from Against Love, Laura Kipnis
“It’s generally understood that falling in love means committing to commitment. … Take the pervasiveness of intimate violence. The problem here is hardly lack of commitment; this is commitment in overdrive: being less committed might mean being able to walk away.” p56-7
I love her 9-page answer (p84-92) to “What can’t you do because you’re in a couple?”
“Why should the state license marriages, by the way? … [The state confers] numerous special privileges on you: there are reportedly over a thousand places in federal law where marriage confers benefits not allotted to the nonmarried. (And arguably why the fight for gay marriage takes up the wrong battle: rather than marriage as a prerequisite to access government privileges, shouldn’t the fight be to uncouple resource distribution from marital status?)” p169
