A Lifetime of Singlism: Getting Crushed by a Ton of Feathers

I love reading fiction on long cross-country trips. I tried out a new author, Laura Kasischke, on my way out, then was handed Scott Turow's latest, Innocent, when I arrived. (I don't like to carry hardcovers when I travel - too bulky.)

I was struck by two very short excerpts, one from each book. Take a look at them.

1. From Innocent, by Scott Turow, p. 274

"When Marta Stern started practicing with Sandy, she was like a teapot on boil, shrill and constantly stirred up. But something about becoming a wife and mom had calmed her. She could still get in your face, but usually with a reason."

2. From The Life Before Her Eyes, by Laura Kasischke, p. 160

[Diana, the protagonist, is married and a mother. In this excerpt, she is talking about a neighbor, Rita, who is unhappy that Diana's cat, Timmy, has "massacred a nest of baby rabbits in Rita's backyard."]

"Timmy, said Rita - who was not much older than Diana, but childless, husbandless, and at least fifty pounds overweight - ought to be kept indoors, where he couldn't kill helpless and innocent things." (Diana replies that Timmy is an outdoor cat and too old to change his ways.) "Rita had ended the conversation abruptly by saying, ‘Please keep your cat off my property,' her jowly face turning pink."

Before I became tuned in to singlism, I don't think I would have even noticed either of these excerpts. The equation of single with "shrill," "constantly stirred up," and getting in other people's faces without reason, and the suggestion that getting married and having children calms you, would have sailed right over my head. Yet somewhere, somehow, these connections would have settled in my mind, maybe as softly as a feather.

Same for the Kasischke excerpt. The derogated character, with "her jowly face turning pink" is "childless, husbandless, and at least fifty pounds overweight."

Well, so what. Each of these examples is just a few sentences out of an entire book. Sure, they are put-downs of single people, but light ones, like feathers. Consider, though, how all of these feathers accumulate over days, weeks, years, maybe a lifetime. The relevant experiences come not just from reading fiction but from all of the singlism and matrimania in your everyday life. Do you know that question, "What weighs more - a ton of rocks or a ton of feathers?" Of course, they are equally crushing. The feathers, though, are more subtle. When someone throws a rock, you know what's coming at you, and people will leap to your defense. With feathers, you might not even notice them yourself, and if you do notice and then dare to complain, you'll just get called angry or bitter or too sensitive.

As a scientist, what I'd really like to see is a systematic comparison of portrayals of singles and marrieds in a representative sample of fiction (and in everyday life). I don't know of any such work. So I'll end with just one more anecdote. Previously at Living Single, I posted Laurie's request for recommendations for fiction with strong single characters. Then I also posted "Seeking novels with strong single characters, matrimania not included" at the books section of the Huffington Post. As of last September, the Huffington Post was attracting 8.4 million unique visitors a month, more than the Los Angeles Times or the Washington Post. Want to know how many suggestions I got in response? None.