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Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2007 14:01:48 -0800
To: dreeves &AElig umich.edu, improvetheworld &AElig umich.edu, reeves-hayos &AElig umich.edu,         reeves-kalkman &AElig umich.edu
From: "Eva Revesz" <erevesz &AElig hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: Grandpa Andrew's Reflections on Marriage

Dad,
I enjoyed rereading your marriage talk, and I think you are right on the 
mark with your notion that a sense of humor is vital in a long-lasting 
relationship. But I would like to quibble with a point or two:

1) What past civilization(s) do you know of in which the women were 
polygamous? Give concrete examples.
2) The notion that you could be in love with more than one woman at a time 
is, I think, a contradiction of terms. One can certainly "love" more than 
one person at a time (both emotionally and sexually), but the pysiological 
condition of being "in love" is only possible with one person at a time. If 
you can't relate to what I'm talking about, then you've never really been in 
love. In any case, it's a lot more than a sexual attraction, to which you 
seem to be reducing the phenomenon of love in your talk. That's what I have 
a problem with, and I believe Shirley didn't like the talk for the  same 
reason.

Love,
Trixie


>From: Daniel Reeves <dreeves &AElig umich.edu>
>To: improvetheworld &AElig umich.edu, reeves-hayos &AElig umich.edu,        
>reeves-kalkman &AElig umich.edu
>Subject: Grandpa Andrew's Reflections on Marriage
>Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2007 00:24:34 -0500 (EST)
>
>By popular demand:
>
>REFLECTIONS ON MARRIAGE
>
>Dear Bethany, Dear Danny,
>Ladies and Gentlemen:
>
>My assignment for today is to give you some reflections on the marriage 
>institution and to tell you what makes successful ones. The task is both 
>ridiculously easy and impossibly difficult. I suppose I was chosen for this 
>honor because, at least on the bridegroom's side, I seem to be the most 
>experienced person on the subject -- having had in my life two marriages, 
>and I certainly learned a lot along the way. To the question there is the 
>conventional answer, the sanctimonious answer, the frivolous answer, the 
>long answer and the short answer. I shall not bore you with the first four 
>because you can read plenty of that kind of advice in marriage manuals, 
>homily collections, and even on the Internet. Before I proceed to the last 
>option, namely the short answer, let me give you some personal 
>reminiscences.
>
>Between my ages of 13 and 14, puberty crashed down on me like a ton of 
>bricks. Ever since that age (with "time out" during life crises with the 
>Nazis, Communists, and so forth) I was constantly in love, frequently with 
>more than one girl at a time, and in a highly theoretical sense 
>(recognizing the practical difficulties) I really wanted them all. I almost 
>felt personally insulted when they started marrying others. What a waste of 
>natural resources to let my virility go unused! Or even only to be 
>restricted to just one partner! As I started to reflect on marriage I was 
>astounded that Humankind should choose for itself such an imperfect 
>institution. The limitations it imposed were counter-instinctive, and in 
>conflict with the lifestyle of our own ancestors as attested in the Bible. 
>What's more, some modern religions have continued to endorse several wives 
>for one man.
>
>Before I could run too far with these sentiments, my sense of fairness 
>kicked in. What's fair for the gander is fair for the goose, and if several 
>wives are OK for one man, why not several husbands for one woman? Indeed, 
>that too had been tried by Humankind and became the dominant paradigm in 
>certain civilizations. The combination of the two ideas finally suggested 
>extended free-sex communities with carefully matched membership, and 
>child-rearing chores delegated to trained specialists. In my young years I 
>was dreaming of Utopian systems of that sort and actually witnessed the 
>formation of one, in post-war Hungary, on an informal and free mutual 
>consent basis. The experiment survived not even one year. The interpersonal 
>difficulties multiplied exponentially with the size of the group, and the 
>community broke up just about at the time when the first children were 
>born, amongst mutual recriminations, furious hostilities, and yearning for 
>the warmth of the intimate family. I suppose, going back all the way to the 
>beginnings of our species in the Ice Ages and before, all Humankind was 
>once a global free-sex community and it broke up into individual family 
>units because that suited the genuine requirements of human life, and 
>specifically the emotional well-being of the offspring, better. It is an 
>accommodation that we must make for the sake of the next generation. I hope 
>that we are not on the threshold of reinventing the wheel by going through 
>the whole cycle once more.
>
>So, the "nucular family", if I may be permitted to use the expression of 
>our beloved President, is the societal form we are stuck with, and I do not 
>pretend that it is an institution free from problems. But the problems are 
>manageable and smart people find out early what kind of management suits 
>their temperaments best. Now I come to the short answer to the question 
>asked in the preamble and tell you what has worked with Shirley and me, 
>during all these thirty years: it was, and still is, A SENSE OF HUMOR. We 
>can laugh at each others' faults; occasionally, when we are really mad at 
>each other, we impersonate two stags locking horns (I hope mine are only 
>imaginary) and push each other a few steps back and forth, 
>forehead-to-forehead. This way the anger subsides faster and we NEVER 
>(well, hardly ever) carry any ill feelings to the dinner table or to bed. 
>In the early days, when I was trying to characterize Shirley to my friends, 
>I would say, in her presence, "The trouble with Shirley is that she has her 
>own opinion on everything." When she reminisces about our first year 
>together, she relates an occasion when we talked about a common 
>acquaintance whom she characterized as a "dingbat". I was unfamiliar with 
>the expression and asked her to explain it. "Well, it's kind of like a 
>blind-flying bat, bumping into everything, or making a mess of everything." 
>Later she asked me: "What did you call that kind of a person before you 
>learned the word Dingbat?" and I said: "I never needed that word until I 
>met you."
>
>I guess some people would regard that kind of joking offensive but we 
>learned to enjoy, and even mutually develop, each other's humor. That is 
>what I recommend to you, Bethany and Danny, and your marriage will be 
>long-lasting and happy.
>
>* * * * * *
>
>Andrew L. Reeves
>17 February 2007
>
>--
>http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/dreeves  - -  search://"Daniel Reeves"

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