Topic: Why did Jack and Lureen stay married for so long?

[tpe]

We're so influenced by the romantic notion of love and marriage going together too, yet in many societies and periods marriage as a convenient economic arrangement has been the norm. It's perfectly possible to see Jack's marriage to Lureen as based on an initial attraction reinforced by Jack's need for fionancial stabiity - her father's having money is the first thing he knows about her - and her desire for a handsome young man - that desire later turning to familiarity and custom while Jack's deepest emotions are engaged elsewhere.

I agree with this.  It is pervasive in all cultures.

When my grandmother was born, my grandfather was 21-22.  I don't think she had a choice in the matter when she was married off to my grandfather at 18 (he was then about 40).

What is interesting is that many of these marriages for convenience worked surprisingly well.  Sometimes, love is a matter of conditioning oneself to the other.  Romantic love is of course a different animal.

Perhaps for Jack, it was a marriage of convenience.  Perhaps with Lureen, it was initially romantic love.  I do think to some degree, both learned to respect, if not love, each other -- except perhaps during the last leg of the marriage.

[welshwitch]

Marriage can also involve growing into each other, like a tree with a split trunk twining round itself. Neiither marriage in the movie worked like this, though - I think because both men were committed other than to their wives and both women eventaully developed other interests, Alma in the job and in monroe, Lureen in the nusiness and making money. Hardly surprising when you think what they were up against. Lureen just didn't have any reason to divorce Jack - she evidently wasn't interested in anyone else and I can imagine them going on, progressively less and less involved in each other's life, without any impetus strong enough to part them.