Marriage Confidential
Love in the Post-Romantic Age
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
“In this timely and thought-provoking analysis of modern coupledom, Pamela Haag paints a vivid tableau of the ‘semi-happy’ couple. Written with wit and aplomb, this page turner will instigate an insurrection against our marital complacency.” —Esther Perel, author of Mating in Captivity
Written with the persuasive power of Naomi Wolf and the analytical skills of Susan Faludi, Pamela Haag’s provocative but sympathetic look at the state of marriage today answers—and goes beyond—the question many of us are asking: "Is this all there is?"
Marriage Confidential tackles this question with bracing candor, taking us inside a world where romantic ideas have given way to a "post-romantic" mood and a fair number of marriages end up "semi-happy." It's a world where the husbands of "workhorse wives" pursue the Having It All dream that married women have abandoned; where children have migrated from the children's table to the centerpiece; and where technology, demography, and economy place unprecedented stresses on marital fidelity. Among other examples of marriage trailblazers, Haag even presents a case for how updated ideas of non-monogamy might be an option for the future.
Uniquely weaving together cultural commentary, memoir, storytelling, history, and research, Marriage Confidential gives us a riveting glimpse of what the future of marriage might look like.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
After second-wave feminism won many important battles, the movement resigned itself essentially to nonexistence. Now Haag (Consent: Sexual Rights and the Transformation of American Liberalism) reveals what she feels is the stark truth of the modern marriage: the ground gained by feminism is a loss for women and marriage. In the so-called "Post-Romantic" age we are in, married men and women occupy a relationship category more similar to friend or partner than lover. The needs of children dominate (to the point that Haag suggests that they are the true "spouses"). Both partners may work; alternately, liberated men (who Haag comically calls "Tom Sawyers") may stay home or take supplementary wage-earner roles, enabled to discover their true callings (a la Revolutionary Road's Frank Wheeler), and watch their wives bring home the bacon (and fry it up in a pan). Affairs are often tolerated; indeed, they're presented as part-problem/part-solution. Haag gets to the bottom of the existential dilemma, focusing on what she calls the low-conflict/semi-happy marriage, likely to end in divorce (60% by her estimates). Throughout her initial analysis she is spot-on, but when discussing the desirability and viability of open marriages, her sharp, erudite style drifts. But her gained range from heartbreakingly tragic to fascinatingly awkward; Haag has her capable finger on the pulse of the American marriage.
