Sharing trivial daily intimacies can crowd the weighty substance out of a marriage

Evidence

It is this nature of intimacy which so often makes it a danger to close unions between two persons, most commonly perhaps to marriage. The spouses share the indifferent “intimacies” of the day, the amiable and the unpleasant features of every hour, and the weaknesses that remain carefully hidden from all others. This easily causes them to place the accent and the substance of their relationship upon these wholly individual but objectively irrelevant matters. It leads them to consider what they share with others and what perhaps is the most important part of their personalities objective, intellectual, generally interesting, generous features as lying outside the marital relation; and thus they gradually eliminate it from their marriage. — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 3806

Categorization

• XREF: Directly parallels the Raskolnikov/Sonya contrast: Sonya’s moral witness is the ‘objectively relevant’ substance, while crime details are ‘indifferent intimacies’ — and also resonates with Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s domestic history treatment of marriage. — connects to: The poor serf marriage grounded equality through shared nothingness and mutual labor bonds. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 210; Marriage forces spontaneity and deliberate decision to coincide impossibly — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1157; Marriage promises a shared refuge but leaves both spouses alone — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1277 (+1 more)