that became a book called “Marry Him!: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough.” Don’t worry about passion and deep connection, she advised. “Based on my observations, in fact, settling will probably make you happier in the long run, since many of those who marry with great expectations become more disillusioned with each passing year.”
The assault on maximal marriage comes from three directions. First, in a culture where divorce is common, and the effects often severe, many people adopt a safety-first attitude. Don’t put your eggs in the marriage basket. Don’t reach for the stars; just build something sensible that won’t fall apart. Many people who have been hurt by divorce prioritize self-protection over complete vulnerability.
Second, many people find themselves in marriages that aren’t that great, and they embrace a definition of marriage that allows them to make do. They are, in Wallerstein and Blakeslee’s words, “companionate marriages.” The couple gets along. They parent together. But the passion has faded. They may or may not have sex, and if they do, it is rare. Work and parenting become the most important part of the spouses’ lives, and the marriage comes in third, or fourth, or fifth. An academic friend of mine observed over lunch recently, “I don’t really know of many happy marriages. I know a lot of marriages where parents love their kids.” In such a marriage, you learn to live in an arrangement that really doesn’t occupy your interest or your energies.
Some people prefer this low-drama kind of marriage. Wallerstein and Blakeslee quote one woman who reported, “I think what was so refreshing was that the relationship didn’t have to suck up all my energy in life—which all my previous relationships did. I had more free time with friends, and more fun.”
Third, the culture of individualism undermines the maximal definition of marriage. We live in the culture, Northwestern sociologist Eli Finkel observes, in which the needs of the self take priority over all other needs. The purpose of life is to self-actualize, to express your own autonomy and individuality, to climb Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. As Finkel writes, “Expressive individualism is characterized by a strong belief in individual specialness; voyages of self-discovery are viewed as ennobling.” In an individualistic culture, marriage is not fusion; it is alliance. The psychologist Otto Rank redefined relationship as a social connection in which “one individual is helping the other to develop and grow, without infringing too much on the other’s personality.”
Since around 1965, Finkel writes, “we have been living in the era of the self-expressive marriage. Americans now look to marriage increasingly for self-discovery, self-esteem, and personal growth.” A spouse becomes, in the famed psychologist Carl Rogers’s words, “my companion in our separate but intertwined pathways of growth.”
If the maximum definition of marriage is to be flesh of my flesh, then the individualist definition of love is autonomy but support. If a covenantal view of marriage is putting the needs of the relationship above the needs of each individual, then the individualist view of marriage puts the needs of the individual above the relationship.
When she was young, Polina Aronson moved from Russia to the United States and found she had entered a romantic regime based on individual choice. She read the American magazines and found they celebrated “the savvy, sovereign chooser who is well aware of his needs and acts on the basis of self-interest.” Perhaps the greatest problem with this regime of choice, she continues, “stems from its misconception of maturity as absolute self-sufficiency. Attachment is infantilized. The desire for recognition is rendered as ‘neediness.’ Intimacy must never challenge ‘personal boundaries.’ ”
People overwhelmingly still want to get married. But sociologists observe that marriage is more commonly seen as a capstone, not a keystone. It used to be that people got married and the marriage formed them into the sort of self-disciplined, ordered person who was capable of building a good career. Now more people seek to establish themselves first, then get married. The social script has flipped.
IN PRAISE OF MAXIMAL MARRIAGE
One problem with the individualistic view, as always, is that it traps people in the small prison of the self. If you go into marriage seeking self-actualization, you will always feel frustrated because marriage, and especially parenting, will constantly be dragging you away from the goals of self.
Another problem with the individualistic view is that it doesn’t give us a script to fulfill the deepest yearnings. The heart yearns to fuse with others. This can be done only through an