"The trivial troubles of everyday life are more difficult to avoid than the great calamities of marriage", as Márquez classicly said in Love in the Time of Cholera.
Indeed, in the marriage of ordinary people, there are not so many dramatic tragedies and joys, and what often consumes enthusiasm and patience is a chicken feather in life.
Therefore, Tong Zhenbao in Zhang Ailing's pen, married to the "white rose" smoker, just thinking of the "red rose" Jiaorui, one became a grain of rice sticky on the clothes, and the other was a cinnabar mole on the mouth of the heart.
In Qian Zhongshu's "Siege of the City", Fang Hongwei and Sun Roujia, who thought that they had plunged into the "happy harbor" of marriage, hated each other in the dull and humble life after marriage.
Under the smoke and fire of the day, no one wants to live a good life, and Mr. Yang Dai's comment is to the point: Even if Fang Hongzhi and Tang Xiaofu, the "White Moonlight" in his heart, are united, they may not be happy after marriage!
Also deconstructing marriage to peeling skin and breaking bones is Mr. Lao She's book "Divorce", which is a decade earlier than Zhang and Qian.
Interestingly, a novel about middle-aged couples divorcing from beginning to end did not leave in the end.
As soon as the farce settled, everyone shrank into the unsuitable marriage suit. Or touching his own experience, Lao She pointed out almost pessimistically through the protagonist Lao Li -
Marriage is the will, the intention is not to be done, the best to cancel the marriage system.
There are two forms of marriage: cooperation and will be fulfilled
What is the nature of marriage?
Psychologist Adler gives the answer in his book Inferiority and Transcendence: cooperation.
Long-term marriage is the consensus of interests reached by both husband and wife and cooperate with each other; and then there is what Mr. Lao She calls "will be done", the former is active, the latter is passive.
The two main characters in "Divorce": Brother Zhang and Old Li, their marriage relationship corresponds to these two. The two most common titles in real life also generalize their identities, like the people around us.
Brother Zhang and Old Li are both old-fashioned arranged marriages, and there is no love, Brother Zhang enjoys married life, but Old Li feels miserable.
Brother Zhang is in his forties, typical of the enthusiastic "Old Beiping", who loves to give people a media and is keen on all kinds of human affairs. Hang up a spare job in the yamen, save 3 real estate, go all day, worry about the trivialities of other people's homes, surrounded by neighbors, none of them do not say that he is strategic, decent and reliable.
Sister-in-law Zhang, except that she is not a man, everything is similar to that of the eldest brother. She took care of all the housework, echoed all of her husband's decisions, and cared somewhat flatteringly for her college son and high school daughter.
Brother Zhang is very old-school, and there are only two ideals in life: to be a matchmaker and to oppose divorce. He believes that marriage is a necessary process in life, men earn a decent life, and women have to take care of housework beautifully.
On the balance of eldest brother Zhang's marriage, his wealth, ability, interpersonal relationship, and status can match Zhang Dajie's capable housewife, so he is at ease without servants and enjoys service.
Although Sister-in-law Zhang complained that "all year round, old cooking, old laundry, old cleaning tables and chairs bench", but a glory, husband comfortable himself is also comfortable, husband decent is his own decency, he found his glory and happiness in the daily hard work.
Although there is no love support, two people take the cooperative attitude they need in their marriage, so that their marriage is firmly monolithic, and no temptation can be spilled into it.
Old Li, in his early thirties, was a depressed little intellectual, and his wife in the countryside was a small-footed village woman who could not read big characters, and had a pair of children under the age of 10. Except for the symbolic return to his hometown during the New Year, he almost had no intersection with his wife and children.
At the mediation of Elder Brother Zhang, Old Li took his wife and children into the city. However, he had no common language with his illiterate wife, and in extreme mental distress, he regarded Grandma Ma Shao, whom her husband abandoned, as the "poetry" of life, and after the "disillusionment" was shattered, he resigned from public office in discouragement and returned to the countryside with his wife and children.
Old Li represents those who are dissatisfied with marriage but make a living in real life.
He wants to pursue the liberation of personality but does not have the courage, full of complaints but only dares to mutter, he wants to be bored when there is a well-informed, decent and generous family, but his wife, will only drive chickens, pigs, loud scare children. He would also slam the village and scold the street, and when he lost his temper, he collapsed on the ground and "pitifully" slapped himself.
Old Li hates everything in his work and life, he sees his unit and his wife as "a monster and a female demon", and feels that he should not be a petty official, and should not be an honest parent. Being teased by colleagues, only dare to be upset in their hearts, see that the wife is not smooth, and will only be angry behind their backs.
Old Li was held back by family and work, and culture gave him a yearning for a new civilization, but he was trapped in the quagmire of the old civilization.
He projected his need for freedom, upbringing, and romance onto Grandma Ma Shao, unilaterally imagining that he and she "fled to the fragrant and intense South China Sea, naked and asleep in the jungle on the edge of the equator, with hot dreams of various colors."
After Ma Shao's husband returned home with a good friend, Lao Li waited for the "brave and perfect new woman" in his heart to completely fall out with the negative person and divorce. However, Grandma Ma Shao finally opened her door and turned off the lights during the argument...
Old Li's unrealistic illusions were also extinguished, and life returned to boredom, boredom and mediocrity, returning to his hometown with his wife and children, which was more or less a cowardly escape from reality and a complete compromise.
Wang Xiaobo said: "All human suffering is essentially anger at one's own incompetence."
This is also the source of suffering for us ordinary people.
I always feel that my talent, ideals or ambitions are curbed by the times, so my life is all kinds of unsatisfactory and unsatisfactory, but I forget that I am normal. It is difficult to accept your own ordinaryness, and to accept a mediocre life, you have to admit that you are ordinary.
Always cynical, bitter and desperate old Li, unable to face problems, solve problems, and never fight for his own life, he is a giant in thought, a dwarf in action, destined to spend his life in an awkward marriage and life.
How many marriages are bonded on the premise of love? There are always like Big Brother Zhang and Old Li, who are urged by their families at the right age to hurry up and complete this life ritual. Compromise or conformity, as long as you choose marriage, you must decide whether the days after marriage are cooperative or will be, the choice is different, and the texture of your life will be very different.
There are two compromises of divorce: money and face
Old Li thought that only his marriage was a mess, until he met his colleagues Mr. Wu and Mr. Qiu's wives.
Mr. Wu claims to be a decent person, a martial artist, a clerical job, proud of his big fist of sandbags, and this big fist also has something to fear, that is, his wife.
Mrs. Wu's strength is greater than her husband's, the tiger's back bear waist, the whole person looks like a large piece of square mound meat, on which is placed a white steamed bun, majestic, shocking the husband's heart that always wants to take a concubine.
Mr. Qiu, all day long with a sad face. Madame was a college student, "thin and dry, with fangs, not much hair, and a chest like a piece of dry cardboard", and could not be raised. For Mr. Qiu, he has a very new female style, a strong personality, and must suppress Mr. Qiu in everything.
It is said that the three elements of marriage are: feelings, materiality, and sex.
Feelings include cooperative responsibility relationships linked by children, love, family affection, etc.; material is the basis of quality of life; sex carries instincts and is a warming agent that binds intimate relationships.
The conflict between several middle-aged couples in "Divorce" also lies in this.
The appeal of Mr. Wu and Mr. Qiu is ostensibly that his wife cannot have a son. To put it bluntly, time has taken away the wives' already modest posture, a square pier and a cardboard, unattractive, it seems that marrying a young aunt is the only marriage outlet.
The two gentlemen have a "foreign home", and the two wives naturally make a big fuss.
When it seemed that divorce was imperative, the wives stopped talking.
Mrs. Wu thought realistically, who will eat when divorced? Against the face of his aunt who was scratched, he forgave his husband:
I also want to open, left is not mixed, why bother! I made peace with Mr. Wu, just with this little wife, to see who is, I don't beat her away to blame!
Mrs. Qiu, who is highly educated and assertive, said in a categorical manner when she persuaded Mrs. Wu to divorce:
"We have no children and no daughters, and our husbands are unreasonable, so why should we follow him?" Wouldn't we be looking for something to do? When I am not married, I do not want to get married; when I am married, I am in charge of everything. My husband shook his head at me, well, let's go back to work at once; idle, can't stand it! ”
When Mr. Qiu had a new love and wanted to divorce, she did not have the sober independence of intellectual women, and changed her strong concessions. Mr. Qiu is a clerk, a decent job, lining Mrs. Qiu's decent academic qualifications, besides, her new woman's marriage ended so embarrassingly?
Mr. Lao She sees this compromise very thoroughly:
They are afraid of lawsuits, and they are very willing to smear the ugliness of the family with white paint and perfunctory, that is, do not break the face and make everyone faceless.
Mrs. Wu, who has no ability to make a living, does not dare to divorce for the sake of money; Mrs. Qiu, who has the ability to make a living, does not want to divorce for the sake of face.
Yi Shu said: "Face is the most difficult thing for a person to put down, and it is also the most useless thing." ”
In reality, too many Chinese of us have to endure the broken lizi in order to maintain face, let our own freedom and happiness be imprisoned for a lifetime in a marriage that has been like a chicken rib.
More people who have consumed their youth, hope, and ability in the family have lost their appearance and economic competitiveness, like Mr. Wu and Mrs. Wu, one has no pragmatic skills, one cannot support himself at all, two people are still OK, completely out of instinctive bondage, the most unfortunate old age can still build a gang.
The embarrassment in the lives of small people is generally the same, and compromising for money and face is the norm and helplessness.
It is not easy to live without, the marriage dilemma of middle-aged people
Li Ye, a female poet of the Tang Dynasty, wrote a poem "Eight Solstices", which contains the sentence "The highest is the tomorrow and the moon, and the closest relatives are to the estranged husband and wife", which is sober and transparent.
Two people who meet halfway, tied together because of a marriage book, are intimate when the feelings are good, and no feelings are the same bed and different dreams. The subtlety of this must be experienced by people who have experienced the storms of marriage and some sophistication to truly resonate.
Lao She only got married in a hurry at the age of 32, and the foundation of his feelings was not solid; in addition to supporting his family, he also had to bear the burden of his mother and brother (the brother had nine children), and the pressure was very high. So when he wrote "Divorce," he was somewhat mixed with the bitter complaints of a middle-aged man.
Everyone has suffering hidden in their hearts, and life is just a fool who is completely opposite to the ideal.
Life is in the circle, and the wild bird is in the cage, just as boring. When I was a teenager, I was a wild donkey; in middle age, I got married, did things, and became a slippery donkey; in the future, I would be pulled outside the Door of Desheng, boiled in a cauldron, and sold donkey meat. I'm not going to jump out of the loop again, neither can anyone.
In marriage, a woman can ruin a man, and likewise, how many women have men ruined? ...... Keep yourself scrupulous and follow the rules to earn food in the fog of society.
In marriage, middle-aged people are bound by children, money, face, responsibility, etc., and have long lost the vigor to pursue freedom.
Either Mr. Wu and Mr. Qiu and his wife quarreled into a pot of hot porridge, burning their noses and blue faces and "not abandoning it", or like Old Li, they grabbed a "Ma Shao Grandma" who did not understand and fantasized about a lame "dream".
If you can't live well and can't do without it, how to get out of this marriage dilemma?
Lao She himself did not come out of the fog, but in the book, perhaps Zhang Brother and his wife gave a relatively correct answer -
"Go to empty dreams, or live authentically."
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