(Spoiler Alert) Anna Karenina threw herself under a train because she had to settle for the confines of her dispassionate marriage. Surely her children would have been better off if she had lived, divorced her husband, and married Vronsky instead of meeting a tragic fate.
But Lori Gottlieb has news for Anna. She ought to be happier settled with the mediocre man. Gottlieb tells us 21st century women in a self-consciously lengthy Atlantic piece that if we get to be 30ish/mid-30s and are not yet married, that we should just go ahead and settle. After all, she says, “Marriage isn’t a passion-fest; it’s more like a partnership formed to run a very small, mundane, and often boring nonprofit business.” She’s trying to make unmarried women feel better, to cushion the blow of being single in our thirties and realizing that maybe we won’t find true love, to make us realize that maybe we will be happier with Aidan than with Big.
As she puts it, “Madame Bovary might not see it that way, but if she’d remained single, I’ll bet she would have been even more depressed than she was while living with her tedious but caring husband.” She calls Will and Grace the most romantic couple she can think of. To which I say:
SERIOUSLY?!?
When I read this part, I began to wonder if maybe she wasn’t just a tad bitter about the choices she had made in passing up partners for small flaws over the years:
Those of us who choose not to settle in hopes of finding a soul mate later are almost like teenagers who believe they’re invulnerable to dying in a drunk-driving accident. We lose sight of our mortality. We forget that we, too, will age and become less alluring. And even if some men do find us engaging, and they’re ready to have a family, they’ll likely decide to marry someone younger with whom they can have their own biological children. Which is all the more reason to settle before settling is no longer an option.
Don’t foist your regret on me, Lori Gottlieb.
Anyway, I’m a little late to the ballgame here, as Sarah Hepola posted a smart response to this on Salon.com’s Broadsheet several months ago (being 33, she also has a slightly different perspective from mine. Hepola also tells us of Gottlieb’s new book deal and Tobey Maguire’s acquisition of the movie rights).
Nonetheless, this is still relevant to those of us in our 20s, as Gottlieb does impart advice to youngsters. “Do it young,” she tells us, “when settling involves constructing a family environment with a perfectly acceptable man who may not trip your romantic trigger—as opposed to doing it older, when settling involves selling your very soul in exchange for damaged goods.” I’ve never actually associated the phrase “selling your very soul” with relationships, and I don’t intend to start now, or at any point in the near or distant future.
Relationships in this article become a business model: Marriage is a soul-sucking, perfunctory nonprofit; the pickiness of young women who date is akin to quitting a job because you don’t like the weird smell in your office. As always, men are on the other side of this equation, twiddling their thumbs and waiting for women to wear themselves out, when Mr. Reality Check will be waiting with open, hairy arms to sweep us into the world of check-balancing bliss.
Sign me up. Maybe I’ll understand when I’m pushing 40, but for now, I’d just appreciate if older women would stop telling all of us “unmarrieds” what to do, what to care about, and how to live our lives. What would Anna say?