ALTERNATIVES TO MARRIAGE? Eve Tushnet

Eve is a columnist at National Catholic Register and the author of a really interesting blog from which this excerpt, on the clash of male and female sexuality outside of marriage culture, is taken. Eve moonlights as a counselor at a crisis pregnancy center, and she is describing the lives of her young female clients:

Sometimes they use hormonal birth control; sometimes they use nothing but one another. The woman considers the man marriageable; I generally don't find out what the man thinks, not from his own mouth anyway. Often they've discussed marriage but are waiting until they're "ready," by which they mean, financially stable (good luck), done with their educations, already pillars of the community. Marriage is the last item on life's to-do list.

Then the woman misses a period. Suddenly a whole host of issues are in play. Often both partners were avoiding marriage for many, many more reasons than "I can't afford a carriage." Suddenly she has to deal with the fact that her body, against her will, may have created a permanent bond with a man she wasn't willing to make a permanent promise to--or who wasn't willing to make a permanent promise to her.

Suddenly she has to deal with the fact that, as an amazing bit of dialogue from "Vanilla Sky" (of all places) quoted by the RLP points out, "Don't you know that when you sleep with someone your body makes a promise, whether you do or not?"

posted by maggie at 12:33 PM | link

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