The Power of Words, My Marriage, and the Constitution

“Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments [except for words].”

In the second year of my marriage, on a particular Saturday, my wife suggested that we run some errands instead of our customary routine of buying prepared food at Grace’s Market and feasting on it in bed while watching television. (This was 1987, a dark age of TV choices, so I can’t imagine what we found to watch.)

To my wife’s suggestion of chores, I replied with the following poorly chosen words: “Chores are for the week.” Unfortunately, what she heard was “Chores are for the weak.” A comment so obnoxious that it would sound unrealistic even spoken by a caricature of an awful husband on some current satirical TV show (I’m thinking of “White Lotus” or “Succession’s” Logan Roy)

In 1987, I was working full time and my wife was organizing the household and preparing for the birth of our first child, so the burden of chores fell mainly, but not exclusively, on her. Upon my ill-advised declaration, my wife stormed out of the room, and to make matters worse, I started to laugh as soon as I realized the misinterpretation.

After I managed to make my meaning clear, my wife declared that chores were most certainly not restricted to either the weak or to the week. Deservedly on the defensive, I could only agree with her ruling.

In the unwritten Constitution of our marriage, this precedent developed into the crucial concept that when our circumstances and respective areas of competence led to divisions of responsibilities between us, we would still share responsibilities whenever practicable. As well, we would honor each other’s contributions equally.

Did we always live up to these precepts? Of course not! And I would name myself as the more constant violator, although my violations have dwindled steadily over time (I think).

Constitutions are on my mind, because I’m reading a wonderful summary of important Supreme Court Cases. The summaries are well written, free of legalese, and concise. The cases are grouped by constitutional subject matter, rather than chronologically, so the reader gets a keen sense of the Court’s movements back and forth over time on a particular issue. Despite their concision, the writers manage to give an historical context to each case so the book is also a history of America as seen from the Bench.

The book is “An Introduction to Constitutional Law: 100 Supreme Court Cases Everyone Should Know, 2nd Edition.”

I’m in the midst of reading about the evolving nature of how the Court interpreted the words “Necessary and Proper” and “Commerce among the States,“ some of the most important words in the Constitution. The Constitution gives to Congress certain specific, or Enumerated, rights to pass legislation. One right is to regulate Commerce among the States. Another overarching right is to do what is Necessary and Proper to carry out their powers.

It is fascinating to read how the interpretation of these large words has evolved over time to fit circumstances that the Founders could not have foreseen. It’s also impressive to see how well it’s worked out that the Founders decided to use words that could fit so many changes in national circumstance.

Now I am not suggesting that it would be anything but the most foolish of follies for any couple to create a written Constitution. Yes, a family can be seen as a sort of political entity. But the political system of a family, if it is to work well, must evolve if for no other reason than when children are involved, absolute parental dictatorship soon gives way to a sort of selective democracy. Later, the sole superpower of the parents gives way to the multi-power world of adult children and their own families.

And, actually, a newborn baby imposes its own sort of initial, temporary dictatorship on its parents by its helplessness and its ability to cry out for help with sounds that  pierce its parents’ hearts.

But the main reason not to write down a marital constitution or to keep track of important marital “precedents,” is that it would be a (long) record of a couples’ discords and how they were or were not resolved, inevitably not to mutual satisfaction.

The U.S. Constitution relies for its continuous operation through the written record of copious Court opinions and decisions, a Talmudic-like conversation among Justices separated sometimes by centuries.  Conversely, the constitution of a marriage relies on its continuous operation through a purposeful and productive forgetting of many words spoken, opinions declared, and decisions taken.

Except when one can look back and laugh at a fight caused by something like weak vs. week.