howardpark/dating tips

Divorce rates are up. Marital satisfaction rates are down. What's behind this tsunami of unhappiness? In my opinion, it's got a lot to do with magazines like Cosmopolitan and their literary counterparts (Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, etc.), which have done so much to create fantastical expectations of overwhelming romantic love. Before the 18th century, "falling in love," in the sense of an irresistible, logic-befuddling passion, was not something most people connected with marriage. Menelaus did not sail to Troy because he was "crazy" for Helen; he wanted revenge on the bastard who stole his property. But since the time of the Brontë sisters, "falling in love" has steadily gained in centrality, to the point where it is now widely considered a fundamental prerequisite for marriage. As Adam Haslett wrote, "We have managed to create an ideal of matrimony that combines both lifetime companionship and the less stable but more intoxicating pleasures of romantic ardor." The problem is, those two desires are usually fulfilled by opposite qualities. In other words, we (and I include myself in this) have learned to expect something out of marriage that isn't just rare--it's actually chimerical and self-contradictory.