Marriage
Morris offers a Marxian view of marriage and divorce. Dick and Clara were once married with two children. Then Clara ‘got it in her head she was in love with someone else,’ so she left Dick only to reconcile with him again. Old Hammond informs the reader that there are no courts in Nowhere, no divorce in Nowhere, and furthermore no contractual marriage in Nowhere. When dealing with marriage and divorce Old Hammond explains, ‘You must understand once for all that we have changed these matters; or rather that our way of looking at them has changed…We do not deceive ourselves, indeed, or believe that we can get rid of all the trouble that besets the sexes… but we are not so mad as to pile up degradation on that unhappiness by engaging in sordid squabbles about livelihood and position, and the power of tyrannizing over the children who have been the result of love or lust.' In Nowhere people live in groups of various sizes, as they please, and the nuclear family is not necessary.
Concerning marriage, the people of Nowhere practice monogamy but are free to pursue romantic love because they are not bound by a contractual marriage.
Read more about this topic: News From Nowhere
Famous quotes containing the word marriage:
“That a marriage ends is less than ideal; but all things end under heaven, and if temporality is held to be invalidating, then nothing real succeeds.”
—John Updike (b. 1932)
“My husband sings Baa Baa black sheep and we pretend
that all’s certain and good, that the marriage won’t end.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Either marriage is a destiny, I believe, or there is no sense in it at all, it’s a piece of humbug.”
—Max Frisch (1911–1991)