A group of a dozen or so of us arrived at Feidi Bookstore as planned. Before entering the elevator, we saw some posters about poetry, and the name Wang Xiaoni. For some reason, I liked these events.
As I’ve said before, I enjoy taking part in events like this. Even without saying anything, being there is wonderful in a way I can’t quite describe.
Our teacher had already reached the meeting place while we were having breakfast. When our whole group arrived and sat down around the table, we greeted him one after another (in unison): “Hello, teacher.”
After a brief round of introductions, he began his talk.
First, he made one point clear: since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the traditional form of marriage has meant that neither partner is allowed to cheat after they get together, and they must stay together for the rest of their lives. He then divided marriage, as he understood it, into three types:
The first is marriage without love, where two people are together purely to get on with daily life.
There are many reasons for this kind of marriage: politics, age, planning for old age, and so on.
And what problem commonly arises for both partners in this kind of marriage? An extremely high rate of infidelity.
For two people without love between them, whether they live together or apart but remain bound by a piece of paper, staying faithful is clearly very difficult.
In that case, what problems might their children face?
Children born into this kind of marriage generally have a weaker capacity to love. To illustrate this conclusion, the teacher gave Stalin and Hitler as examples.
Before this, I hadn’t thought more deeply about the acts for which those two are known throughout the world. This study trip made me realize something important: I need to think more deeply for myself about myself, other people, society, and life.
During the discussion, the others raised many questions. For example, if children from such families already recognize the problem they face, how can they save themselves? Another question brought in the ideas of security and insecurity. The teacher said that many secure people are uninteresting, whereas most interesting people are insecure. Someone else mentioned how a person can show different personalities in different settings and around different people. The teacher said this wasn’t a split personality. Sometimes it simply means someone knows how to distinguish between settings and people: different places call for different ways or styles of speaking, and different people need to be treated differently. In fact, it shows that the person is very worldly and experienced.
The second type is marriage with love, where two people marry entirely because of love. The teacher said that in today’s world, only those lucky enough encounter this kind of love. People who find true love are either lucky or capable.
Personally, I quite liked that way of putting it. Indeed, in what we now call dating and marriage, pure love no longer gets a place at the table. What gets held up instead is fame and money, looks, and family circumstances.
During the discussion, a classmate pointed out that even if two people marry for love, they may wake up one day after marriage to find they have lost all feeling for each other.
Someone else said that, judging by the world of love today, even if such a couple marries and has children, their relationship may still break down without anything unexpected happening.
The teacher also mentioned that love brings no less harm than good. But love really does feel like a drug that puts you under a spell—a poison? There will always be people chasing it, one after another… Yet some hold on to the belief: what if one day I really do find true, ideal love? You never know.
The third type is a mix: a combination of marriage without love and marriage with love. We generally think this is the most stable kind, but in fact it is more fragile.
During the discussion, the teacher mentioned a “foreseeable crisis in marriage” and named its root cause: declining moral standards.
I used to believe that love between highly educated people was relatively more likely to last, meaning a relatively lower divorce rate. That belief wasn’t without reason.
Then the teacher spoke about maintaining marriage, and finally offered his own views on how to resolve these marital crises. There were a few points.
First, he thought open marriage should be practiced. Second, he thought marriage should take the form of short-term contracts. Finally, he also said that AI and VR would become real factors affecting marriage in the near future.
(When a relationship has broken down, factors that keep a marriage going include religion and ideology…)