, about which I feel ambivalent, is my own cancer journey. She would have been distraught, and I’m glad she was spared that. I feel cheated because we both worked so hard, and didn’t get to enjoy our retirement together. So yes, we were very different people and in our own ways independent, but I still feel as if I have lost a part of me and that life will never be as good alone - despite lovely friends - as it was with her.
Having a child to care for every minute, support emotionally and financially is the deal-breaker for the "free" life. And since only women can have babies the responsibility for nurturing that child usually falls on their shoulders. Given that it's best to have a partner to share the responsibility with emotionally and financially: whether in or out of wedlock, friend or family, female or male. A child always needs a standby who can step in and a mother always needs backup in times of crisis.
Imagine being an American mother in the 1950s and 60s U.S. with 5 children all under the age of 12, living in a relatively small house and trying to get by on one middle class income (my dad's) and the housework of one tired woman (in this case, my mother). Sounds like a horror story in a lot of ways, and it was, though thankfully not all the time. And we were doing pretty well compared to some families. The saving grace was my grandmother's help whenever needed, and a married and childless, but loving, aunt and uncle who visited often. Women and children (and men!) need community and village, not to be separated into competitive, overly private, isolated units called families (based on coupledom) and family homes. Well, in other words, like Julies says in this article! ❤️
Just after WW2 marriage was 100% the norm, leading to my mother getting into a disastrous marriage with my father, divorced 5 years later, luckily not before producing me in 1948 (thanks mum). Sometimes marriage is simply an optimum means of sharing the multitudinous life challenges and interests with your chosen life partner, certainly easier if children are involved, which is the only reason we did.
I married for the first time at 50, after we’d lived together for 5 years. He was 62 and had been unhappily married twice. Our marriage did not change anything in our relationship, but it said to our friends and family, ‘Hey, this is working so well and we’d like to celebrate.’ It continues to work well 23 years later, despite chronic illness. The factors that made it work were maturity, financial security and not having had to raise children together. Many of my friends who married in their 20s seem to have better, happier marriages once their children had left home.
Ugh, couples - I’m a single who’s pretty sick of them. I’m couplist, even. The way they have to ask each other everything as if they were only half a person each. And how they make me feel like a pariah for enjoying doing things alone: I was married to a guy once but thought better of it and ended up raising the kids on my own. It’s been good but I can really do without the sucked lemon thing from couples who think it’s appropriate to have an opinion on this. Did you know people still use the term ‘broken home’? My home was only broken when I had a dysfunctional husband living in my house. *Then* we mended.
I’m also baffled by women who still feel comfortable changing their surnames and esp calling themselves Mrs: THINK about it: ‘Mrs’ is doing nobody any favours. Let’s de-chattel. And use Ms or Dame or sthg else if you have to have a femmy title.
While I’m here and happily ranting, what about tax breaks for marrieds? Is that fair, when it’s not proven it’s better for children to be raised by coupled-up parents - and it’s a lot more expensive and tricky to do it on your own?
I’d be happy to see couples denormalised. Let’s assume single unless specified.
I sold my house and moved 4000km to live with a man I met on the internet but never met in person. The relationship exploded in my face. However, I bought a house for me and my dog, and the man from the internet is now, my best friend and has been for 2 years now.
We take turns having dinner together at each other's house once a week, speak on the phone several times a week and text nearly every day. We are one another's next of kin. He helps me when I need strong arms to lift things and I do his gardening, which he pays me generously for. I know I can count on him for pretty much anything. We never fight, and he is the only person in my life that hasn't basically told me to shut up about Gender Ideology.... and I can talk for a long time about that.
I was never interested in marriage, but at 13 knew all I wanted was "a friend who was a boy that would stick around". Seems like I eventually found what I was looking for.
It's the best relationship with a man I've ever had. (And no, there's no romance/sex).
I enjoy your writing but this one is seems so adversarial that I wonder what’s driving it.
I saw far too many men devastated by HIV by death or partnership without any backstop of marriage to protect themselves to even remotely agree to the barely concealed hostility in this piece. That’s only one facet of the full discussion why marriage is a relationship state to be appreciated. I have trust every day and every night that he looks out for me as I look out for him.
I criticized the marriage situation for gays during HIV in 1992 - the facet above - and got the usual “imitating heterosexual” rhetoric. I feel why we are 32 years later and there I have again a LGB person with the same belligerent position.
Marriage is a considered act. I know men who got married as a lark and then fell apart, and then suddenly grasped they were legally and financially intertwined. Surprise! It’s a contract - it’s a powerful thing and requires responsibilities be taken to accrue the benefits.
That people unprepared for marriage get divorced is not a reason to say coupledom is a bad thing. It’s like saying nobody should drive because they might have an accident. To have the guts to say COVID highlights the bad parts of marriage is astonishing and that was the LOL moment.
Marriage is a risk as is being alive in the world.
For me and for almost all my fiends the rewards are significant and have been so for decades.
I’m sorry you feel that the risk never seems worth it.
Why is it? That more over 50 year old women are divorcing husbands to couple up as (esbian couples, there's something wrong with men obviously I'm hetero but looking at masculinity today I really think I need to rethink. Couples yes as manfree (happily single me yes) man maybe occasionally only.
Really interesting article, provoking a lot of thoughts. Next year my partner and I celebrate 25 years of being together, 15 years since our CP, and 10 years since marriage (a romantic moment in which details were switched from one PC to another in the Registry Office whilst my beloved and I talked about our recent gas bill). Before that I spent a lot of time on my own and periods of being in a relationship - none longer than 4 years. We are not joined at the hip - we live together but we are lucky to have space so we can have separate bedrooms and separate working spaces as I need huge amounts of time on my own and Rachel has said that she also now needs time alone - something she wouldn’t have said when we first met as her previous relationship was very much joined at the hip. We have separate activities, friendship groups…and some in common. But we enjoy our times together very much and value our relationship enormously…and we don’t take what we have for granted. If anything happened, I would not go into another relationship. Why? Because the start of a relationship takes way too much time and energy and I enjoy my own company. I like being in my relationship but feel no need to be in one…but that wasn’t the case when I first came out in 1980 when all the pressure was to be in a relationship despite there being so many affairs going on! We were trying to define our own book of rules for being lesbians - we rejected heterosexist norms but tried to find our own, instead of liberating ourselves from any mind of constructed reality! Still a work in progress but if you want to get married, get married - if you don’t, don’t. But don’t ever call me ‘wife’ as that’s when I kick off - ‘wifey for lifey’ as a chant should be banned.
Hi Julie, What you wrote certainly stirred up some interesting comments.
What I'd like to know is what fraction of people who do stay in one couple do so because they really like being with the other person? You quoted no figures from the chap whose research you mentioned.
of course our parents had much lower expectations, women I suppose especially. But I thought that you too spoke of divorce as failure. I've been divorced once but I don't feel that way about it. We simply could not live together, although we tried it several times. But I don't see it as having been a failure and I'm really pleased to have been involved with her.
I think that each of us has a music, and one must listen to their music and let it roll over you and see if you can and want to attune to it. Attunement to me is the central thing about being part of a couple - far more important than looks. Does that make sense?
Look up Tabitha Lean on LinkedIn and see her rants on "carceral feminism."
An example of the type of person who uses the slur "carcaral feminist" to impugn women who believe there should be penalties for crimes like rape and domestic violence. They use the term "carceral feminists" to attack women's rights activists who believe rape and "domestic violence" i.e male violence against women deserve criminal penalties. Using "carceral feminism" as code they seek to lessen penalties and show sympathy for men who've committed rape or domestic violence. Often, it seems that crimes of violence against women are the only crimes they're interested in downgrading. Yet, for all intents and purposes most rapists are never convicted or serve time in prison.
(See the statistics on untested rape kits and suspicious deaths of women).
Often those who like to employ the term "carceral feminism" have a criminal history of their own, which they're loath to serve time for.
See one such person On LINKEDIN who attacks women's rights activists and rants about the evil "carceral feminists"
Tabitha Lean (She/Her), 41, her husband and SA Health colleague Simon Peisley were found guilty of more than 40 deception charges last year. The former SA Health director sent her children fake death threats and blood-stained clothing as part of an elaborate scam to get workers' compensation. Lean, director of Aboriginal Health Service, orchestrated the scam which involved sending their children, their children's school and colleagues fake racist threats relating to work.
Wow, Julie, thank you for this article -- one more reason you're my favorite feminist! As a middle-aged single woman (proud spinster!) and late second-wave radical feminist (I was too young to be in the thick of the second-wave) one of my "pet peeves" for years has been the promotion of coupledom to the exclusion of all common sense. Some rare couples are great and pretty happy, and more power to them, but I think in general and often specifically that it's such an anti-social unit at heart, that I started calling many/most couples (including married couples) "two-headed monsters" (kind of an offshoot of "the beast with two backs"). The only coupledom that makes any sense to me anymore would be those fully participating in a larger peaceful cohesive social group such as in some present-day "matriarchal" societies. I've been a member of a number of heterosexual couples that lasted at least several years each and finally split asunder and good riddance, so I know of what I speak. It wasn't just me (or him), it was in large part the state of coupledom itself. I can't speak of lesbian coupledom, though I did observe it firsthand among friends years ago - it seemed better than male-female, but not by much. Nowadays I'm "coupled up" with cats (actually 6 cats, so of course we're not a "couple," though each cat thinks he or she owns me and the whole lot think I'm their mother/servant, which is as it should be for people with cats -- still way better for me than putting up with some self-centered man.... 🙃🐈⬛)
My parents married in 1954, at the time my mum was often referred to as an old spinster, she was the last of her siblings to marry. My mum always said to me, I was too busy working and going out dancing to settle down. However my mum had a traditional view on marriage, she always commented on the weddings that were lavish and over the top and her lasting comment would be “ they will be divorced in a year”.
Mostly came true, my mum raised us to be independent of men and become career women, there have been times in my marriage I have wanted to exit but thinking about what my parents would think held me back.
My parents were married for 65 years until death, they were literally joined at the hip, finished each other’s sentences and always talking together. My mum passed first, then dad quickly after he couldn’t be without his rock. One last comment on marriage, from my mum “ marriage is hard work, you just have to get on with it”. So, with that message imbedded in me, that’s what I do.
I lost my life partner to covid in 2020. I miss her dreadfully and often feel alone in the world. This is despite us having had different friends and interests and working in different jobs. Not being joined at the hip, and each of us enjoying our own company as well as each other’s maybe contributed to the longevity of our relationship - 37 years. We were civilly partnered but not married, and I very much agree with Julie’s views on marriage. But there’s something irreplaceable about having someone who knows your devils and your deeds, as Joni sang, and who loves you and has your back regardless. I miss the teamwork too: sharing the care of an ageing parent, supporting family members together, dealing with crises, whether those be domestic - burst pipes etc - or deaths and illness. The only crisis I have had to endure without her, about which I feel ambivalent, is my own cancer journey. She would have been distraught, and I’m glad she was spared that. I feel cheated because we both worked so hard, and didn’t get to enjoy our retirement together. So yes, we were very different people and in our own ways independent, but I still feel as if I have lost a part of me and that life will never be as good alone - despite lovely friends - as it was with her.
I'm very sorry to read this. I don't blame you for feeling cheated. ❤️
Having a child to care for every minute, support emotionally and financially is the deal-breaker for the "free" life. And since only women can have babies the responsibility for nurturing that child usually falls on their shoulders. Given that it's best to have a partner to share the responsibility with emotionally and financially: whether in or out of wedlock, friend or family, female or male. A child always needs a standby who can step in and a mother always needs backup in times of crisis.
Imagine being an American mother in the 1950s and 60s U.S. with 5 children all under the age of 12, living in a relatively small house and trying to get by on one middle class income (my dad's) and the housework of one tired woman (in this case, my mother). Sounds like a horror story in a lot of ways, and it was, though thankfully not all the time. And we were doing pretty well compared to some families. The saving grace was my grandmother's help whenever needed, and a married and childless, but loving, aunt and uncle who visited often. Women and children (and men!) need community and village, not to be separated into competitive, overly private, isolated units called families (based on coupledom) and family homes. Well, in other words, like Julies says in this article! ❤️
Just after WW2 marriage was 100% the norm, leading to my mother getting into a disastrous marriage with my father, divorced 5 years later, luckily not before producing me in 1948 (thanks mum). Sometimes marriage is simply an optimum means of sharing the multitudinous life challenges and interests with your chosen life partner, certainly easier if children are involved, which is the only reason we did.
I married for the first time at 50, after we’d lived together for 5 years. He was 62 and had been unhappily married twice. Our marriage did not change anything in our relationship, but it said to our friends and family, ‘Hey, this is working so well and we’d like to celebrate.’ It continues to work well 23 years later, despite chronic illness. The factors that made it work were maturity, financial security and not having had to raise children together. Many of my friends who married in their 20s seem to have better, happier marriages once their children had left home.
Ugh, couples - I’m a single who’s pretty sick of them. I’m couplist, even. The way they have to ask each other everything as if they were only half a person each. And how they make me feel like a pariah for enjoying doing things alone: I was married to a guy once but thought better of it and ended up raising the kids on my own. It’s been good but I can really do without the sucked lemon thing from couples who think it’s appropriate to have an opinion on this. Did you know people still use the term ‘broken home’? My home was only broken when I had a dysfunctional husband living in my house. *Then* we mended.
I’m also baffled by women who still feel comfortable changing their surnames and esp calling themselves Mrs: THINK about it: ‘Mrs’ is doing nobody any favours. Let’s de-chattel. And use Ms or Dame or sthg else if you have to have a femmy title.
While I’m here and happily ranting, what about tax breaks for marrieds? Is that fair, when it’s not proven it’s better for children to be raised by coupled-up parents - and it’s a lot more expensive and tricky to do it on your own?
I’d be happy to see couples denormalised. Let’s assume single unless specified.
"Being single has always been stigmatising for women in particular". Stigmatised by women. Men are not bothered.
I sold my house and moved 4000km to live with a man I met on the internet but never met in person. The relationship exploded in my face. However, I bought a house for me and my dog, and the man from the internet is now, my best friend and has been for 2 years now.
We take turns having dinner together at each other's house once a week, speak on the phone several times a week and text nearly every day. We are one another's next of kin. He helps me when I need strong arms to lift things and I do his gardening, which he pays me generously for. I know I can count on him for pretty much anything. We never fight, and he is the only person in my life that hasn't basically told me to shut up about Gender Ideology.... and I can talk for a long time about that.
I was never interested in marriage, but at 13 knew all I wanted was "a friend who was a boy that would stick around". Seems like I eventually found what I was looking for.
It's the best relationship with a man I've ever had. (And no, there's no romance/sex).
I enjoy your writing but this one is seems so adversarial that I wonder what’s driving it.
I saw far too many men devastated by HIV by death or partnership without any backstop of marriage to protect themselves to even remotely agree to the barely concealed hostility in this piece. That’s only one facet of the full discussion why marriage is a relationship state to be appreciated. I have trust every day and every night that he looks out for me as I look out for him.
I criticized the marriage situation for gays during HIV in 1992 - the facet above - and got the usual “imitating heterosexual” rhetoric. I feel why we are 32 years later and there I have again a LGB person with the same belligerent position.
Marriage is a considered act. I know men who got married as a lark and then fell apart, and then suddenly grasped they were legally and financially intertwined. Surprise! It’s a contract - it’s a powerful thing and requires responsibilities be taken to accrue the benefits.
That people unprepared for marriage get divorced is not a reason to say coupledom is a bad thing. It’s like saying nobody should drive because they might have an accident. To have the guts to say COVID highlights the bad parts of marriage is astonishing and that was the LOL moment.
Marriage is a risk as is being alive in the world.
For me and for almost all my fiends the rewards are significant and have been so for decades.
I’m sorry you feel that the risk never seems worth it.
There's definitely a lot of barely concealed hostility around.
Why is it? That more over 50 year old women are divorcing husbands to couple up as (esbian couples, there's something wrong with men obviously I'm hetero but looking at masculinity today I really think I need to rethink. Couples yes as manfree (happily single me yes) man maybe occasionally only.
Really interesting article, provoking a lot of thoughts. Next year my partner and I celebrate 25 years of being together, 15 years since our CP, and 10 years since marriage (a romantic moment in which details were switched from one PC to another in the Registry Office whilst my beloved and I talked about our recent gas bill). Before that I spent a lot of time on my own and periods of being in a relationship - none longer than 4 years. We are not joined at the hip - we live together but we are lucky to have space so we can have separate bedrooms and separate working spaces as I need huge amounts of time on my own and Rachel has said that she also now needs time alone - something she wouldn’t have said when we first met as her previous relationship was very much joined at the hip. We have separate activities, friendship groups…and some in common. But we enjoy our times together very much and value our relationship enormously…and we don’t take what we have for granted. If anything happened, I would not go into another relationship. Why? Because the start of a relationship takes way too much time and energy and I enjoy my own company. I like being in my relationship but feel no need to be in one…but that wasn’t the case when I first came out in 1980 when all the pressure was to be in a relationship despite there being so many affairs going on! We were trying to define our own book of rules for being lesbians - we rejected heterosexist norms but tried to find our own, instead of liberating ourselves from any mind of constructed reality! Still a work in progress but if you want to get married, get married - if you don’t, don’t. But don’t ever call me ‘wife’ as that’s when I kick off - ‘wifey for lifey’ as a chant should be banned.
Hi Julie, What you wrote certainly stirred up some interesting comments.
What I'd like to know is what fraction of people who do stay in one couple do so because they really like being with the other person? You quoted no figures from the chap whose research you mentioned.
of course our parents had much lower expectations, women I suppose especially. But I thought that you too spoke of divorce as failure. I've been divorced once but I don't feel that way about it. We simply could not live together, although we tried it several times. But I don't see it as having been a failure and I'm really pleased to have been involved with her.
I think that each of us has a music, and one must listen to their music and let it roll over you and see if you can and want to attune to it. Attunement to me is the central thing about being part of a couple - far more important than looks. Does that make sense?
Ian Mordant
Look up Tabitha Lean on LinkedIn and see her rants on "carceral feminism."
An example of the type of person who uses the slur "carcaral feminist" to impugn women who believe there should be penalties for crimes like rape and domestic violence. They use the term "carceral feminists" to attack women's rights activists who believe rape and "domestic violence" i.e male violence against women deserve criminal penalties. Using "carceral feminism" as code they seek to lessen penalties and show sympathy for men who've committed rape or domestic violence. Often, it seems that crimes of violence against women are the only crimes they're interested in downgrading. Yet, for all intents and purposes most rapists are never convicted or serve time in prison.
(See the statistics on untested rape kits and suspicious deaths of women).
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2024/09/19/doj-rape-kit-testing-program-results/74589312007/
https://centerforfamilyjustice.org/updates/ca-governor-gavin-newsom-just-signed-the-first-suspicious-death-statute-in-the-country-joannas-law/
Often those who like to employ the term "carceral feminism" have a criminal history of their own, which they're loath to serve time for.
See one such person On LINKEDIN who attacks women's rights activists and rants about the evil "carceral feminists"
Tabitha Lean (She/Her), 41, her husband and SA Health colleague Simon Peisley were found guilty of more than 40 deception charges last year. The former SA Health director sent her children fake death threats and blood-stained clothing as part of an elaborate scam to get workers' compensation. Lean, director of Aboriginal Health Service, orchestrated the scam which involved sending their children, their children's school and colleagues fake racist threats relating to work.