Unelegy of Romance:
On
M. Gabrielle
Romance is dead, proclaims Cristina Nehring in her vindication of love. We have killed it, with our online dating sites and ever-available sexual partners, with our open relationships and acknowledgement of affairs, with our philosophy that, with the exception of sacred, heterosexual marriage, commitment is outdated and pointless. The constant tension between chivalry and so-called feminism is ever-present in relationships, when paying for the check after the date, and the moment when she expects him to open the door for her instead of barging ahead. Flowers are often deemed too expensive; why buy your wife flowers on your anniversary and make extra work (finding a vase, keeping the stems trimmed, tolerating increased allergies around the damn roses) when you could simply post a virtual bouquet on her Facebook timeline? Romance is indeed dead.
Nehring helpfully supplies a cure to this most dire of cultural ailments: Tailor your life to follow the Scarlett O’Hara model. Marry and remarry unexciting men for wealth and security, but make sure to pine after an uncatchable and dashing Ashley Wilkes. Run into Rhett Butler every once in a while just so the passion between you is kept smouldering, ready to rekindle your nearly-defeated spirit at a moment’s notice. Never allow yourself to have security with the man you want, for as Gone With The Wind becomes vague and colourless after Scarlett marries her forbidden Rhett, your life will lose all purpose and excitement if you can count on keeping your man.
Just as it’s happiness that kills a love story--whoever heard of Cinderella after her happy ever after?--it’s distance that revives one. Distance has many benefits in the context of a relationship. You are not constantly exposed to your partner’s flaws when in close quarters all the time, you don’t grow complacent when the only hinderance to your heart’s greatest desire is the few inches of bed between you, and you’ll never feel stifled if you only have hours at a time together.
Whether it be physical distance between you and your globe-wandering lover; financial or status distance; or emotional distance; it will make the heart grow fonder. Examples of this mind-blowingly cliché piece of advice: Tristan and Iseult, who went out of their way to place as many obstacles between them when Iseult’s (probably) gay husband Mark refused to make life difficult. They took huge risks not only in their relationship, with Tristan constantly sneaking into Iseult’s bed under Mark’s nose, but Iseult also sent Tristan on near-impossible, very possibly deadly quests for her. With him far away on errands for her, his fair queen, Iseult, could pine for her lover without being interrupted by mundane day-to-day bickering, reiterating that couples are happier with space between them.
Another part of the egalitarian disease slowly killing romance us has to do with status. In America we’ve embraced the idea that anyone can achieve any position, whether it be supreme ruler of the country (elected by a majority) or CEO of a multi-billion dollar company (just Kickstart your idea). The illicit--but conversely much-traversed--path of empresses and slaves or successful businessmen with starving but brilliant artists as their lover-muses has been almost completely swallowed up by the forest of couples on equal levels, who are working in similar jobs at the same level, both finishing college and looking for work and affordable apartments to share, or even world-famous actors and actresses with their flock of adopted children. With the breaking of barriers of rank and social position we’ve erased yet another path to a potentially glorious love affair, demoting it to the status of a carefully labeled, egalitarian relationship.
Then there is the double standard of commitment, or lack thereof: While marriage is still considered to be an absolute commitment by many, till death do them part, affairs and divorce are commonplace, and have become almost a commodity as public entertainment. This curious paradox is little explored or questioned in modern society, as the ages and definitions of acceptable relationships grow even as other, “healthier” ones (think Scarlett, Rhett and Ashley) are tabooed. First boyfriends are had at 8 instead of 16, virginity is an increasingly controversial commodity, and respect for relationships is scant. The often religious backlash against the growing romantic freedom of especially women and those with same-sex partners, whether they be conducted for one night in a bar or for a lifetime in a picket-fenced home, is gaining increased media attention for its old-fashioned ridiculability.
Although the seemingly obvious solution for such troubled, commitment-hungry and -phobic extremes--so-called open marriages--is still shunned, the idea is by no means new. Amelia Earhart, most famous for disappearing over the Pacific with an alcoholic navigator and without crucial navigation equipment, had a fascinating private romantic life usually referred to as “modern”. “Modern” in the sense of what is essentially an open marriage with specific guidelines for the maintenance of the happiness of Earhart, whom it is difficult to not think of as a depression-prone, commitment-shy bird in her metaphor: “I cannot guarantee to endure at all times the confinement of even an attractive cage.” Nehring’s remedy: Marry someone else, as Earhart’s potential husband had already done, and conduct numerous extramarital affairs with Putnam and other handsome young men.
Instead, Earhart took the opposite approach and married George Putnam, taking down the boundary between them, and therefore erasing the possibility of satisfaction and happiness that could have thrived in a more perilous relationship. Although she’d given in to conventional standard on the marriage front, Earhart had less-common guidelines for her union with Putnam, which she communicated to him in a letter after he proposed to her for the sixth time.
“Dear GPP
There are some things which should be writ before we are married -- things we have talked over before -- most of them.
You must know again my reluctance to marry, my feeling that I shatter thereby chances in work which means most to me. I feel the move just now as foolish as anything I could do. I know there may be compensations but have no heart to look ahead.
On our life together I want you to understand I shall not hold you to any midaevil [sic] code of faithfulness to me nor shall I consider myself bound to you similarly. If we can be honest I think the difficulties which arise may best be avoided should you or I become interested deeply or in passing) in anyone else.
Please let us not interfere with the others’ work or play, nor let the world see our private joys or disagreements. In this connection I may have to keep some place where I can go to be myself, now and then, for I cannot guarantee to endure at all the times the confinement of even an attractive cage.
I must exact a cruel promise and that is you will let me go in a year if we find no happiness together.
I will try to do my best in every way and give you that part of me you know and seem to want.
A.E.”
Although she and George Putnam were technically married, many would say that Earhart had negated the spirit of the ideal Frida Kahlo, another example of a modern thinker in relationships whose life is more in line with Nehring’s philosophy, did make the mistake of marrying twice. (The severity of this error is dimmed somewhat by the fact that both times it was to the same man, Diego Rivera.) Her turbulent artist’s life was scattered with passionate, tumultuous flings with both men and women, pain due to heartbreak and physical difficulties, and well-justified angst. Frida and Diego met when she was still in high school; she asked him for advice on her art, and he declared that she had talent. A few years later, when she was 22 and he 42, they were married for the first time.
“Needless to say, theirs was an unconventional and problematic, if passionate union...” Frida and Diego’s relationship was supplemented by affairs on both sides, including Frida’s passionate flings and relationships with Josephine Baker, Isamu Noguchi and Leon Trotsky. According to Nehring’s philosophy, the fact that their “union” was unconventional and problematic was not a curious addition the passion between them, but the very reason that their first marriage was not their last. Had they both been 32 with solid resumées, secure jobs as accountants, and no desire to stray from their egalitarian marriage, not only would they have been forgotten as soon as the marriage certificate was filed, but they would have been one of the many couples responsible for the death of romance.
Due to the saturation of our society with technology that demands constant communication, accessibility to nearly any point ot the planet at short notice, and the diminished acknowledgement of social and financial gaps between partners, it’s increasingly hard to find “true” happiness in any conventional relationship. The excitement in crossing boundaries and overcoming obstacles to be with a lover is dimmed, deemed taboo in most parts of society, and grown nearly obsolete. Our advice: Ditch the books on pleasing your husband (or wife) and find yourself a Scarlett O’Hara.
Christina Nehring, author of A Vindication of Love, is unmarried herself, apparently undecided on whether or not to take her own advice or go a more traditional path (which she’s since said she’s not advocating against, just pointing out the numerous reasons why other routes are more beneficial to individuals, collective relationships, and the health of romance on the whole). Nehring, a “consistently provocative” critic and prodigious writer, lives with her daughter Eurydice sometimes in Greece, sometimes Paris, and the rest of the time in the capital of healthy relationships, Los Angeles.
