Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
Why marriage is dark and depressing
So your first choices: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf and A Doll’s House. It’s not looking good for marriage.
And Mary Poppins.
Yes, why Mary Poppins?
I was born in 1960 and possibly my first and most enduring cultural artifact on marriage was going to see Mary Poppins. The Disney movie, of course. I saw it maybe five times when I was four. And Mary Poppins is really about a dysfunctional marriage. At least dysfunctional from the kids’ point of view - because the parents don’t pay any attention to each other or, especially, to the kids. And it’s all fixed when an outsider, Mary Poppins, the nanny, comes along and shows them the error of their ways. And since my own parents didn’t get along that was the ultimate fantasy for me.
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Jonathan Rauch is a senior writer and columnist for the National Journal and contributing editor for The Atlantic, as well as a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington D.C.. He is the author of Gay Marriage: Why It is Good For Gays, Good for Straights and Good for America, though most recently has been advocating a compromise solution that would stop short of wedded bliss for gays.
