Oh god Rebecca, this seems all too true:
> It seems to me, in this
>country anyway, marriage as an institution gets good press
>everywhere. With the result that the individual's negative experience
>of it is viewed as a case of individual failure, the assumption being
>that one
>fails at marriage, since the institution itself is viewed as unfailingly
>good.
Rather than thinking about the forces that construct marriage i just that
way, & for the reasons they do. Which isn't to say that the institution has
its reasons,. But the religious ones only work for believers, & it seems
that many people manage quite well by simply living together. Although in
many parts of the First World anyway, the laws are such that finally,
especially after people have children, it pays to marry, & you suffer
financially if you don't.
Hmmnnn.
Doug
Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 2E5
(h) [780] 436 3320 (b) [780] 492 0521
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
People, people -
ten dead ducks' feathers
on beer can litter . . .
Winter
will change all that
Lorine Niedecker
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