Marriage A La Mode

Another episode of 'The Crown' that got me thinking all over again. This one has the Queen realising that she and her husband, Prince Philip have drifted apart. He seems to have found an intellectual and spiritual companion in a younger more beautiful family friend. But he convinces the Queen that at his age, there is nothing physical. That she should feel relieved about that. But this disturbs her even further, because is it possible that it is actually worse than being physical with someone? 

We see the monarch shedding some quiet tears as her husband complains that they have nothing in common with each other anymore. She is quiet, stable and incurious whereas he is always questioning, searching and wanting to explore and learn. 

The interesting part of the episode comes at the end when the then British PM John Major has a counsel with the Queen. They talk about happy marriages and ponder over what makes a marriage last. Major responds with an anecdote about the Russian writer Dostoevsky and his wife Ana. According to Ana, a marriage lasts when two people have absolutely nothing in common and yet accept the other without trying to change them. Almost like opposites or yin and yang, complementary polars that balance a boat to stop it from sinking. The Queen smiles and realises that it is precisely that what has kept her marriage going. 

After watching this, I thought to myself, but Prince Philip does not have a choice. He is resigned to this marriage because of the sanctity involved in its position. The Queen is the head of the Church at this point and even though she very reluctantly allows Charles and Diana and Andrew and Sarah to divorce, the same options are not available to her and her husband. 

What is so wrong about having an intellectual or emotional friend other than your spouse? Someone once told me, who I do not remember, that emotional infidelity is worse than physical or social. Why or who decides what infidelity is? Are we not all humans capable of feeling a countless emotions, wanting to love so many people for so many traits we ourselves lack? 

And if one could be emotionally attached to a friend of the same gender, why is it not allowed to admit the same for one of the opposite sex? Who creates these rules that one has to so blindly follow in the name of marriage? Are marriage and companionship really the same thing? One is an institution created to make society easier, for property, insurance, progeny, acceptance, parenthood, old age - all things practical and sensible, yet the other doesn't come with any guarantees. 

Just like friends fall or drift apart, so can emotional and intellectual companions. You can't have any social or financial security unless you decorate it with a certificate or label. And yet, marriages last when people do have friends. Friendships do last when people are married. Why the hue and cry over man, woman, temptation, proximity, attraction? Are we not all entitled to make our choices when it comes to who we share our innermost thoughts with? Maybe I come from a different world, but I do not see anything wrong in having friends from the opposite gender in spite of our marital designations. 

These days, I seem to be questioning a lot of things, a majority of which clash with the institution I am in. But I refuse to agree with outdated patriarchal notions of what a marriage should or should not be. The only thing it needs to be is honest, whether the other partner is emotionally mature to handle it or not. 

So if honesty is what really makes a marriage last, then Prince Philip did the right thing by opening up to his wife unabashedly. It was not the fact that they were opposites that made it last. Opposites may attract but just as we make long lasting friendships with those who hold the same values and viewpoints as us, a marriage will last only when two people are brave enough to share their truths with the other.

Whether a marriage lasts or not is not what's important. Whether you were being true to yourself or not to make anything last is what's important. The Prince deserves full points for that at least. 

'It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages'

- Neitzsche