The last few lines of a NYT "Modern Love" essay by a woman who considered herself "way too progressive for such a conventional arrangement" but suddenly married her boyfriend when she had an acute health crisis and wanted to get on his insurance. She needed to go straight to the hospital, but they detoured to city hall first and got married.
You might remember that back in July 2008, when I was single and had been single for many years, I did a Bloggingheads in which I talked about having health insurance through work that would cover a spouse, making my pay package less valuable than it would be if I were married. I added, "I've often thought I should just charitably marry someone... I'd just marry them to be nice..."
For the connection between that diavlog and my marriage to Meade (which began in August 2009), read "Flashback '08: The
Gee, I'm single now, happily single, and thought I'd just remain that way.That's a lot of trapped rodents ago.
But considering all the benefits, I guess I'd really be a fool not to take a close look if Althouse were to, just out of niceness, propose to pity-marry me.
What could I offer in return? Let's see - I could prune those redbuds, take out the garbage, trap squirrels.
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55 comments:
I've seen a lot more naked greed in women than I have in men. Perhaps we just conceal it better, or else we're conditioned that greed is a vice, and women are not.
The idea that you would do something as involved as marriage just to screw more net benefit out of your employer? Am I missing something? Maybe I need more coffee.
Please explain how this is right and virtuous because as we all know everything you do is right and virtuous.
A very topical topic. Surely Ann you have found that the meaning of marriage is more than health insurance, rodent trapping and discussions about Dylan.
Poor squirrels
Ahhh, you two. That made me smile.
Great. What's the old song: Love and Marriage go together like a horse and carriage. who's the horse and who's the carriage?
What a sweet story. I've only been reading here post-Meade, so the retrospective was fun.
People marry for many un-romantic reasons (I did), but that doesn't diminish the possibility of romance. We've become much too sentimental. Practicality can be very charming.
Correction. A timely topic.
what do you do with trapped squirrels?
For all you married people out there: Why get married at all? Why not just live together? Is it all about health insurance or is there more?
References and analogies to the same sex marriage debate may be useful here.
It has occurred to me recently, that in the contemporary period of American society, we have larded women with so many benefits (bought with unsustainable deficit spending) that they really don't need a marriage the way they did in former times. As a consequence, she may marry or not to suit her mood. But let crisis occur, as it did for the suddenly-ill woman in the article, and the care and support of a man looks pretty good. I predict that when the federal spending bubble eventually bursts, and the benefits are inflated away, marriage will again become desirable for women.
I’m going to pile on here: you guys trap *squirrels*?!!
CJ said...
I’m going to pile on here: you guys trap *squirrels*?!!
It's a form of entertainment in Wisconsin. Like netting schmelt.
So you and Meade owe your relationship to Bloggingheads!
Yours is a great story, and testament to the idea that sometimes you have to take a chance.
Out here in deplorable land, we shoot squirrels, then we eat 'em.
What to do with trapped squirrels -
"We'll murder them all amid laughter and merriment."
"Except for a few we take home to experiment."
Tom Lehrer
I content most marriages don't start with true love. At best, it is a lust/like combination, with infatuation with the idea of true love. Real love is something more difficult. Forged over time, under the umbrella of commitment, it often the hard times that nurture true love. Forgiveness and acceptance are the fruits of these trials. It's a rare thing, and we truly never "get there", but if we are fortunate, it's just at the horizon.
So Meade-
Looking back, was it really the squirrels who got trapped?
David Begley said...
For all you married people out there: Why get married at all? Why not just live together? Is it all about health insurance or is there more?
I think there is something useful about a public commitment that you won't cut and run when things get tough, or what looks like a better offer comes along. And neither will your partner. It help to combat the misperception that the grass is greener someplace else, and as such, leads to a more stable long-term relationship.
Way too progressive for marriage? And yet there is a need for marriage; as she effectively notes. The cognitive dissonance explains the madness in these people.
Now, of course, marriage, in this case, is the government institution. They are exploiting a government loophole. How evil.
“I think there is something useful about a public commitment that you won't cut and run when things get tough, or what looks like a better offer comes along. And neither will your partner. It help to combat the misperception that the grass is greener someplace else, and as such, leads to a more stable long-term relationship.”
Totally agree. Greater examination of the phrase ‘public commitment’ may be/is necessary. For a lot of people, government involvement is just a formality (government has made it ‘a requirement’). The formal statement of commitment to each other before community and family witnesses is enough to seal the commitment.
I'm old enough to remember when a woman would marry a man for his money, not for his health care plan.
There's a funny Internet satire of this phenomenon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCw_UoRhTUk
Regarding commitment, supposedly in Islam a man can divorce his wife by saying “I divorce you” three times. And there is polygamy. We have seen how that has worked out.
I don't need another well-spent night
Another clever sideways glance
I wanna look my baby right in the eye
And know there's nothing left to chance
...
I ain't lookin' for the kind of man, baby
Runs at the sight of shaky ground
Who'll give me fire and tenderness
And has the guts to stick around
— Bonnie Raitt
Her growl on that last line on her live double-album, "Road Tested," is something to hear.
tds said...
what do you do with trapped squirrels?
They make an adequate stew, just don't eat the brains.
I'll be honest: it was entirely about lust. Still is.
Actually, Ray at 7:19 nails it.
I trap rabbits. No fun when I get a squirrel instead.
Wait until she learns that she will have to pay for her own medicare. Outrage!
Original Mike and some of the other old-timers around here might remember those early blog posts having to do with squirrels and bats getting into her house and causing bloggable dramas. I think I remember a post about Mike Huckabee living on squirrel meat cooked in a popcorn popper when he was in college. Those were some of my allusions.
Believe it or not, I had better health insurance before we got married. Oh the irony.
" I think I remember a post about Mike Huckabee living on squirrel meat cooked in a popcorn popper when he was in college."
No one told him to not eat the brains.
"Out here in deplorable land, we shoot squirrels, then we eat 'em."
...and up from the ground come a bubbl'n crude...
The absurdly short, over-simplified synopsis:
People used to accept that marriage was a practical arrangement in which the quid pro quo was at least implied (if seldom explicit). Then a goodly dose of duty and obligation ("in sickness and in health," etc.) was added. Affection, even love, might be present and it might persist but, if/when the inevitably dry spells happened the combination of mutual need plus mutual obligation could aned would sustain the marriage.
But this view was upset by the oh-so-romantic concept that it was al about feelings, nothing but feelings, just feelings as the be-all and end-all justification for getting or remaining married.
Yet by now the evidence against the feelings-first view of marriage seems overwhelming. Because sometimes there are inevitably dry spells when the feelings are just not there and in the feelings-first model that becomes a mortal threat to the marriage itself. And this instability (how many weddings have you been to where the pledge is, "so long as we may love"?) creates lack of long-term commitment, which then leads to a lack of investment either in the marriage or in one's spouse.
So, yes, "I'll marry you for the insurance" sounds crass. BUT surely only a fool would totally dismiss the all the "practical arrangement" aspects of marriage.
Caligula
Marriage say, before Industrial Revolution, was mostly a property and economic thing with some lust thrown in.Then marriage became mostly based upon romance. Not sure where it is now other than optional for many people.
Meade:
So the discussions about culture, politics and Dylan are irrelevant?
I recall your wife referring to lust as the icing on the cake.
A pellet gun would have been a lot cheaper than marrying Meade. But then money isn't everything.
Why is she having to hitch herself to a man's wealth in the first place? Doesn't she have her own job with her own health benefits? She portrays the very image of the weaker sex, at a loss in the world until she can find a man to take care of her. That's not progressive at all.
She wanted to claim the progressive status of not needing traditional marriage as a shield against the responsibilities and demands of the real world (which the traditional man would shoulder for her, in exchange for domestic services). But she didn't want to claim the progressive status of accepting and fulfilling the responsibilities and demands of the real world for herself.
Mead at 9:08,
Come listen to my story of a man named Abdul
The poor Bedouin barely kept his family full.
Then one day he was shooting at some Jews ,
And up from the ground came a'bubblin crude.
The Bel Arabs.
"Regarding commitment, supposedly in Islam a man can divorce his wife by saying “I divorce you” three times."
It reminds me, back in the old country if we wanted to break up with a girl we would say, "I break with thee, I break with thee, I break with thee". Then we would throw dog poopie on their shoes. Then me and my wild and crazy friends would go out and look for girls with dog poopie on their shoes. "Hey, I notice you have dog poopie on your shoes."
I have never, in 30+ years in this house had a squirrel get in the house. I’ve had a few bats and mice. I’ve had the occasional raccoon jump from the trees onto the roof, and there have been chipmunks near the foundation. We’ve caught afew stray dogs... and returned them. And I have seen a fox run through the backyard and a coyote walk down the street. Humans. And that’s about it for mammals. We have some butterflies and cardinals and hawks.
Original Mike and some of the other old-timers around here might remember those early blog posts having to do with squirrels and bats getting into her house and causing bloggable dramas.
I have never, in 30+ years in this house had a squirrel get in the house.
Are we witnessing the first lover's quarrel between these two love birds?
Progress is unqualified and monotonic.
Allen S. said:
"Out here in deplorable land, we shoot squirrels, then we eat 'em."
Under Rule 303?
"I have never, in 30+ years in this house had a squirrel get in the house. [...]
Humans. And that’s about it for mammals. We have some butterflies and cardinals and hawks."
You know you may be right about that.
But you have had a squirrelly stray hawkish human-with-a-cardinal-for-an-avatar-who-floats-like-a-butterfly-and-stinks-like-a-raccoon living in the house with you for the last, oh, 8+ years.
Thanks for using your have-a-heart trap.
"I have never, in 30+ years in this house had a squirrel get in the house. I’ve had a few bats and mice. I’ve had the occasional raccoon jump from the trees onto the roof, and there have been chipmunks near the foundation. We’ve caught afew stray dogs... and returned them. And I have seen a fox run through the backyard and a coyote walk down the street. Humans. And that’s about it for mammals. We have some butterflies and cardinals and hawks."
I bet you've seen a badger or two. Metaphorically, at least.
"I recall your wife referring to lust as the icing on the cake."
Obviously, when she chooses, she can be very lady like.
Blogger David Begley said...
"For all you married people out there: Why get married at all? Why not just live together? Is it all about health insurance or is there more? "
To raise children. Marriage is the social recognition of a -- no, the -- primary fact about human biology.
"References and analogies to the same sex marriage debate may be useful here."
Obviously, in biological terms, same-sex marriage is to marriage as Special Olympics is to Olympics.
We feed our squirrels peanuts. They pick them up in both hands, sit back on their tails and gnaw on them. Takes about ten seconds per peanut.
The cat does not approve, but she doesn't interfere.
Forgiveness and acceptance are the fruits of these trials. It's a rare thing, and we truly never "get there", but if we are fortunate, it's just at the horizon.
Amen - and thank you.
I have fond memories of the Althouse blog in 2008. There was a group of commenters (all of them, really) that made reading this blog magical for me. So smart. So kind. Funny. Quirky as hell. A real community.
I am richer because of those times.
Thank you, Althouse+Meade.
Hi Darcy! [waves]
Hi Mike! You were part of all of that!
Our squirrels can be pests, gnawing significant amounts of bark off our precious shade trees. We have a "one free gnaw" policy, wherein once we see signs of new damage, we watch vigilantly for a second incident – if it happens, the Hav-A-Hart comes out, and the trapped squirrel gets a free ride to a park in the next county. That usually makes the problem stop for 6 - 8 months.
We'd prefer to blast 'em, but we're in suburbia and all the sightlines end in neighbor's yards.
@Darcy & Original Mike, does anyone know what happened to Hoosier Daddy? Haven't seen him for years now.
My husband's first wife left him when she confirmed her lupus diagnosis.
"If I only have two years to live, I'm not going to spend them with you!"
Great exit line.
Her loss, my gain, but she did live 30 more years with the other guy.
@Big Mike Sad to say that no, I do not know. Another commenter I've wondered about over the years is Bissage. My instinct is that he left us permanently. So glad you're still out there.
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