Tuesday, November 14, 2006
(12:39 AM) | Anonymous:
On Divorce.
Another friend going through divorce. I'm not sure which number divorce this is among my friends and families, but I won't be surprised if many, many more follow. Of course, I have a very idiosyncratic definition of marriage that includes more people than are married in the eyes of the State. Subtract everything away from marriage that is tied to state structures and what do you have? A fidelity to one another that is worked out immanently. I don't even think fidelity as normally understood can be included in a formal definition of marriage, because I know many people in good relationships that have either been unfaithful or have an open relationship and I know people who don’t ‘believe’ in marriage who have a more committed relationship than many married people I know. What is divorce then but a breaking of that fidelity, a fidelity often tied to time more than anything. I pledge to spend time with you. I pledge to give you time. To let you determine what my time will be. Certainly marriage is economic, but in terms of time, not determined structures that are actually chrematistic.
But this is only a formal definition of divorce, it doesn't capture the real of divorce, the nearly demonic aspect of our life. Love is a name we give to something we don't understand, that we find ourselves caught up in, and marriage as fidelity is a testament to that even as it begins to stratify that relationship. So, there is always something that rings false when anyone tries to explain why they love someone else. Even saying that rings false; empty platitude. Of course there is something biological going on there, but even that doesn't explain anything on any meaningful level. Why else would every sane scientist be able to go home? Why else would a scientist feel depressed after the end of a relationship. So, how could we ever understand what causes the end of relationship? It remains unknown just as the cause of our original love is beyond language; beyond determination.
