by Abby W. Schachter
Source: People
There was a lot of talk last week about the meaning and definition of marriage. Most of that chatter centered on Ben Affleck’s remarks at the Oscars when he picked up the Best Picture award for his film Argo.
Affleck has been praised for his honesty. “I want to thank you for working on our marriage for ten Christmases,” Affleck said to Jennifer Garner [his wife] from the stage. “It’s good. It is work, but it’s the best kind of work. And there’s no one I’d rather work with.”
Of course, lots of people critiqued Affleck for admitting in public that marriage takes work. I don’t really get that attitude since Affleck’s remarks are about as obvious as if he had pointed out that the earth is round. Marriage is a relationship between two people, it requires effort, and Affleck defined that effort as work. What’s so awful?
Still others praised Affleck by making an analytical argument. “We enter this voluntary (some say insane, and they’re not entirely wrong) pact because we do a cost-benefit analysis and decide that the benefits of getting married (or otherwise partnering for life) outweigh the potential costs–breakups, emotional pain, financial disarray, the list goes on. We make just about the biggest emotional leap of faith a person can make, because we think, feel, and hope that the rewards will be great,” wrote Melissa Wall at the Huffington Post.
So marriage is work but marriage is supposed to bring great rewards.
Judith Levy wondered on Ricochet a few days ago about whether marriage is supposed to bring happiness or just be about procreating:
In strictly practical terms, marriage appears to be the best social system in which to raise children, and that might be its best defense. But placing the goal of child-rearing uppermost — ahead of the commitment to the sustaining of romantic love between adults — has become anachronistic in Western culture in the modern era. And so: of all possible social constructs between romantic partners, is marriage the most likely to bring happiness?
So is marriage about having kids, is it work but worth the reward, or does it bring happiness?
I’ve got a different (read: radical) definition of marriage from all of those: Freedom within boundaries. Liberation within the confines of a relationship.
In my experience, tying yourself to another person, for life, is the most liberating thing an individual can do. It has never been so possible to become the person I most want to be as it has been from the moment I legally and religiously bound myself to my husband. Some of the changes I’ve made are small, such as I now bake bread whereas as a single woman I only thought it was something I wanted to do. Professionally, I find I’m freer to think about and write about topics that I never would have touched before. I think this is due to feeling that I have the love and support of the person I trust most in the world. The boundary of my commitment to my husband has freed me intellectually. I’ve built up the confidence to propose my first book to an editor because my marriage. The framework of a committed relationship has provided me the space and confidence to become who I’ve always wanted to be.
If Levy is correct that defining marriage as the best way to have kids is anachronistic in this day and age, then I’d say proposing that placing limits on oneself (sexually, emotionally) as a means of freeing yourself in other ways (intellectually, professionally, domestically) is even more revolutionary.
How difficult is it to argue that limits can be liberating and provoke greater creativity? Well, just to take one small example, look at this blowout argument between a chef and a former line-cook-turned-rabbinical-student from Tablet Magazine.
The rabbinical student argues that among a recent wave of restaurants all contending with Jewish dietary laws (Kashrut) and traditions, it is only the chefs who are actually trying to operate within the bounds of the law who are being creative and innovative. Benjamin Resnick declares that those who are thumbing their nose at the law or making fun of the tradition by cooking Jewish food with obviously unkosher (treif) ingredients, are just not working hard. “I can’t help but see the menus offered up by this new generation of trayf-worshippers as lazy—not religiously, necessarily, but culinarily.”
Now, no one likes to be called lazy, so the chefs critiqued by Resnick had their say in a follow-up piece in Tablet where they argued that honoring Jewish culinary tradition is hard and creative enough, regardless of whether they are following the strictest interpretation of the law. As the co-owner of Mile End in Brooklyn Noah Bermanoff put it, “show me one Kosher restaurant or delicatessen that is attempting to retain the methods of our Ashkenazi (East European) culinary tradition like Mile End, Saul’s, Kenny & Zuke’s and Caplansky’s? It will be the return to these methods of preparation rather than strict adherence to Kashrut that will keep the tradition alive.”
What is this fight really about? It is the tug of war between one side that says I can honor my tradition without adhering to its actual rules and another who sees that only by keeping oneself within traditional (and in this case legal) boundaries can one be free to create. I’d agree that the same is true of marriage as it is of cholent (Sabbath stew).
