Here Comes The Bride

I've been reading a lot of books on marriage lately, as I'm working on Terry Real's weblog, called The New Rules of Marriage.

This weekend I read Dr. Laura's book, The Care and Feeding of Marriage, an allegedly anti-feminist, right wing, pro male domination diatribe. But don't go dismissing it out of hand. There was a lot in it that made good common sense, I'll say that right up front. But any relationship based on one party just shutting up and swallowing all issues ... I can't believe that works whether in a marriage, at work, between governments or in the UN.

It made me think long and hard about what our expectations of marriage are. Just like our expectations of having children and raising them, I think we all have a rosy-colored idealized view that can trip us up.

What is real marriage like?