The other day I received an alumni directory in the mail to add
to the ones I already had. I'd attended a few universities. The directories are almost
invariably glossy affairs and not exactly cheap. In another way they're similar. Almost
everyone listed seems to be married, not to mention in an upper tax bracket.
What did these persons do right? Did they do it right? Did they meet their (presumably)
life partners at mixers? In class? In the library studying for midterms? Perhaps it was
that financial seminar. Or the package after package of cookies baked by astute sorority
sisters for the dorms that accounted for all those post graduation engagements and
weddings. At first glance what a clean cut picture. I jump from line to line hunting for
familiar names. The discovery that some people have acquired spouses is sometimes a shock
-- scan, pang -- yet not a shock. Sooner or later, of course, the soap opera stuff will
emerge, dark tabloid thrills, maybe in a chance phone call or in the street. But not here.
Who's divorced? That's not announced, naturally,
even though the news would be an attention grabber. It's a transition, is it not? How many
of these names set in italics (to make them stand out) are those of second spouses?
Or third or fourth? How many died and under what circumstances? How many went off
to find himself or herself? Simply got fed up one day and left, leaving the rat race
behind? Fell in love with the person in the next cubicle at work? Of course, since these
people are all presumably fairly well educated and intelligent any decision they make
regarding a life altering event like marriage has to be pretty mature and well thought
out, yes? After all, judging by these mini bios they know how to meet someone in a
lucrative field in the first place and pool two nice incomes.
The lack of diversity is troubling.
Now, academia is supposed to be a wellspring of ideas, a place of intellectual freedom and
foment, a birthplace of individual philosophies. Why is the end result this whitebread
conventionality, and upper income
at that? Nobody drops below the poverty line here! It's always the house in the suburbs or
a ritzy part of town, husband or wife, wonderful career (for both parties now) and, of
course, children. (Surprisingly, the names of the offspring aren't set in bold.) Lawyers
marry their partners with whom they may have been living, physicians their colleagues and
here and there an artistic or literary type ends up with a conservator or publisher. Money
is the great aphrodisiac.
Look at the typical newspaper wedding and birth announcement sections and it's the same
thing. Nothing but the conventional is mirrored. Going by them, just like the yearbooks
and alumni directories, there is no such thing as a single parent by choice. Gay families
are nonexistent, as is any other alternative arrangement. All children are born to a
mother and father who are married to each other (and the wedding was an elaborate, showy
affair) and the whole unit is bound by love and harmony. The poor do not make an
appearance nor, for all we know, do the abused.
Perhaps single mothers and the rest tried to publish announcements and the editor said no.
Or the announcement was camouflaged. How many of those marriages were for cover? In any
case, the picture isn't sullied by messy statistics.
With these graduates, how curious the much praised collegial diversity, so prized in the
admissions office and on the faculty, isn't reflected on the pages of this hardbound book.
(And art school alumni can be the most conventional of all.) A ludicrous vision springs to
mind of a cult wedding of thousands, the brides in identical gowns, the grooms all in coat
and tails and all wearing mortar boards! All looking forward to amassing wealth as their
marriages and careers follow parallel paths.
How many of these graduates are, in their unwavering determination and logic, the least
romantic, most glaringly practical people in the world? How many don't actually like the
people they're with but stay with them to save face? The universe of alumni is not
all-inclusive. Some solo singles don't even bother to get listed. Same with some couples.
Why is there no push for more openness in these listings? I think I'll go catch
Divorce Court. Not that I'll find someone I went to school with on there. But you
never know.
Miriam Greenwald is a member of the American Association for Single People. She
lives in Pennsylvania.
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