Philosopher's Thoughts on Marriage (Final Blogpost- Channing Martin H03)

 Thoughts on Marriage of Beauvoir, Nietzsche, and Aristotle

Channing Martin, Section H03

For my midterm project I focused on Simone de Beauvoir, but for the final blogpost I decided to focus on marriage as a whole. During this semester, we never really talked much about love, relationships, or things of that nature. Much of it was a broad focus on people and why we’re here. Most largely known philosophers have some sort of comment on the topic, but for today I’ll focus on the thoughts of a few: Beauvoir, Nietzsche, and Aristotle. 

Beauvoir

This section will be short, as I already covered Simone and some of her thoughts on marriage during my midterm. From what I can tell from reading, Beauvoir had less issues with marriage itself and instead with what marriage at the time meant for women. 

“Marriage is traditionally the destiny offered by society. Most women are married or have been, or plan to be or suffer from not being.”

Simone didn’t like that marriage was one of the best options for women at the time. Women were not allowed many opportunities for work, and the opportunities that were available didn’t pay much at all. They also couldn’t afford to take care of their families with those small wages. Being a married woman meant you were protected financially and physically. The issue was, that was about all you got. 

“Marriage is a career that brings about more benefits than many others.”

Married women spent their time watching the children and cleaning the house, a task de Beauvoir deemed Sisyphusian. Women didn’t engage in any meaningful work like a career or hobbies, just cleaned a house that would get dirty over and over again. It was a horrible way to live, in her eyes, as she believed it to be of no use to the world.

De Beauvoir never married, though she was in an open relationship with fellow existentialist Sartre for fifty years. Even now, they never truly separated, buried on top of each other in France. 

“The curse which lies upon marriage is that too often the individuals are joined in their weakness rather than in their strength, each asking from the other instead of finding pleasure in giving.”

 

Simone de Beauvoir believed were not born, but made, that marriage wasn't enough for her, but she never seemed to never judge the women that did choose the housework life.

Nietzsche

He has the most out of pocket quotes, so here’s a long list:

“If married couples did not live together, happy marriages would be more frequent.”

“Marriage was contrived for ordinary people, for people who are capable of neither great love nor great friendship, which is to say, for most people-- but also for exceptionally rare ones who are capable of love as well as of friendship.”

“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.”

“Most of the time in married life is taken up by talk.” 

More on that last quote. Nietzche believed in a marriage where conversation was the most important thing. Sure, in life there are other parts to marriage, activities and events taking up time, but in reality, most of the time you’ll be talking. Nietzsche says it’s better to have a “slight physical antipathy” to your spouse. Basically, the uglier the better. This way, things like sexual interest and others of the sort won’t blind you from the reality of a bad personality. Hopefully none of his exes heard him say this, because I’m sure it would make them develop a complex. 

If this wasn’t wild enough, Nietzsche has another reason people shouldn’t marry for love: they might make bad babies. If everyone just marries who they love, then “mate selection will be random”. He believes we should marry and mate with those that will give us the most educated, talented, intelligent children. 

“Man is for woman a means: the purpose is always the child.”

Youtube video 

Nietzsche also believed the best way to make a woman happy in a marriage was to give her a kid. The philosopher seemed to think marriage was a way men and women could use each other to get what they want, though in different ways. 

This isn't Nietzsche, but it's more relationship advice-- thoughts. 

Aristotle 

Aristotle believed in a “marriage of true friendship”. He believed that all relationships need to mean something, and most of the time, relationships are built on individuals having a shared activity. In life, Aristotle believes men and women have the most tedious, time consuming activity of all: raising a child. Children take 18 years, sometimes even longer, to raise so the parents need to love each other enough that they can be together throughout that time. This isn’t the only thing to marriage for him, of course, as Aristotle believed “there can be true friendship between them (husband and wife) if they are decent”.

“The ideal age for marriage in men is 35. The ideal age for marriage in women is 18.”

“A man married to the right woman will be happy. A man married to the wrong woman will be a philosopher.” 

Aristotle also believed that true friendslook out for the other person’s benefit before their own. This doesn’t mean you sacrifice everything for your spouse, or put yourself in a bad situation just to please them, but it means you play for the same team. Like in sports, an athlete that hogs the ball and refuses to pass isn’t applauded. It’s a team effort. A married couple pursue what is good, in the world and in each other, and when that happens the utilitarian version of marriage disappears. True friendship relies on people sharing the same goals and conceptions of life. They will work together to achieve these goals, and this will make a marriage work. Aristotle married a woman named Pythias when she was about 18 and she only lived for about a decade after that, the two of them having only one daughter. Aristotle’s thoughts on marriage are romantic and wholesome, so I found his views to be my favorite.

More random interesting articles and tweets:

Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin

Should philosophers marry? This one isn't reputable at all, I just thought some of the comments were interesting.