Marchus on marriage

Mark Marchus sent along this after my recent short post on marriage.

A male and female get married. Have a child. The male becomes wallpaper. Colorfully in the background. He has an immediate love/hate relationship with the child. The wife heals. More sex. Another pregnancy. Now he's the invisible man. Handlers have until age 11 for girls and age 12 for boys to parent. Then the mommy daddy thing is over. Either the parents morph into a more practical role - say advisor-guide - or the children go invisible. Mom alone. Dad alone. Then each starts looking around. Infidelity. Divorce. Kids grow up loving and hating parents who split. Marriage as an institution is over. Even if there are children. The nuclear family is over. Everyone on the planet finds themselves in some kind of personal survival challenge. Going out into the world means moving far away. Most not doing well. ... Parental influence is enormously exaggerated.

He also liked my scene from The Pardon, also recently posted:

God you nailed it. You fuck you're in love. And if you're in love you marry. I just reread the scene with Frank and Harriet. "The times knew no other moral possibility." I love the line "I felt like a tramp afterward. . ."