I Don't: A Contrarian History of Marriage

Read Susan Squire's highly entertaining new social history, I Don't: A Contrarian History of Marriage (Bloomsbury) and you will finally understand how we got ourselves into this mess. As it turns out, the mess has been several thousand years in the making. It's rooted in the tenacious but ultimately futile efforts of men -- pagan, Jewish and Christian alike -- to solve the problem they identified as Woman. But for me, it's the women in this book who steal the show: Bold, notorious broads like Jezebel, who was literally fed to the dogs (wild, ravenous, and in multiple) on God's orders, for wearing her husband's pants. But since her husband happened to be the king, maybe God had a point.

Squire's witty and deeply researched work proves one thing: marriage has been hard on both husbands and wives for a very long time. But, but, but ... is there anything we can do to make it easier? Has the author's view of her own 20-year-marriage changed, for better or worse, in the course of writing I Don't? To find out, I called her.

Cynthia Kling: I finished your book with one major question: what were all those men so afraid of?

Susan Squire: Women. Especially the ones they lived with. Feminist historians describe the traditional male attitude as misogyny, but I'd call it gynophobia. Most people don't hate -- or spend thousands of years trying to subjugate -- anyone they don't fear. But why would the self-defined stronger sex feel so threatened by the weaker, inferior one? Women were seen as irrational, untrustworthy, incapable of self-control, and nymphomaniacal by nature. Since such creatures could not be held responsible for their own actions, their husbands were -- and the man who failed to master his wife was seen as no man at all. These days we all pay lip service to the idea that a man can cry, eat quiche and change diapers while his wife earns big bucks as a corporate CEO, but in reality very few couples embrace that model. It'll take more than a couple of decades to rewrite a marital playbook that's something like 5,000 years old.

CK: You write that the idea of love in marriage emerged in the 16th century. Before that, was there love in people's lives?

SS: Sure, but it wasn't advertised like it is now. The Greeks considered heterosexual love, inside or outside marriage, as demeaning to men; the Christian church said that men who "loved" (read: desired) their wives too much were no better than adulterers; the medieval aristocracy's code of courtly love was all about adultery. Martin Luther placed love high on the marital-priority list, a refreshing change -- but in his vision, married love was something that developed over time and was rooted in mutual affection and respect.

CK: That idea seems to have been lost to some Hollywood idea of hot passion and cold ice cubes. What have we lost along the way?

SS: Passionate love blazes with intensity; it thrives on newness, unpredictability, and obstacles. Married love is something else entirely -- companionable, cozy, stable, and familiar. It glows rather than burns. People shouldn't expect the fire to last forever or to underestimate the power of the steady glow. It's the true signature of a happily-ever-after marriage.

CK: I'm sure that you met your husband, fell madly into a wild passionate love and then got hitched. That's how we boomers did it. But does a great love affair predict a great marriage?

SS: Noooo. It's just as likely to predict the opposite. Wild passionate love tends to be longhand for lust, and if it's all about lust, than it won't last. I'm not knocking great sex, god knows, but you have to think about other factors when figuring out the calculus: Do you want to floss your teeth around this guy -- or let him floss around you -- for the next 30 years? Is he going to have your back? Does he really understand and respect how your mind works? Is this someone you'd trust to make end-of-life decisions for you? Are his attitudes about neatness, togetherness, and spending money similar to yours? There has to be something underneath that will sustain the relationship over the long term.