the bad bargain of a 'good' marriage
the case against age and income gaps and why the savvy woman's fairytale is actually a trap
In a recent viral essay in The Cut, the American writer Grazie Sophia Christie makes a case for May-December marriages between young women and older men. The essay bills itself as an argument for age-gaps, but really it’s a kind of self-consciously parodic misreading of Edith Wharton, by which I mean a brazen defence of an age-old economic bargain in which a young woman sets out to trade the ever-depreciating asset of her beauty and charm in exchange for the economic security of a high-earning man — and then, rather improbably in this case, lives happily ever after. In other words, a savvy woman’s fairytale.
Christie writes about the epiphany she had half way through college which led her to an apparently idyllic trad-wife-style marriage at the age of twenty-three.
I realised I could study all I wanted, prove myself as exceptional as I liked, and still my fiercest advantage remained so universal it deflated my other plans. My youth. The newness of my face and body. Compellingly effortless; cruelly fleeting… I could diligently craft an ideal existence, over years and years of sleepless nights and industry. Or I could just marry it early.
Predictably, the essay elicited a tsunami of irritation, it was decried as cynical, retrograde, incendiary, anti-feminist clickbait — and in some ways I suppose it was. But as a child of the nineties, I also found Christie’s story and specifically her voice (clever, funny, intelligent if not always convincing) oddly moving. I’ve written many similar pieces over the years, you see, so I know first hand how little the argument in question ultimately matters to its author. Essays like Christie’s were always for me as a journalist, less a position piece than a comic splash. Plus it’s oddly comforting to know you can still entertain people by making them them tear their hair out.
Mostly though, the piece made me wistful for a time when I did not know what I do know about age-and-income-gap marriages. From where I sit, as recently separated veteran of a similar marriage, Christie got it all wrong. Marrying an ‘ideal existence’ (a.k.a. a lifestyle) is a trap — even if you do it for love. Take it from a woman who’s lived it. Here’s why.