Did you make the annual obeisance to St Valentine’s Day traditions [read purchases] on the 14th? Last year, Australians were projected to spend $1.1 billion on Valentine’s Day gifts as St Valentine’s Day was lauded and backed by marketers, glamorising Romantic ardour and infatuation, glorious, all-consuming passion, and a thirst for intimacy and transcendence.
But we are not renowned for our Great Love Stories, we Australians. CJ Dennis’ Bill the Sentimental Bloke and Doreen come to mind, perhaps, or Ramsay Street’s Scott and Charlene. But the ballad of Bob and Hazel, then Bob and Blanche, or the saga of Paul Hogan and Noelene, closely followed by Hoges and Linda, can serve to remind us the path of true love ne’er does run smooth.
We want to be part of a couple, and that is possible. But it has not always been thus. Think of poor Abelard, castrated for wooing Heloise. Mourn the wit and joy that was Oscar Wilde, monstered when his romance with Lord Alfred Douglas came to light. Lament the loneliness, shame and criminal abuse endured by code-cracking genius Alan Turing, who was chemically rendered inert sexually and driven to a sad death.
Our understanding of intimacy has deepened, as we’ve recognised that gender and orientation are more complex and fraught than various traditions and dogma allowed. Today’s famous lovers, be they Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka, Ellen Degeneres and Portia de Rossi, or George Clooney and Amal Clooney (nee Alamuddin), demonstrate that Western culture is now more inclusive and accepting of difference, more generous of spirit, than in previous eras.
And yet rather than our loves being free to soar, I think most of us waddle, weighed down by the amassed sum of expectations we feel and place on our lover. We have never before put so much pressure on a solitary human relationship to be our all in all. Our monogamous ideal and our projected ideal relationship — our demanding love of love — means we expect our soulmate / best friend to bring us emotional, sexual, social, psychological and spiritual fulfillment.
'But the bulk of humanity are looking to belong to someone who values them and will cherish them. Someone who is ‘their’ mate; who wants them, needs them and will treasure them.'
This is not as it has always been. The 17th/18th century gurus of Enlightenment thinkers are said to have ‘pioneered the idea that life was about the pursuit of happiness. They advocated marrying for love rather than wealth or status.’
Therapist and author Esther Perel, in a popular 2017 Valentine’s Day Design Matters podcast, points to the fact that ‘Love was a byproduct [of marriage, and] Romanticism is the great engine of the Western psyche; it has captivated us like no other... we tried to merge the “love story” and the “life story”.’
‘For most of history, marriage was an economic enterprise, around duty and obligation. The marriage was between two families, not two individuals [so] love may be there, but it’s not the thing that organises it [and] the only exit was early death…
‘At the end of the nineteenth century with the rise of Romanticism, urbanisation, the move to the cities away from the villages, the rise of individualism, industrialisation, all these big movements, we bring love to marriage…
‘Then, not only do we bring love to marriage, but then we bring sex to love. For the first time we [linked] sexual satisfaction with marital happiness…’
Still, pledging your troth is a big ask, and an ongoing, reliable source of income for lawyers and counsellors. Weighed against the vagaries of fortune, of personality and circumstances, the demands we make on our significant others are often too much. Perhaps in our need and/or greed, we cry out for an archipelago of loves, not some solitary island.
Younger generations increasingly look with suspicion on the mating rituals of their parents and grandparents. Some consider marriage ‘outdated’ and hardly essential for fulfillment, especially young women, and parenthood holds a lesser appeal.
Of course, many people are co-habiting without the social rubber stamp of matrimony, or even the Romantic notion of ‘happy every after’. Post no-fault marriage in this nation, a sensible acknowledgement of our human frailty, we have increased the capacity to alter life choices. De facto relationships are matter of fact, not maligned. At least, not by many. In 1975, only 16 per cent of marriages were ‘preceded by cohabitation’. By 2017, however, more than 80 per cent of us were trying it out before we took the plunge into matrimonial shoals.
We all know serial monogamists who move on from experience to experience, searching for the perfect; the new; something authentic; something stimulating beyond their tiredness; hoping for a change or a freedom that they don’t think can be realised with their partner. De facto commitments, marriages, arrangements – they provide a harbour, as of course do platonic and non-sexual/romantic partnerships. The logical questions we never address are when and why did people pull into port? Why do they like where they are berthed? How long do they want to be there, before they set sail again?
In Australia, some 33 per cent of marriages end in divorce and 2019 statistics show the average marriage lasts a tad over 12 years.
Pressures and expectations aside, we can appreciate what it is to be close to someone; intimate with someone. To rely on them, laugh with them, hunger for them. The annual splurges to demonstrate that appreciation, even compounded and urged on by consumerism, don’t seem that big a deal when we think of what life would be like by ourselves. Alone, unheld, unheeded.
Being single can be a gift, and can liberate, just ask those people who identify as asexual, or people who have chosen to be celibate for spiritual or personal reasons. But the bulk of humanity are looking to belong to someone who values them and will cherish them. Someone who is ‘their’ mate; who wants them, needs them and will treasure them. Against the odds, that does happen for many people. If that is your dream, then may it be so for you.
Barry Gittins is a Melbourne writer.
Main image: A woman delivers roses in the central business district during Valentines Day. (Lisa Maree Williams / Getty Images)