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A review by tanzreads
This American Ex-Wife: How I Ended My Marriage and Started My Life by Lyz Lenz
4.5
More than I believe in the institution of marriage, I believe in the institution of divorce.
A divorce is a cause for celebration to me. I love it! I want everybody on this planet of earth to be able to come home to someone who shows them genuine care, kindness, love, and a personal investment into building something beautiful. And if they don't do that, kick rocks! Leave them in the dust! Whoop with joy (a la Nicole Kidman after divorcing Tom Cruise) as your life sheds the weight of someone who just couldn't give a fuck about you! Marriage can be great when it is afforded to you - especially as someone who loves commitment. But even greater, even more sacred, blessed, holy, and awe-inducing, is Divorce.
So you can imagine how excited I was to get my hands on this book. I had been reading Lyz' personal essays for months, ready to devour the novel and see how it would slot together. After all, divorce is one of the strongest tools in a patriarchal marriage - the means and ability to create an independent life has completely transformed the dynamics of gender and relationships in the people around me.
There are a lot of interesting tidbits about marriage around the world in the first few chapters, like my learning that more than 50 percent of the world's marriage are arranged. I recently told a friend I grew up under the knowledge that "marriage" inherently meant arranged, and only later I learned of the concept of "love marriage". Now, I operate under the knowledge of "marriage" (meaning a choice made by the couple), and "arranged marriage" (a choice made by parents, with varying degrees of agreement by the couple).
That said, Lyz fails when she tries to engage with it in a global context. It is impossible to do without engaging with colonialism and the western dogma of relationships. She talks about the patriarchal nature of marriage as being widespread, without directly engaging with way the church did all that spreading. "As long as there has been marriage, it has been about controlling the actions of women." is a direct quote - and it's not wrong, it's been like that for 600+ years, but so has the empire of the church across the planet. With the first few chapters engaging with the global marriage, citing different cultures, nations, and communities, the book drifts and I bristle. The book should never have opened that door, and readers could have taken what they read and applied it to their own contexts. But Lyz covers the global institution of marriage shallowly, and it detracts.
However, the book shines when Lyz discusses the American marriage, feminism, and divorce. About the outright cartoon villanery of government funding for entrapment, and the politics of love. No matter how much you think you are removed from these things, about how you think your attraction, choice of partner, and household dynamics come from yourself, she keenly reminds you of how hard others are working to funnel you into it. She also engages directly with the institutions desperate for women to continue the traditional marriage, where the longevity of it relies on the work of women treating the household like a full time job, rather than a partnership freely entered by two people.
What I appreciate most about this book is that Lyz does not treat marriage like it is freely chosen. She discusses the way women were not allowed to have mortgages or credit scores on their own until 1974, hindering women from leaving their marriages and being actively barred from financial independence or accruing assets. She discusses the court cases in the 70s where women were denied health insurance unless they changed their last name to match their husband's. Entering a marriage, giving up financial freedom and independence was not a choice women made - they were burdened into it by the courts and the state. And today, banks calculate higher mortgage interest rates for single women, adding financial premiums for women who want to get the hell out. Lyz paraphrases Moira Donegan, who argues that "we like to believe in the idea of a choice, because it allows us to choose subjugation and thus absolve ourselves of the political consequences."
This book weaved together memoir of Lyz' own accounts and modern and historical law and policies in a brilliant way. Every divorce right has been hard won in court, has come from fighting written law that cages away financial freedom and stability from women, requiring they tie themselves to a wielder of power just to have food stamps in their pocket or a roof above their head. The social safety net is women toiling and slogging, off-loading government responsibility and duty of care to wives and mothers.
I love divorce. I hope you do too! <3
A divorce is a cause for celebration to me. I love it! I want everybody on this planet of earth to be able to come home to someone who shows them genuine care, kindness, love, and a personal investment into building something beautiful. And if they don't do that, kick rocks! Leave them in the dust! Whoop with joy (a la Nicole Kidman after divorcing Tom Cruise) as your life sheds the weight of someone who just couldn't give a fuck about you! Marriage can be great when it is afforded to you - especially as someone who loves commitment. But even greater, even more sacred, blessed, holy, and awe-inducing, is Divorce.
So you can imagine how excited I was to get my hands on this book. I had been reading Lyz' personal essays for months, ready to devour the novel and see how it would slot together. After all, divorce is one of the strongest tools in a patriarchal marriage - the means and ability to create an independent life has completely transformed the dynamics of gender and relationships in the people around me.
There are a lot of interesting tidbits about marriage around the world in the first few chapters, like my learning that more than 50 percent of the world's marriage are arranged. I recently told a friend I grew up under the knowledge that "marriage" inherently meant arranged, and only later I learned of the concept of "love marriage". Now, I operate under the knowledge of "marriage" (meaning a choice made by the couple), and "arranged marriage" (a choice made by parents, with varying degrees of agreement by the couple).
That said, Lyz fails when she tries to engage with it in a global context. It is impossible to do without engaging with colonialism and the western dogma of relationships. She talks about the patriarchal nature of marriage as being widespread, without directly engaging with way the church did all that spreading. "As long as there has been marriage, it has been about controlling the actions of women." is a direct quote - and it's not wrong, it's been like that for 600+ years, but so has the empire of the church across the planet. With the first few chapters engaging with the global marriage, citing different cultures, nations, and communities, the book drifts and I bristle. The book should never have opened that door, and readers could have taken what they read and applied it to their own contexts. But Lyz covers the global institution of marriage shallowly, and it detracts.
However, the book shines when Lyz discusses the American marriage, feminism, and divorce. About the outright cartoon villanery of government funding for entrapment, and the politics of love. No matter how much you think you are removed from these things, about how you think your attraction, choice of partner, and household dynamics come from yourself, she keenly reminds you of how hard others are working to funnel you into it. She also engages directly with the institutions desperate for women to continue the traditional marriage, where the longevity of it relies on the work of women treating the household like a full time job, rather than a partnership freely entered by two people.
What I appreciate most about this book is that Lyz does not treat marriage like it is freely chosen. She discusses the way women were not allowed to have mortgages or credit scores on their own until 1974, hindering women from leaving their marriages and being actively barred from financial independence or accruing assets. She discusses the court cases in the 70s where women were denied health insurance unless they changed their last name to match their husband's. Entering a marriage, giving up financial freedom and independence was not a choice women made - they were burdened into it by the courts and the state. And today, banks calculate higher mortgage interest rates for single women, adding financial premiums for women who want to get the hell out. Lyz paraphrases Moira Donegan, who argues that "we like to believe in the idea of a choice, because it allows us to choose subjugation and thus absolve ourselves of the political consequences."
This book weaved together memoir of Lyz' own accounts and modern and historical law and policies in a brilliant way. Every divorce right has been hard won in court, has come from fighting written law that cages away financial freedom and stability from women, requiring they tie themselves to a wielder of power just to have food stamps in their pocket or a roof above their head. The social safety net is women toiling and slogging, off-loading government responsibility and duty of care to wives and mothers.
I love divorce. I hope you do too! <3