Sandra Tsing Loh Got Divorced – Therefore Marriage is Bad
This piece by Sandra Tsing Loh has gotten a good bit of attention lately, much of it deservedly bad (The Atlantic Monthly, July/August, 2009).
Loh had been married for 20 years when she decided she wanted a divorce. She and her husband have two elementary-school-aged children. She has nothing bad to say about her husband, but seemingly the magic just wasn't there any longer. Loh's oblique way of letting us know about her extramarital affair is to say that her "commitment to monogamy...came unglued." (Can you hear Mark Sanford or Eliot Spitzer saying that?)
And having done so, she found that "I would not be able to replace the romantic memory of my fellow transgressor with the more suitable image of my husband..."
So off she went in a cloud of guilt. Sadly for readers of The Atlantic Monthly, Loh expends several thousand words attempting to convince herself that what she did - divorcing a good man and the father of her children when they were in elementary school - was OK.
The truth is far simpler than Loh makes out. It is this: if you don't have kids, feel free to divorce as often as you like; no one will be hurt but you and your spouse, and you're both adults and can handle it. But when you have children, you make a commitment to them, if to no one else, to provide them the most stable, supportive, loving home life you can until they're out of the nest. If you can't make that commitment, don't have children. If you have children, honor your commitment.
Are there exceptions? Of course they are, but no amount of inability to "replace the romantic memory of my fellow transgressor with the more suitable image of my (husband/wife/significant other)" is one.
Loh's desperate attempt to explain herself to herself (and unfortunately to us) is the same, self-absorbed mewling we see periodically from the privileged. Her description of her attorney friend's house, a Craftsman bungalow filled with Mission furniture and Tiffany lamps, should let every reader know that, whatever Loh has to say will not apply to about 98% of the population.
Like Emily Bazelon writing in The New York Times in April, who tried to convince readers that single motherhood really is just as good for children as a two-parent upbringing, Loh dismisses the probable effects of her divorce on her children. Her sole comments on the subject are that the girls "appear unfazed," and "seem content." So much for the mountains of social science that show that, if Loh's daughters are like most kids, they'll suffer a range of ills later in life stemming directly from her divorce.
By the bottom of page one, Loh is quoting sociologist Andrew Cherlin for the proposition that it's not so much single parenthood that troubles kids, it's the upset of changed circumstances attending divorce. There's some data that suggest that a child who's born into a stable, single-parent home will do, if not well, at least better than a child of divorce. Amazingly, Loh seems not to notice that she's doing the latter, not the former. Cherlin preaches domestic stability; Loh does the opposite and seems to think Cherlin is on her side.
Toward the end, Loh seems to lose her bearings altogether. Marriage, according to her is the "Old World" and, well, something, presumbaly non-marriage (she never says), is the "New World." And since women are the ones initiating divorce, it's clear to Loh that women, or at least those who either divorce or never marry, are New Worlders. And this, she goes on to explain, is in the finest American tradition as described by de Tocqueville as our typically restless character. To Loh, this is an unalloyed good, even though de Tocqueville had a vastly more nuanced understanding of it.
Now I, or anyone with a college education, could write a book on all the ways that is just plain silly, but Loh actually tops it in her final section on what to do about it all. Without ever pausing to consider the possibility that what she's describing in her own life may be pretty closely confined to a narrow sliver of the population at the top of the food chain, Loh decides that (did you doubt it?) everything must be changed.
And here's how: if a woman is sexually unsatisfied by her husband, she should have two men, one to do the chores around the house and the other to do sexual service on the side, but whom the kids never see. If neither partner has much interest in sex, then they agree to just be companions. And that, according to Loh, covers the waterfront. If there are any other permutations of male/female intimacy, Loh doesn't let on about them. Really, I kid you not.
And kids? Loh says that from ages 1-5 (what happened to birth-to-one year old?) children should be raised "tribally" by a group of women. Men would come in periodically to do chores and provide sex. After age five or so, men would take over parenting.
I know; you think I'm making this up. You're thinking of all the hundreds of gaping holes in her arguments, the wholesale ignorance of basic facts, the final descent into utter fantasy. Well, I thought of that too and I tell you, it's too much to take on, so I won't even try. As every attorney knows, sometimes it's better to just shut up and let your opponent's argument fall of its own weight.
But consider two things. The same writer who ends with the advice "avoid marriage," began by admitting "I don't generally even enjoy men." Aye, there's the rub. I'll venture to say that it's just possible that a woman who doesn't like men may not be the best person to advise us on marriage issues.
And then there's the title of Loh's article, "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off." I wonder who decided on that. Did Loh? Or did an Atlantic editor? Whoever did, it's obviously a reference to the old Gershwin song. "Tomato, To-mah-to, Potato, Po-tah-to. Let's call the whole thing off." Those lines were meant to satirize people who were incapable of commitment. Something as trivial as differing pronunciations constituted an insuperable barrier to their continued relationships. It's a clever skewering of a certain mindset.
Not incidentally, that title says more about Loh and her desperate search for self-acceptance than the whole rest of her article.
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