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Probably most marriages which last more than five or ten years are in this category. In many marriages of this sort, though the spouses believe they have a comfortable relationship, their disappointment with each other on occasion is obvious. In times of stress, hostility and buried resentment emerge. There are periodic outbursts of subtle or open aggression. The spouses attack each other emotionally and inflict fresh wounds. Some of the wounds heal; and even though scabbing and scarring occur the marriage remains basically sound. These people are the Spare-Time Battlers.
The Spare-Time Battlers have a wide field of conflict. They may get into a limited status struggle (the symmetrical relationship, to be discussed in a later chapter), which frequently has overtones of the battle of the sexes. If John loses money playing poker, Mary may insist on spending an equal amount for new clothes. If Mary goes to a music festival for several nights in a row and neglects to fix John’s dinner, John may go off on a weekend fishing trip just when Mary’s relatives are visiting and she needs help to entertain them.
The Spare-Time Battlers may show hostile competitiveness with each other at the bridge table or in budgeting, or may try to outshine each other during conversations with friends. However, there is an underlying network of agreement about what each is willing to do, reciprocally, for the other. Therefore, the unpleasant skirmishes usually are seen within the context of the total marriage. In the spouses’ eyes, the importance of the marriage outweighs the periodic hostilities or disappointments. The assets are remembered even during the battles over liabilities.
Examples of Unstable-Satisfactory marriages are as numerous as our friends and relatives; we can find them wherever we have the wits to look. These are the ordinary marriages, which really differ greatly from one another, though they all seem alike because the spouses live in similar ticky-tacky boxlike houses and drive similar overfed children to school in similar cars.
But the marriages seldom seem “ordinary” to their participants, who feel themselves in hell some days, in heaven other days, and just plain “married” most days. The intricacies of such marriages are not well known by behavioral scientists because on the whole the Spare-Time Battlers don’t seek professional help. They expect marriage to have its ups and downs, and meanwhile, their attention is focused upon children, money, security, and status.
One such couple we know well. John and Johnnie have three children and fourteen years of marriage behind them. They claim they have never considered divorce, yet they admit to numerous quarrels and plenty of dissatisfaction. John has told us he’s never been unfaithful. Typically, for our culture, we forgot to ask Johnnie.
John is a busy surgeon. His patients adore him and his colleagues like and respect him. Johnnie is proud of him, too, and likes to spend his earnings, but she does wish that he could be home a little more often and that he would not insist on having his mother over so frequently. John thinks his wife wastes time and (”like all women”) tends to be hypochrondriac. He does not attribute any of her chronic fatigue to the hectic pace of their life, and they don’t discuss such questions because they “just end up fighting.”
It is not difficult to spot how Johnnie gets back at her husband covertly. When he is at home he attempts the paterfamilias role, and Johnnie cuts him down by sabotaging his efforts to discipline and instruct the children. He appears unaware of this technique and blows up at the kids instead of his wife. They are used to these outbursts, and simply wait them out. Yet John and Johnnie love their children and spend much of their time together discussing the children’s problems and futures. How they will manage together when the children have left home is questionable, and cannot be predicted at present.
There are many pleasures and rewards in the marriage. For example, their sex life seems quite satisfactory to both and they like to go out socially, even though when they do they typically stay away from each other throughout the evening, perhaps seeking someone with whom they can discuss subjects outside of the spouse’s repertoire. While such behavior may be desirable, it also seems to be a social protest against admitting dependency. In some social gatherings, being “happily married” is often interpreted as indicating weakness or overdomestication. At cocktail parties, in particular, men and women tend to separate into two distinct groups. In seating her guests at dinner, a hostess must alternate men and women in order to break up this cultural division of the sexes.
One thing is obvious. John and Johnnie do not spend much time together, and except in the bedroom they are seldom alone with each other. They would consider no other life, and have little tolerance for friends who have marital problems requiring professional help, or who become divorced. In their own way they feel that they are the backbone of our nation, and to them this is a position of solemn responsibility. They think more in terms of procreation than of creativity, and their values are relatively fixed. Marriage is difficult-but what else is there? Their moments of joy are only occasional, but they are generally content with their lives. When changed circumstances cause a couple of this sort to become less satisfied-as when the children leave home or one spouse meets someone who opens up new vistas and dreams-the marriage may stumble down one level to the Unstable-Unsatisfactory category.
One other type of marriage, this one nearly stable, is classified as Unstable-Satisfactory. Here the partners, whom we call the Pawnbrokers, know they are not in love. One or both of the Pawnbrokers recognize that they have compromised or limited their efforts to seek an “ideal” partner; yet they “,’ish to remain married anyway, usually because the other spouse, despite his perceived limitations, provides something very much desired (money, social status, security, companionship, sex, assistance to a coveted goal, an unusual professional situation, and so forth). One or both spouses believe the limited satisfaction gained by staying married is preferable to the uncertain rewards which may or may not be found by looking further for another mate or by returning to the single state.
Since, as we have indicated, people cannot not communicate, the message “I am not really in love with you” gets across, and the marriages of the Pawnbrokers are consequently unstable. Continual unspoken adjustments must be made to compensate for the lack of romantic emotional attachment. Mary may actually dislike her husband, or she may be fond of him but find sexual intercourse with him distasteful. However, Mary may seek sexual activity more often than she naturally desires it-to fulfill her part of the bargain, to “show” her husband that she is fond of him in many ways, to compensate for her lack of genuine pleasure, or perhaps to get the sex act over with quickly and routinely.
In one way or another Mary’s message will reach the husband, but he may accept the situation for his own reasons. Perhaps he too is ambivalent about sex, and Mary’s aggressive, regular advances disguise his own ambivalence. Perhaps he directs the major portion of his interest into his profession, and does not wish a deeper emotional involvement with a woman. Thus spouses of this type have themselves in hock to each other. They are willing to pay the required interest, and refuse to take themselves out of marital pawn because the payment they receive from the pawnbroker seems to them to be a fair exchange for what they give. It is for this reason that we call them the Pawnbrokers.
Many novels, motion pictures, and plays present characters in this category. Frequently, the plot has concerned a rather extreme example of the expedient marriage-the marriage of a beautiful young girl to an older wealthy man. She knows the old buzzard has been attracted by her beauty and youth, and she lets him enjoy these (usually until they marry). He tries to please her by spoiling her with attention, with expensive gifts and entertainment.
In some of these stories, the drama is provided by a runaway situation. The girl cheats on her elderly husband and then is killed by him; or she is rejected by her lover and returns to her husband with abject apologies, or, in the fairy-story movie, she decides she loves her spouse after all, returns eagerly-and they live happily ever after. However, in actuality most Big Daddy-Baby Doll marriages are eventually doomed. There are only so many gifts possible before the girl begins to feel saturated and looks for pleasure elsewhere, and the husband can certainly become bored with being told that he is a “great big man.” Baby Doll grows older and Big Daddy looks at new young chicks; or conversely, Baby Doll finds an even bigger Daddy and kisses off number one.
Among some professional people (for example, physicians and politicians), the deliberately expedient marriage still occurs. But the general rise in afHuence, the increasing equality of women (sexual, financial, and social), and the growing acceptance of spinsterhood and bachelorhood have combined to diminish the number of blatantly expedient marriages. Correspondingly, fewer and fewer movies, television shows, and the like depict Big Daddy-Baby Doll situations. Today the motives for expedient union are usually subtle and complicated, and this complexity is reflected in many of the “new look” movies and dramas.
During the nineteenth century there were more women than men in Pawnbroker status. The numbers have equalized now that women can earn their own living and have outlets other than marriage to an ambitious man for their own personal ambition. Also, with the greater sexual freedom of women today, the sharp distinction between “loose” women and “nice” women has broken down. Men today are able to establish meaningful relationships with intelligent, sensitive women without necessarily having to fear being rushed into premature marriage. The mature man searching for love, beauty, and companionship is therefore free to be more selective. He does not have to settle for a purely sexual relationship with a woman interested primarily in what she can get out of it financially or socially.
Thus, most Pawnbroker marriages which occur today are not even remotely similar to the old Big Daddy-Baby Doll type so common at the tum of the century. At that time, though women were soon to be legally equal, they remained socially unequal. But gradually they began to have glimpses of their right to expect more out of life for themselves than a house full of children and dishes, and a secondary position based upon the reflected glory of the husband’s successes. The wife in this position was often left out of her husband’s life emotionally, and had to exercise considerable inventiveness to find substitutes for self-respect based on personal achievement and companionship with equals. This situation also placed severe limitations on the husband’s satisfaction. With a wife at home who was usually tired of housework and talking to three-year-olds, frustrated by the narrow confines of a small house and limited circle of housewife-friends, the man seeking camaraderie and stimulation frequently had to look for it outside his home. Often he was attracted to country clubs, men’s bars, or “illicit” relations with single women whose sparkle had not yet been dimmed by a relatively dull social routine.
Through the years, this situation has indeed improved, though haphazardly and irregularly. Today, men and women continue to experiment with finding a “middle ground” making possible varied experiences and social and professional opportunities for both. Despite the growing divorce rate, cooperative, or collaborative, marriages appear to be increasing.
Unfortunately, the lessons of cooperation and collaboration are frequently learned through pain, marital failures, and hard knocks. Many Pawnbroker marriages today occur between spouses who have been married before, and seek a second relationship permitting greater freedom-with-camaraderie than the first marriage (based on romance and “falling in love”) allowed. Many Pawnbroker marriages occur between professional people who are getting older and have lost their early visions of the perfect love. Such marriages appear to be expedient in the more conventional sense, but are often very satisfactory for the people involved. Still an unstable element remains because the vision of eternal romance is so ingrained in our culture that even those people who feel they are beyond it are never sure that they or their spouse may not lock eyes across the room with someone else someday.
