Some more thoughts on Marriage

As I’ve stated earlier, I’ve been reading Doris Lessing’s “The Golden Notebook”. No one ever talked of it, at least I in India hadn’t heard of it even though the book has been going around for 45 years, because it’s so very stupendous.

‘Lolita’ by Nobokov was all of a rage when we were children, I remember when my eighteen year old cousin (male) who had just entered college was reading it his father disapproved, though it wouldn’t do to name the two books in the same breath. TGN, though as revolutionary in sexuality, is of course a far, far superior book in terms of analysis, from the point of view of a woman and that too a woman of the intelligence of Lessing, even though she lacks the poetry of Nabokov. But I wonder why Nabokov was a rage while Lessing was unknown, at least in these parts.

But to get to the topic, as I read Lessing’s TGN, which has been to me, at age fifty, a revelation of the working of the female mind or rather the working of the mind of an extremely intelligent female, it seems to me, Anna, having gone through a bad marriage early on in their lives, want a marriage with a man they love. That I agree is a universal need for both the sexes, assuming that the word ‘marriage’ denotes a dreamy sort of a long period of life with ones beloved, where attrition of the love of both parties for each other is inconceivable. However, as put forward by Lessing in TGN as far as I have read it, the problem with it seems to be that the man will ultimately move on. She hasn’t explored how a woman who gets her man will move forward in her life. Will she explore other men? I have seen one such do this, tentatively, possibly for fun, for the thrill of romance once again. But I am out of touch with her and don’t know how it went. Probably her husband, they both chose each other at the beginning of their youth and the husband held the traditional views of monogamy and permanence of marriage, I thought he was the insecure type, very aggressive and dominating, though in a very polished way, and climbed very fast as far as money and career was concerned when I last saw him, frowned upon and was derisive of ‘open marriages’, possibly because he was apprehensive of losing his spouse, ultimately got fed up with her escapades, of which there were a few and which she felt guilty about and moved away. She has now turned lesbian, the reasons for which I am in no position to surmise having been out of touch with her for sometime.

So it again boils down to this. A man and a woman want each other, naturally, and they are under the illusion that they want a permanent union/relationship but after some time (the period depends upon what we call compatibility) as has been said euphemistically, ‘outgrow each other’ (which I would put as ‘get bored/irritated/repelled/consider the spouse irrelevant’, again depending on the period that one has been putting up with each other under social pressures towards permanence of marriage or possibly, to provide security to minor children, which is a justified cause) and begin consciously or unconsciously to look for other partners. Marriage is a losing game. No. A rotting game where both parties ultimately rot.