AlterNet / By Vivian Dent and Lakshmi Chaudhry

The Domesticity Wars

Some say our version of domesticity can kill love, others think shacking up is not the problem but our desire to have it all. Two writers go head-to-head in the domesticity wars.

February 7, 2002 |

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Ed's note: Some say domestic bliss is not just a mythology, it's an American pathology having nothing to do with sustaining real love. Others counter that it's not domesticity that's hard to work out. It's our desires. Here two writers wrestle with the issue from opposite sides of the ring.

The Tyranny of Domesticity

Lakshmi Chaudhry

In a TV commercial, a man spends hours cooking the perfect meal for his wife. He sautes the fish, grills the vegetables, and selects the perfect wine in preparation for the much-vaunted candle-lit dinner. And as the wife walks in the door, the camera captures the look of joy on her face.

This is America's vision of domestic bliss. In this day and age, love is ... slaving over a hot stove, getting a home mortgage, buying her a new car, or taking a suitably exotic vacation. Whether it is ads, TV sitcoms or newspaper columns nattering about broken dishwashers and snoring spouses, the message remains the same: Love is domesticity.

This is the central myth that permeates the discourse of modern love in our culture. And it defines the emotional Holy Grail that all of us are expected to aspire for.

In a piece titled "Against Love" published in the New York Times Magazine this month, Laura Lipnis argues eloquently against this mythology of "domestic love," which she compares to a prison sentence. Love in marriage, she says, consists of obeying "mutually imposed commands and strictures extending into the most minute areas of household affairs, social life, finances, speech, hygiene ... and so on." Both husband and wife are expected to sacrifice critical parts of their selves to meet a series of thou-shalt-nots in the name of love. And all this in service to what Lipnis considers an impossible goal, which is loving one person for an entire lifetime. She argues romantic love is by nature temporary as sexual passion inevitably wanes in the face of everyday life. We can sustain it in marriage only at the expense of our individuality.

But here's the problem with Lipnis' logic. In insisting that the only "real" love is the temporary romantic kind, she dooms all couples to a love-less fate. In this version, we can either flit from one person to another or condemn ourselves to dutiful drudgery. And worse, she conflates love with domesticity, reinforcing the cultural sleight of hand that dooms most relationships to unhappiness. Domesticity is the socially sanctioned expression of love, but it actually has little to do with love itself.

This is the first important discovery that confronts most couples when they get partnered or married. Domesticity is in fact the antithesis of love. Love, by its very definition, is the expansion of self to include another. Domesticity, on the other hand, demands we shrink our selves to meet its requirements. It slowly but surely kills love in a relationship by transforming desire into duty. In love, we give freely and without expectation. But domesticity requires us to give in and give up to meet the requirements of our assigned marital roles.

In some ways, the modern American version of domesticity makes marriage more of a prison than the traditional model that is still in place in many non-Western cultures. In the United States, the union of love and marriage results in Domesticity Plus. We are expected not just to perform our marital duties but to do it with pleasure. Love has become a requirement for a "good" spouse. Eastern cultures on the other hand treat love as far too elusive and unreliable an emotion on which to base institutions that require long-term commitment. This includes not just marriage but also parenting. Parents are not required to love their children, nor children their parents, but they are expected to fulfill their familial responsibilities. This does not mean husbands and wives or parents and children do not love each other in, say, India, but that love is something that simply happens. It is not expected, demanded or required. Social norms such as the arranged marriage are based on a pragmatic and perhaps callous view of human relationships that is inevitable in less affluent societies where family is a necessary condition for survival. This incentive is less compelling in a culture where individuals can thrive alone. Self-fulfillment has instead become the primary motivation for coupling in so-called "modern" societies. And in this sense, the prevailing model of marital bliss is worse than merely inadequate. It asks a person to follow a laundry list of directives at the expense of their personal happiness. And the current divorce rate reflects this reality.

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