Why Marriage Is Indefensible

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Tom's comment hangs in the air for Gabe to absorb. And as Gabe silently sops up the implications about marriage in general, and his own marriage in particular, Tom raises the stakes. By ending his marriage, he's saving his own life, he argues, and also providing a valuable lesson for his kids: "What kind of example would I be setting for my kids if I stayed? That we're all too powerless to change our lives?"

This is a tough argument. Who likes to argue the anti-growth, pro-inertia position against new sex positions in the shower? Few of us would counsel a good friend to stay in a marriage that had clearly rotted to the core and was bringing no happiness to anyone. But when does one abandon ship? Anyone who's been married for any length of time knows that marriage is all about hanging in through rough times, sometimes through agonizingly rough times, and then emerging, in varying degrees of scathe, to an altered and often reinvigorated marriage.

In response to Tom's provocation, Gabe can only spout truisms about mortality: "It all goes by so fast," he says. "The hair goes, and the waist. And the stamina... Want to hear a shocker? Karen is pre-menopausal. That's right. My sweetheart, my lover, that sweet girl I lolled around with on endless Sundays, is getting hot flashes. It doesn't seem possible."

Who likes to argue the anti-growth, pro-inertia position against new sex positions in the shower?

Lame as it may sound as a counterargument, Gabe's reply is stunningly sufficient. People who go around defending marriage--like the authors of the Defense of Marriage Act, which denied recognition of same-sex marriages, or of California's recently passed Proposition 22, which gratuitously seconded that denial--come off sounding either like paranoid authoritarians or like bigots.

On the other hand, people who go around defending the supremacy of bachelorhood often sound equally strident. Bill Maher, TV talk show host and human billboard for non-commitment, recently took on a trinity of marriage promoters-a rabbi, a priest, and, for some reason, the MTV personality Kennedy. Maher's arguments were aggressive and pithy: Don't tell me you know what's best for me. I like having a string of exciting conquests--no one can tell me my life's not fulfilling. A relationship is like a plane, and sex is the fuel. Once you run out of fuel, you crash. With their counterarguments about true peace, selflessness, and contentment, the priest, the rabbi, and Kennedy sounded like judgmental drips, or cult members.

When Gabe suddenly offers up the fact that his wife is pre-menopausal, his remark conveys the awesome quality of facing our own mortality with another human being. Gabe's awe is ineffable and beyond argument; it just is. And there's the great irony inherent in anyone's defense of marriage--and what makes it in no need of defense. It is performed publicly. Its end has public consequences. But its meaning is as private as the meaning of life itself.