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Legal Commentary

: Althouse

Book author stops by blog post to display lack of a sense of humor.

By Ann Althouse

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Here's my post. Here's the author's comment.

IN THE COMMENTS: Everyone seems to think I'm mean, and I pout about no one seeing what I was trying to say in the original post. Except maybe Joan.

ADDED: Okay, let me make my point explicitly so that this isn't a guessing game (much as I like guessing games).

I quoted Bella DePaulo saying:

What may be less obvious is that if reports [of the supposed health benefits of marriage] were more accurate and less caricatured, that would also be good for anyone who is, or wants to be, coupled. When singles are stigmatized, there is a risk that some people will be tempted to couple and marry for the wrong reasons ? to escape the cultural muck that comes with being single. When singles are no longer marginalized or demeaned, then people who want to couple can do so from a position of strength. Rather than running away from singlehood to escape the stigma, they can move toward marriage or coupling as something they want to embrace.

Then, apparently too enigmatically, I said:

Ah, but what if they don't?

The pleasures of singlehood must be kept hush-hush. It's not a legitimate life style, you hear?

My point ? which is a serious one (though made in what is a humorous style that perhaps only I appreciate) ? is that society needs men and women to form solid families. It can get along if some people opt out, but things won't go well if too many people fail to take this path. Hence, there is a lot of pro-marriage propaganda out there. Maybe there's too much and that it may cause some individuals to marry too soon. If there were less propaganda, maybe marriage would be improved, because people would "embrace" it for its real value instead of latching onto it out of fear of being single. My point is that if the positive side of singlehood is promoted, maybe far too many people will avoid the difficult work of finding a partner and forming a stable family unit, to the detriment of society.

Can singlehood be portrayed as good but only good enough to reduce the number of bad marriages and not good enough to attract the kind of staunch adherents who advocate marriage as a way of life? Is DePaulo's book a nice, reassuring middle-of-the road sort of a thing, designed to take the edge off the predicament of not having a spouse? Or is she really promoting singlehood at the expense of marriage? If she is, you see the problem. That's the basis of my punchline: "The pleasures of singlehood must be kept hush-hush. It's not a legitimate life style, you hear?" I want to be single, and maybe so does DePaulo, but we might live to regret promoting this simple, free, self-indulgent life-style.

Full post as published by Althouse on March 26, 2008 (boomark / email).