Quotes for Saturday

It is not a matter of four bare legs in a bed and the business done. She will have to learn to obey him. Not in the grand things, any woman can put on a bit of a show. But in the thousand petty compromises that come to a wife every day. The thousand times a day when one has to bite the lip and bow the head and not argue in public, nor in private, nor even in the quiet recesses of one's own mind.

-The Boleyn Inheritance

If the marriage ceremony consisted in an oath and signed contract between the parties to cease loving from that day forward, in consideration of personal possession being given, and to avoid each other's society as much as possible in public, there would be more loving couples than there are now. Fancy the secret meetings between the perjuring husband and wife, the denials of having seen each other, the clambering in at bedroom windows, and the hiding in closets! There'd be little cooling then.

-Jude the Obscure

He once called her his basil plant; and when she asked for an explanation, said that basil was a plant which has flourished wonderfully on a murdered man's brains.

-Middlemarch

These moments of loving, of caring and kindness, of knowing exactly why we married each other and exactly why we plan to be together until death us do part seem so rare these days. I didn't expect the first months after having a baby to be so hard, didn't expect a child to come between us instead of pulling us closer together. I suppose that if anyone had warned me, warned of the exhaustion, the lonliness, the loss of identity, I would either have thought they were lying or assumed that it may happen to other women, other couples, but wouldn't happen to us. But of course it does happen to me, does happen to us. Those first few weeks are terrible, and send me to bed most nights with my back turned to Dan, the result of yet another argument, more unspoken resentments that erupt late at night in a show of fierce words and raised voices. For I am the one who gets up each night with Tom. Several times a night. I am the one who is unable to even get out of my pajamas, having to walk my colicky son up and down the stairs to keep him from screaming. I am the one who deposits him in his father's arms on the weekend so that I can have a break, swiftly reclaiming him when I see, with mounting exasperation, that Dan has no idea how to soothe his own son. And I am the one who is filled with anger, and resentment, and just plain damned exhaustion. Who has desperately started to miss going to work, but who could not deal with leaving her son for an afternoon, let alone an entire week, and who has made the decision to stay at home with Tom...Dan doesn't understand. Couldn't understand. Not when he leaves the house each morning and spends the rest of the day with grown-ups talking about grown-up things and not having to take responsibility for anyone other than himself. Not when he is still perceived by everyone who knows him as the same old Dan Cooper, producer extraordinaire, who just happens to now have a son. He could never understand what it is to lose your identity, to go from being a professional, successfully woman to someone who is screamed at just because she is behind the wheel of a four-wheel drive. He could never understand what it is like to maneuver a tired, screaming baby in a stroller through the narrow aisles of a supermarket, trying to avoid people who stare at you and the baby in disgust, wo even stop you to tell you that you shouldn't bring a baby to the supermarket. The crowds rush to help Dan on the rare occasions he will take Tom out for a walk on a Sunday morning, so charmed are they by the sight of a man with a baby. He could never understand, and I shouldn't blame him, but I do.

-The Other Woman



Maybe it's because I married young and had to stomach the comments and sometimes not-so-silent doubts that I was being foolishly immature. Maybe it's because I went through most of my literature classes being one of few married individuals in the classroom, bringing a different experience into any discussions of marriage, gender, or family life. Maybe it's because it's one of the closest relationships two people can have. Maybe it's because things like gender constructions, prejudices, self-images, and ethical and moral beliefs all filter into this small duo.

I don't know why exactly, but the discussion of marriage in literature fascinates me. How it works. How it doesn't. What women and men were expected to do in Victorian England. What they do now. The disparities between each person's expectations. I could go on and on. I was digging through my Kindle clippings, and almost all of them pertained to marriage and family. When I go back for my masters and eventually PhD, I have a strong feeling marriage will factor into my writings pretty prominently. It factors into my reading selection most days.

I'm not really making a point or doing anything in particular with this post, just wanted to share some quotes that have stuck out to me in my readings. While they aren't exactly upbeat and positive portrayals of marriage, obviously not every marriage is happy these days. Or back in the day. Or any day really.

Since I've got marriage on the brain, I should get off the computer and go spend some quality time with my handsome husband :)