I Don't

The Case Against Marriage

Hey besties!

I’m racing to finish my book before deadline (I Don’t: The Case Against Marriage - out with Allen & Unwin on Oct 31) which is a combination of scary and exhilarating. I believe in me though! And I love a scary deadline.

In the meantime though, I thought I’d give you a glimpse into some of what I’m working on. The book itself looks at marriage through four categorical lenses -

1. Something Old: Marriage, economics and the oppression of women at key points in history, from the Ancient Greeks to the Mesopotamians, the establishment of the Catholic Church and the European witch trials. The key theme here is: WHAT WOMEN ARE.

2. Something New: How capitalism, class aspiration and the rise of the women’s rights movement redefined marriage as a moral imperative rather than an economic necessity, while turning the maintenance of marriage into women’s work. The key theme here is: WHAT WOMEN WANT.

3. Something Borrowed: Marriage as a symbol of romantic victory and the all important Happy Ever After for girls raised on a diet of fairytales designed to reassert male authority in the face of women’s liberation. The key theme here is: WHAT WOMEN NEED.

4. Something Blue: First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby with the baby carriage. But what happens when Cinderella learns her happy-ever-after isn’t so happy after all. She’s back on her knees scrubbing the floors again, except this time she’s also giving blow jobs to a video game addict/golfer/mountain bike enthusiast Prince who can’t understand why she doesn’t want to fuck him anymore. What happens when the wedding’s over, and the bridal veil is lifted? The key theme here is: WHAT WOMEN GET.

But included below is an excerpt from the prologue, which I hope the reader keeps in mind when reading the book itself. The prologue provides a philosophical framework for my critique of marriage, which is about more than just cultural history and individual examples. The essential question I’ve kept coming back to while of writing I Don’t is this: what would it look like if women were able to construct reality for ourselves?

There’s a second part to this prologue that addresses that, but I’m just posting this one for now. Would love to know your thoughts! Are you excited for the book’s release?!

• Also, please note I haven’t spell checked or edited for grammar yet. Please DON’T leave comments copyediting it, I have an amazing editor for that!