Not the marrying kind: 'A Modern Girl's Guide to Sex and Love'

When Helen Croydon tells people she has no desire for conventional coupledom, they think she's mad. But now it seems that science is on her side

HELEN CROYDON    

WEDNESDAY 19 FEBRUARY 2014

On a train recently, I watched a young, attractive couple sitting opposite me. They

looked happy enough dipping in and out of magazines, conversation and a packet of

Digestives. Until he happened to mention that he might not attend her friend's

birthday the following evening. A mini-strop and then a sulk ensued. It didn't seem

like he had a legitimate excuse, he just wanted an early night. In her eyes, this was

obviously not befitting behaviour of a dedicated partner.

Fallouts like this are one of the many examples of the exhausting demands intrinsic to

modern relationships. In our culture, we are taught to aspire to a fairytale narrative:

we will each meet a true love who will complete us. They will be so idyllically suited to

us that they will share our beliefs, hobbies and social agenda. Anything less and it

isn't a proper relationship. I hear colleagues in the pub after work talking of "sneaking

a quick one in" lest they get home to their significant other too late. Why, is their

boyfriend or girlfriend afraid of the dark? I know couples who influence the others

choice of friends or who grumble that a hobby takes too much time away from them.

Last week, a prominent American academic addressed this phenomenon. Professor Eli

Finkel presented his paper, Suffocation of Marriage, at the annual conference of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago. Prof Finkel warned

that the modern demands of marriage had never been so great because we now seek

emotional fulfilment from our partner rather than our basic survival needs, as has

always been the case. He suggested that living separately, or allowing your partner to

sleep with other people, could be the key to a successful marriage.

Media headlines ensued as though he had just suggested we drown our

grandmothers. But Prof Finkel is absolutely right. I've been concerned by the taxing

duties of conventional coupledom for my entire adult life. So much so that I've

reached 36 with only one relationship beyond 18 months and have no plans

whatsoever to give up my action-packed life of freedom and my starfish sleeping

position again. But such is the pressure to find fulfilment through a soulmate, who will

supposedly make all my dreams come true, that I became concerned that there was

something wrong with me. A commitment-phobe I surely must be? Admittedly, there

are times when I wish there were a ready-made wine buddy in my living room after a

hard day but, on the whole, I've always felt that I thrive best being single with a

reliable and meaningful lover whenever I can find one.

'Modern love-

marriage looks like a social experiment,' says author Helen Croydon (Juliette Neel)So two

years ago, I set upon a quest to find out if there really was something wrong with me

for not craving a life merger with a significant other. Am I really missing out, or am I

actually quite rational to want to preserve my independence in a world kitted out for

autonomy and convenience? After looking at the role of marriage thorough history,

the science behind love and speaking with hundreds of couples, divorcees, lifelong

singletons, asexuals, philanderers, swingers, sperm-donor mothers and married

couples who live apart, I am confident it is the quite rational latter.

Let's start with the history. The idea that our Mr or Mrs Right will fulfil us

emotionally, sexually, spiritually and everything else is new – 200 years new.

Compared with the hundreds of thousands of years of civilisation, modern love-

marriage looks like a social experiment. Before the end of the 19th century, tying the

knot was done for inheritance, building important family ties and securing business

connections. And not only within the noble classes. Even agricultural workers would

be paired off according to the strategic location of their in-laws' fields.

Of course, people still fell in love but that was nothing to do with marriage. Among the

aristocracy of the Middle Ages, the highest form of love was considered to be

extramarital. In the 16th century, the essayist Montaigne wrote that any man in love

with his wife was "a man so dull no one else could love him". Theologians considered

loving one's spouse to be a sin – they called it idolatry – because it could interfere with

the love of God.

DEBATE: SHOULD EVERYONE GET A PRE-NUPTIAL AGREEMENT?  

Behind the seismic cultural change towards the love marriage were two things. First,

the Industrial Revolution of the late 1700s meant that young people earned a wage

and had more control of their own destiny. Second, this was the period of

Enlightenment. Young people started to view human relationships as organised by

rationale and justice, rather than by force and birthright. Happiness became a

legitimate goal. Then when Queen Victoria walked down the aisle in 1840 in an

elaborate white gown and accompanied by music, the public was mesmerised. Fancy

weddings became the rage. The fairytale had begun.

Commentators were worried about this new ideal. If marriage was based on

something as fickle as romantic love, wouldn't such unions be unstable? And guess

what? They were right. According to Elizabeth Gilbert in her marriage memoir

Committed, whenever a culture turns its back on arranged marriages in favour of the

love-marriage, divorce rates rocket. Of course, this isn't to say that arranged

marriages are the formula for a robust marriage. Rather, it questions whether

stringent, life-long unions are the formula for modern society.

For the first time in history, marriage and cohabitation are no longer a necessity. As

recently as 100 years ago, it was impossible to live alone. There was no sliced bread,

online deliveries or washer-dryers. You simply had to shack up. There are now 3.5

million people over 45 living alone in the UK, an increase of 25 per cent since the mid-

1990s. More people are choosing to live alone because they can.

Gender equality has further pushed marriage into the non-essentials category. Just 40

years ago, in some US states, a woman couldn't take out a loan or start a business

without her husband's signature. Another study this week, by the US National Bureau

of Economic Research, found that more people are choosing spouses with similar

educational backgrounds. Nearly half of graduate men married other graduates in

2005, compared with just a quarter in 1960. Gone, it seems, is the boss-secretary

marriage, or surgeons marrying nurses.

There is a proper word for marrying up the social ladder. It's called hypergamy.

Historically, this abounded in times and cultures where one sex had fewer rights. Now

that gender roles are blurring, emotional fulfilment usurps social status in the

selection of a life partner. But the problem is that emotional fulfilment is fickle and

variable.

Even when it comes to starting a family, it is now socially acceptable and financially

viable to do so sans spouse. In the 1950s, women who fell pregnant outside wedlock

were ushered to mother-and-baby homes and, in some cases, mental asylums. In just

60 years, attitudes have changed so much that there are now two million single

parents in the UK and 23 per cent of 14-year-olds grow up in single-parent

households. We now have co-parent matchmaking sites and sperm-donor networks,

providing a platform for independent men and women to set the maternity or

paternity process in motion, without the hassle of romantic entanglement.

When I tell people that I don't fancy the marriage-house-and-kids lifestyle, I'm often

asked if I worry about growing old alone. But I believe that loneliness will soon be a

malaise consigned to the history books. Social networking means that we can, with

the click of a mouse, make contact with local, niche communities and meet-up groups.

Plus, with the number of married and never-married women predicted to be equal by

2031, there will be plenty of people like me flying solo in our dotage. Given such

facilitation to remain free from domestic drudgery, it is anachronistic to believe that

cohabiting, monogamous, lifelong marriage should be our ultimatum of life.

In my single observatory tower, I see newlyweds hurtle into their new duo routines

without acknowledging the magnitude of what they are doing. Commitment is a

bigger deal today than it ever has been. Today's 20 and 30-year-olds are likely to have

lived away from home, travelled, been to college and experimented with multiple

sexual partners before they cede to marriage. Western society encourages

individualism, entrepreneurship and self-improvement. We go through adolescence

choosing our own friends, careers and pursuits based on our individual needs. Then,

boom, we get hitched and all our decisions, right down to how we load the

dishwasher, suddenly have to be made jointly. No wonder so many relationships

buckle under the pressures.

More research from America this week claims to have found a region inside the brain

called the anterior insular, which plays a role in who we select to fall in love with. It is

separate to the posterior insular, which makes decisions about who we lust and

desire. This tallies with other, more established research that we have two separate

drives for love – the fervent butterflies-in-your-tummy feelings of romantic love and

the long-term affectionate feelings of attachment. The fairytale narrative has us

seeking both in one person. But I'm sorry to report that science increasingly proves

that they are separate.

One of the leading anthropologists in this field of research, Dr Helen Fisher, has

examined brain scans of couples in romantic love and those in attachment. For those

in romantic love – which could include an unshakeable crush – their systems are

flooded with the feel-good chemicals dopamine and norepinephrine. Their addiction

centres are activated in the same way as addicts craving crack cocaine. It is this

delusional state in which we make outlandish promises – such as "till death do us

part". For those in deeper love or "attachment", they emit the hormone oxytocin when

they see their partner. This makes them feel love, trust and affection but, alas, the

urge to rip their clothes off fades along with the dopamine.

Don't shoot the messenger. Like everyone else, I, too, wish I could find a handsome

prince who I can lust after and love simultaneously, who will prove to be my

inspiration, fireworks in the bedroom, my social prop, career support and DIY enactor

all in one. But it is this expectation for such conflicting roles that leads to relationship

failure.

Part of my research took me undercover on a marital affair website. Donning a fake

wedding ring, I met men who were deliberately seeking affairs. I loathed their

deceitfulness but I learned a lot. Without exception, every man made it clear that he

still loved his wife and valued the security of family life but needed an outlet for a

romantic frisson. It wasn't sex they were seeking. They described wanting to "feel

excited about seeing someone again", wanting to "get to know someone" and "have a

conversation that's not about the house and kids".

None of the evidence above provides an excuse for such blatant deceit, but it does

give us cause to rethink the needless demands we place on long-term relationships.

Surely we can now afford to relax the 24/7 clause in the commitment contract? We are

lucky to live in an era that allows us to enjoy romantic relationships rather than lean

on them. The only way we can achieve enduring love in our self-focused, opportunistic

society is to adapt our relationship values accordingly, not stubbornly cling to a

fairytale ideal that belongs once upon a time.µ

'Screw The Fairytale: A Modern Girl's Guide to Sex and Love' by Helen Croydon is out

now (John Blake, £7.99)

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