As The Years Go On A Sense

Why Do Long Marriages Occasionally Endow Their Inhabitants With A Rare Kind Of Equilibrium Otherwise Almost Unknown In Human Relations? My Guess Is That The Value Of The Moment Has At Last Overshadowed The Long History Of Resentments, Betrayals, And Boredom.

The Rare, Delicate Flavor Of A Life After Retiring In One's Sixties, Whatever One Has "retired" From, The Pleasure I Experienced Beyond My Job At Columbia, Is A Gift Of Life In The Last Decades. But It Is Not Easily Learned. . . . But Sometimes, The Only Way To Live Is To Get Out, Or At Least Seriously To Contemplate Getting Out, Doing The Impossible,flinging The Conventional Tea.

To Recommend That Women Become Identical To Men, Would Be Simple Reversal, And Would Defeat The Whole Point Of Androgyny, And For That Matter, Feminism: In Both, The Whole Point Is Choice.

We Women Have Lived Too Much With Closure: "if He Notices Me, If I Marry Him, If I Get Into College, If I Get This Work Accepted, If I Get This Job" -- There Always Seems To Loom The Possibility Of Something Being Over, Settled, Sweeping Clear The Way For Contentment. This Is The Delusion Of A Passive Life. When The Hope For Closure Is Abandoned, When There Is An End To Fantasy, Adventure For Women Will Begin.

A Revolutionary Marriage ... [is] One In Which Both Partners Have Work At The Center Of Their Lives And Must Find A Delicate Balance That Can Support Both Together And Each Individually.