The Valentine's Dilemma
A colleague whom I very much admire married during her graduate studies. She has now successfully acquired her PhD, and works consistently on campus as a respected teacher (ie. Not An Adjunct). She is also an active member of a local Christian congregation, and wrote her dissertation on a topic related to her faith, and under the tutelage of a very demanding committee.
I've met her husband. By all accounts, he seems loving and devoted, and very supportive. But not academic. He's employed as something entirely menial, and not very well-paid. But she's happy. Her daughter is accomplished and precocious. Everybody is happy and healthy.
I could do that. I could find an ordinary spouse. I could find somebody who speaks the language of my faith, and ignore that he cannot speak English. I see it happen all the time, and successfully. Bright, successful, exciting scholars marry hard-working, faithful, but unambitious (dull?) people. And it's right. They increase the median happiness in the world. They are domestic, and productive, and absolutely doing the right thing for themselves - making homes, supporting each-other, being active citizens.
Is there something about being a person of faith that makes an intellectually unequal marriage more palatable?
Am I jealous? I'm not certain. I am lonely.
It has become my great fear to be stuck married to someone I can't respect, and who treats me like my brothers do, who doesn't understand anything I say or think, and who only patronizes or tolerates my passion for an internal life, or worse yet (like my brothers) mocks intelligence, and me.
I have met my Mr. Collins, and it made me think. Life is not Romantic. Marriage is not what we think it is, but neither is happiness in marriage purely a matter of coincidence, as Charlotte opines. We are here to choose a companion, and to choose as wisely as we may. As foolish as it would be to wait for Mr. Darcy, it is equally as foolish to accept or encourage the well-intentioned suitors indiscriminately - not just because their silliness or dullness make them unsuitable, but because my judgment makes me unsuitable, unable to appreciate them. And that is not a challenge that should be tackled under solemn vows. The vows are too grave.
I am self-aware enough to see the ugly pieces of myself that judge the men I meet for their intelligence, or lack of it, and to know that it would take more than a promise to cure me. And that is the price of my pride: I will remain lonely.
I've met her husband. By all accounts, he seems loving and devoted, and very supportive. But not academic. He's employed as something entirely menial, and not very well-paid. But she's happy. Her daughter is accomplished and precocious. Everybody is happy and healthy.
I could do that. I could find an ordinary spouse. I could find somebody who speaks the language of my faith, and ignore that he cannot speak English. I see it happen all the time, and successfully. Bright, successful, exciting scholars marry hard-working, faithful, but unambitious (dull?) people. And it's right. They increase the median happiness in the world. They are domestic, and productive, and absolutely doing the right thing for themselves - making homes, supporting each-other, being active citizens.
Is there something about being a person of faith that makes an intellectually unequal marriage more palatable?
Am I jealous? I'm not certain. I am lonely.
It has become my great fear to be stuck married to someone I can't respect, and who treats me like my brothers do, who doesn't understand anything I say or think, and who only patronizes or tolerates my passion for an internal life, or worse yet (like my brothers) mocks intelligence, and me.
I have met my Mr. Collins, and it made me think. Life is not Romantic. Marriage is not what we think it is, but neither is happiness in marriage purely a matter of coincidence, as Charlotte opines. We are here to choose a companion, and to choose as wisely as we may. As foolish as it would be to wait for Mr. Darcy, it is equally as foolish to accept or encourage the well-intentioned suitors indiscriminately - not just because their silliness or dullness make them unsuitable, but because my judgment makes me unsuitable, unable to appreciate them. And that is not a challenge that should be tackled under solemn vows. The vows are too grave.
I am self-aware enough to see the ugly pieces of myself that judge the men I meet for their intelligence, or lack of it, and to know that it would take more than a promise to cure me. And that is the price of my pride: I will remain lonely.
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