Kass, Amy A. and Leon Kass. Wing To Wing: Oar to Oar: Readings on Courting and Marrying. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2000. 640 pp. $25.00 paperback.
“Life Forevermore:” The Problem of Marriage
Marriage in America is in ruins. Marriage rates decline while divorce rates rise. Cohabitation without marriage becomes an increasingly acceptable option. Teen pregnancy, especially among minorities, skyrockets at an alarming rate. Births out of wedlock are common. While we pay lip service to family values, we breed a culture of selfishness through “self-help” books, publicized pre-nuptial agreements, and sanctioned greed. Intellectuals attack nature and tradition, smugly describing all human endeavor, including love, in terms of politics and power. Broken couples attack each other physically on talk shows for our entertainment. Everywhere men and women are portrayed as means for our gratification and use. We foster voyeurism through web-cams, pornographic sites, and the newest lines of fashion. And we watch and enjoy with shameless satisfaction “real-life” shows such as “Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire” and “Temptation Island.”
Could the situation be any grimmer?
Possibly. Cultural decline, especially as it disintegrates traditional
customs and mores, shows no signs of stopping.
Still, marriage usually manages to muster help even in its darkest hour,
which is perhaps itself a testament to the naturalness of the love between man
and woman so cynically attacked in academic circles. Ironic then that marriage finds its staunchest modern defenders
in two members of the academy.
Amy and Leon Kass teach at the
University of Chicago, and Leon Kass is known widely for his thoughtful
biblical commentary and contributions to bioethics. Together, the Kasses teach a course on love and courtship,
encouraging their students to think deeply on all matters nuptial. Their new
anthology, Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar (a
title taken from Robert Frost’s poem, “The Master Speed,” written for his
daughter’s wedding), is a series of “readings on courting and marrying,”
collected out of their experiences with this course. They include a great variety of works, ranging from the Bible to Shakespeare to modern social
criticism, all directing the reader toward a serious consideration of
courtship, marriage, and the moral life. Seven sections, each introduced by the
editors, divide the readings according to the central questions addressed:
“Where are we now? Defenses of Matrimony”; “What about Sex? Man, Woman, and
Sexuality”; “Is This Love? Eros and Its Aims”; “How Can I Find and Win the
Right One? Courtship”; “Why a Wedding? The Promises of Marriage”; and “What Can
Married Life be Like? The Blessings of Married Life.”
The Kasses wage war against the
dissolution of marriage with what may be the most powerful cultural ammunition:
our literary and philosophic heritage.
Nearly every reading is drawn from the great texts of western
civilization, rendering the collection a sort of liberal education in
miniature. Extending William James’s
principle that an education in books will, “teach you how to recognize a good
man when you see one,” these readings engender not only the ability to
recognize a good soul, but the means and reasons for a life well lived in the
company of that soul. The voices of our
western tradition raise questions and invite reflection about love in a way
that nothing else in our culture can.
In short, the youth of America “lack a cultural script whose denouement
is marriage,” and great authors answer the call.
Many of the readings are well known.
Shakespeare’s Sonnets, excerpts from Romeo and Juliet, and the stories of
Isaac, Jacob, and Abraham from Genesis,
all great literature by any account, build the foundation. No less familiar are Aristophanes’ account
of the circle-men and Socrates’ discussion of eros in the Symposium, as well as excerpts from Rousseau’s Emile, Austen’s Pride and
Prejudice, and Tolstoy’s Anna
Karenina.
The editors still leave room for some sparkling little surprises. Charles Darwin’s rather practical fact sheet listing pros and cons of marriage, in “This is the Question,” makes for good advice: “Cheer up -- one cannot live this solitary life, with groggy old age, friendless and cold and childless staring one in one’s face, already beginning to wrinkle.” While the introduction notes that Darwin, “was a rational and careful man, methodical, it seems, even about matters of the heart,” this reader finds his notes ironic: Where is the discussion of reproductive fitness? Can love conquer nature? Is marriage truly consistent with the principles of natural selection? Perhaps the Kasses put the passage in precisely to deliver a subtle message.
The inclusion of Major Sullivan Ballou’s letter to
his wife Sarah only a week before his death at the battle of Manassas was a
grand stroke. The heart-rending message from Ballou ends with a heartfelt
appeal:
But, oh Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you, in the gladdest days and in the darkest nights…always, always, always, and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath, as the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by.
Such words inevitably sensitize and stir the souls of some readers. But one wonders whether the struggle Ballou speaks of, between duty to his country and duty to his family, could be felt deeply, if at all, by youth in our culture? Might these youth, who live in a society where social status, careerism, and plain greed outweigh marital commitment, be entirely desensitized to the call of Ballou’s letter? This collection works from the assumption, right or wrong, that they are listening and are able to be persuaded.
Other excerpts round out the work. Allan Bloom’s cogent commentary on
“Relationships” still speaks true after fourteen years. Kant’s short excerpt, “On Shame and Love,”
from “The Conjectural Beginning of Human History,” may surprise some readers --
who might not otherwise ever read Kant -- with its insight into Genesis 3:7. And the Kasses’ own essay, “The Marriage Name,” may be the most
serious modern response to the essentially feminist rejection of sharing the
groom’s family name.
All in all, Wing
to Wing: Oar to Oar fills a vacancy that cannot otherwise be filled, as
much as modern culture might try with self-help advice, psychiatric counseling,
and talk-show hosts. The book provides,
in this sense, the basis for a “cultural script” about courtship and marriage.
While it is a surprise that such a collection has not until now been compiled
(marriage having been in collapse for a good while now), we are lucky it was
done by these authors and in this manner.
Few understand better the urgency of the dissolution of marriage, and
even fewer realize that the keys to the problem have all this time been sitting
under our noses. They are the texts of our great tradition. Kudos to the Kasses for dusting them off and
offering them up anew.
Rob Schebel
Des Moines, Iowa