Marriage is an asset management mechanism invented by the Elamites, where your primary asset is your wife, and your secondary asset is your copper smelting infrastructure.
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While marriage has evolved since the Elamites’ time, it’s still a mechanism. In this case, it dictates how two people should behave towards each other. Now... We have structures that mandate how folks are supposed to behave towards society writ large, those being “laws”. Those are... Necessary for “civilization”? We’ll leave that debate for a different movie. Marriage is essentially laws for a couple to follow. The problem is... When you’re just talking about two people interacting with each other... Shouldn’t they figure out that stuff for themselves? Every relationship is different. How can a set of preprogrammed rules for a relationship be a good idea? It seems like, if those rules actually *did* strengthen the relationship, it would be random.
So a marriage rule would be monogamy, which I have talked about before. But, in the context of UnMarry what I want to discuss isn’t monogamy per se, it’s a larger mandate marriage put on your “hierarchy of empathy”.
Your hierarchy of empathy, if you follow ‘the rules’, goes something like this: Spouse > Romantic Interest > Friend. Your spouse gets the most empathy/concern, a romantic interest isn’t as important as a spouse, and a friend isn’t as important as either. You can throw other stuff into the mix, like your relatives, god, your country, etc, etc... However, for the purposes of UnMarry I want to focus on personal relationships.
I get why this hierarchy exists. If the amount of empathy you had for your romantic partner also applied to, say, Abele in Ethiopia who was killed by a pirate, the world would crumble you into a fine paste in a picosecond. If the empathy that you have for Abele applied to your romantic partner, you would appear to be a sociopath. So, even though you could, for example, group the entire working class of the entire earth into a unit, call them ‘the proletariat’, and have a tremendous amount of empathy for them as a group... I’ll put that to the side and say your empathy hierarchy is useful tool to keep your sanity.
The problem is... Marriage puts itself at the top. It’s a law. You should figure out the scope AND the order of your empathy for yourself, and marriage doesn’t let you do that.
Case in point, I finally will talk about UnMarry! Our two unmarried heroes are Ivan and Celine, both going through an annulment of their marriage. Celine is trying to end her marriage to her jerk husband, and Ivan’s wife Maya is trying to end the marriage with Ivan because he’s an alcoholic and it’s interfering too much with his ability to be a husband or father. Ivan and Celine have the same attorney, they meet, and they hit it off.
By ‘hit it off’ I actually mean they fall for each other *big time*. Celine is a genuine altruistic person who cares more about others than herself (the kind of person Richard Dawkins says doesn’t exist, but they can in movies [#academicnamedrop!]) and Ivan is a really sweet guy when he’s not drunk. We’re talking close to a love at first sight scenario. Except... It can’t be. Because Ivan and Celine are still married.
Spouse > Romantic Partner > Friend.
Since they are married to other people, they are *not allowed* to feel as much empathy for each other as they do for their spouses. Ivan flirts with breaking the rules when he leans in for a smooch, and Celine shuts it down. Not until her annulment is official. Ivan stays in the friend zone. He immediately agrees and doesn’t press the issue, because *his* annulment isn’t official either.
THIS is why you need to discover your relationship rules for YOURSELF. Celine’s husband is a complete jerk. Celine’s dream was to open a bakery, so her husband fronted her the money, and when the business took off and was successful, he used the fact that he provided the startup capital AND WAS THE HUSBAND (giving legal rights by default to people based on marriage status is another problem) to oust Celine from her own business, so he could take over full ownership and keep the profits for himself. Yeah, her empathy for this asshole should be ZERO. I would say negative, but Celine is too nice and would never intentionally fuck somebody up, even her husband. So... Even though she loves Ivan and has no feelings for her husband at all, the rules of marriage tell her those feelings are *wrong*. As long as she’s married, her husband takes priority!
Of course, it doesn’t end well. Ivan’s wife Maya happens to look like a model (Ivan’s wife’s lawyer ALSO happens to look like a model... Meaning Maya and her lawyer should have used the ‘attractive people in movies should be together’ rule to end up together, and find some way to have kids who would probably grow up to rule the Philippines if you believe the studies that say more doors open for you the more attractive you are [have I mentioned this is a Filipino movie? It is.]), so by the time Celine’s annulment becomes official, Ivan and Maya are back together. Now Ivan has to obey the marriage empathy rules, and keep Celine in the friend zone even though he still loves her.
Am I suggesting that Ivan, Maya, and Celine cast off the laws of marriage and become a Brady Bunch thrupple? I am! In fact, they should DEFINITELY add Maya’s lawyer to the group, and they could roam the Philippines in search of a few more men to balance out the genders.
But, assuming THAT isn’t going to happen (society won’t allow it, because society is short sighted and lame), how about this. How about Ivan or Celine say “I love you” to the other. Because they aren’t allowed to do it the entire movie. It’s... Awful. Following outside rules instead of their own hearts made sure they could never even express their love. Maybe it was inevitable that Ivan and Maya ended up back together. Maybe that even meant that he couldn’t love Celine in a romantic way. However... Not even saying “I love you” at any point? It makes Celine’s sacrifice absolute, because she doesn’t even have that expression of love to remember. It’s the definition of a tragedy that could have been avoided if folks didn’t view the rules of marriage, or marriage itself, as sacrosanct. Celine and Ivan needed the freedom to figure out their relationship for themselves, and they were never given the chance.
They didn’t get a copper smelting empire out of the deal either. Fucking marriage!
3/10