WAIT, WAIT - hot springs | Sheridan Guidelines | Commitment | A Married Jane Austen - 11/9/07

[Smartmarriages]

- WAIT, WAIT, DON'T RESERVE AIRLINE TILL YOU READ THIS!!
- JOHN GRAY'S MARS/VENUS "O SPA"
- QUOTES/SHERIDAN GUIDELINES
- RECENTLY SPOTTED: ANOTHER MARRIAGE COMMERCIAL
- WE NEED A MARRIED JANE AUSTEN TO WRITE THE SEQUELS

#########################
- WAIT, WAIT, DON'T RESERVE AIRLINE TILL YOU READ THIS!!

Here's your chance to relax in "warm natural mineral springs" before you fly
back to the daily grind.  Take an extra day or two.  Talk about romantic!
Plan ahead and surprise your honey.

>From today's NY Times ESCAPES section:

California Hot Springs for Any Body
New York Times
Nov 9, 2007
North of San Francisco, people have been dipping themselves in the warm
natural mineral waters for thousands of years. . . .

The West Coast¹s seismic activity provides plenty of opportunities for water
to seep deep underground, where it is heated and mineralized before
re-emerging, transformed and imbued with seemingly magical properties.

In the latter part of the 19th century, as San Francisco blossomed, the hot
springs sprinkled through the Coast Range north of San Francisco Bay ‹ many
of which had long been revered by native inhabitants ‹ became popular
resorts. Some have been forgotten, but others remain, adhering to the
classic formula: a small spa hotel arranged like a campus around the natural
spring.

Sampling some of them last spring with my wife, Nina, I found that each has
a distinctive flavor, offering visitors different tastes of California
rejuvenation. . . .

For the full article, reservation and price info (rates from $25 a night for
camping to $355 a night packages), and steaming "clothing optional" photos:

Here: http://tinyurl.com/3x5q9e
or: 
http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/11/09/travel/escapes/09springs.html?ref=today
spaper
####################
- JOHN GRAY'S MARS/VENUS "O SPA" and Wellness Retreat is also just north of
San Francisco in Mendocino. "O" is for Oxygen. http://www.marsvenus.com
Not in the spa article above but worth checking out - great testimonials
from everyone that attends. John's Conference banquet: "Mars/Venus
Celebrating Romance" Saturday night at the Hilton. Open to the public.
Bring your spouse/friends/colleagues.  $39pp.
########################
- QUOTES/SHERIDAN GUIDELINES
>  
> Diane, I have a question about this quote in your email this morning:
>  
>  A happy marriage is the world's best bargain.
> D.A. Battista

> I googled D.A. Battista and ended up with Italian businesses and a rap song
> "Walk Wit Me" !!  Is this someone on the national scene or someone within the
> marriage education movement?
>  
> I am working on one of our mayors urging him to sign a marriage proclamation
> for Marriage Week.  He doesn't see the value of the city council getting
> involed in this so this (three of 7 feel this way so we are attending city
> council meetings to explain - which is a lot of work but it will generate more
> media for the issue in the long run, and hopefully support) is a great
> opportunity for me to respond on even the symbolic importance of community
> leaders supporting the idea of healthy marriages.  I saw this quote this a.m.
> and thought it would fit in perfectly with my letter.  Just trying to figure
> out where this quote comes from.
> Amy M. Gilford
> Community Relations Director
> Marriage Resource Center

Sorry. I gather statements like this from all over - the newspaper,
magazines, TV - for the quotes page....I have no memory of who/what/where I
found this one.  

But you should be able to find MUCH on the website to support the cause and
convince elected officials. Like the 21 Conclusions Report. And, listen to
the Marriage Rally recording from the Denver Conference featuring First
Things First's Julie Baumgardner and Judge Jim Sheridan of Adrian Michigan.
It's all about how to get started and convince your community.  I'll attach
Sheridan's "Why Public Officials Should Support Marriage" powerpoint and pdf
(how to present your arguments to officials) from that session, or find them
posted on the Conference Recordings handouts page (session #818) and on the
Reports/Research, and Community Initiatives, and Legislation pages.

#757-818 - Marriage Rally: Teach In
Transforming Communities Grassroots Style
Julie Baumgardner, MA, Nisa Muhammad, Jim Sheridan, JD, MBA
Learn what communities across the country are doing to strengthen marriage
and how you can get started. Brainstorm about opportunities ­ free media,
the web, funding, volunteers, creating buy-in ­ and how to avoid the
stumbling blocks.  Order on CD or download at 800-241-7785

To visit the Community Resource page
http://www.smartmarriages.com/grants.html

Or legislation page: http://www.smartmarriages.com/legislation.html

Or Research and Reports page
http://www.smartmarriages.com/marriage.reports.html

####################
- RECENTLY SPOTTED: ANOTHER MARRIAGE COMMERCIAL

Diane, 
Have you seen the new Hyundi commercial?  It says:
 
If you don't like your job.....get a new one

Don't like your spouse.......get a new one

Then after a few more examples, asks:
  
Whatever happened to commitment?
 
thinkaboutit.com

Julie Baumgardner

#########################

- WE NEED A MARRIED JANE AUSTEN TO WRITE THE SEQUELS

"Marriage as 'The End'."

Messages are serious business - in fact, the message is THE issue.  So
important that we'll again explore "Messages to Unmarried 20-Somethings" in
a keynote at the San Francisco conference. In meantime, review Barbara Dafoe
Whitehead's brilliant "Message to Our Daughters" keynote from the 2006
conference.  #756-003 at 800-241-7785

Wouldn't it be wonderful if someone with the talent of a Jane Austen could
write about the married life as the great adventure.  Would be more powerful
than a thousand marriage classes.  - diane

Happy ever after?
Romantic comedies often close with a wedding, implying that marriage is 'the
end' of all adventure. Does this message encourage women to stay single,
asks Emma Campbell Webster

November 9, 2007
The Guardian

Last year, along with crowning Pride and Prejudice the nation's favourite
book, voters in a World Book Day poll also cited its final chapters as the
classic happy ending. As the story closes, you may recall, the poor but
witty Elizabeth Bennet falls for the reserved but redeemingly noble Mr
Darcy, and the two are united in matrimony.

Pride and Prejudice isn't the only Jane Austen novel to end with a happy
marriage. All six do, and readers tend, understandably, to see these endings
as celebratory. After all, who doesn't love a romantic match? Yet, while
studying Austen's oeuvre again for a book I was writing, something began to
trouble me.

Austen always gives her protagonists at least one opportunity to say no to
marriage before they finally agree - highlighting the seriousness of the
decision - and I found it more and more disconcerting that, when the lead
character does take the plunge, her story suddenly ends. It dawned on me
that this convention sends readers a dark subliminal message - that marriage
equals "The End". Which raises the question "Just what, exactly, is it the
end of?" Is it simply the end of the book, or could it signify the end of
life worth reading or writing about?

It's not just Austen who uses this narrative convention - the idea of
marriage as an ending is littered throughout literature. Charlotte Brontë's
Jane Eyre may marry her Rochester rather than being married by him, but it's
still the "last word" of her narrative. Cinderella, the archetype on which
these models are based, is given no sequel: we are simply told that she and
her prince live happily ever after, which is a little ominous. (The idea of
anything staying the same for ever - even happiness - sounds like the
definition of pure boredom.)

Even Shakespearean comedies acquire sinister overtones when read this way:
order and harmony is restored by marriage at the close of many of them, but
if it is the end of the comedy, is it also the end of the fun? There can be
no Hamlet II because everyone is dead, but there cannot be a Twelfth Night
II either because - if we take other romantic comedies as a guide - after
everyone is married off there is nothing left to say. To anyone thinking of
getting married, this is a sobering thought.

This plot device has been around for aeons, of course, and doesn't seem to
have deterred Austen's contemporaries from marriage (although it's notable
that Austen herself never married). Until the recent past though, most
women's only hope of even minimal power or prosperity rested on getting wed,
so it was an obvious, and usually a necessary, step. But as I re-read
Austen, I noticed how this convention intersects with the view of marriage
that my friends and I have acquired.

Traditionally, it is men who have been seen as commitment-shy, but
increasingly women are the ones who seem wary of settling down. I've
experienced this personally - my last two serious boyfriends made it quite
clear early on that they were looking for a wife, which sent me into a
panic. My friends and I all entertain loose intentions of marrying one day
but the majority of us are afraid of what it will mean for our much-valued
and hard-won freedom. If the world has been your oyster, settling down can
seem like a soggy fish-finger in comparison.

Over the past decades, as women have won increasing economic and personal
freedom, marriage has fallen sharply. According to the Office for National
Statistics, by 2031 the proportion of women aged 45-54 who have never
married is predicted to rise from 9% to 35%.

There are a number of different reasons for the declining marriage rates,
but the messages that are constantly sent to women in the guise of so called
"romantic fiction" surely aren't helping. When you consider the ubiquity of
these messages it is not surprising that many of us have started seeing a
wedding as something disturbing, terrifying, as the end of a lifelong quest
for adventure, rather than any kind of start.

Of course, when it comes to the intersection of life and art there is always
an overlap and interplay of influence between the two. Just as art reflects
our ideas and opinions, so our changing lifestyles shape what goes on to the
page or screen. The genre of romantic comedy is still alive and well -
nowhere more so than on film - and it is notable that the conventions of the
genre have undergone significant revisions. At the end of Four Weddings and
a Funeral, for instance, Charles and Carrie vow never to marry, and there
were no proposals in last year's big Christmas rom com offering, The
Holiday. Couples still get together in modern romances but they are far less
likely to get married at the end. There is less finality to these
conclusions, with both the characters and their audiences being given much
more room to breathe. These days we like to keep our options open; we like
to delay "The End" of our adventures as long as possible. After all, from a
certain angle, is not a happy ending something of an oxymoron?

· Being Elizabeth Bennet: Create Your Own Jane Austen Adventure by Emma
Campbell Webster is published by Atlantic Books, £12.99


**************************
Send submissions and comments for the listserv to: diane at smartmarriages.com
Do NOT hit "reply". If you hit reply your email will go into cyberspace and
NO ONE will see your email.

This is a moderated list. Submissions and comments are read by Diane Sollee,
editor. Please indicate if your comment is NOT to be shared with the list.
PLEASE include your email address or url as part of your signature.

Please also understand that with thousands of subscribers, not all comments
can be shared. Also realize that opinions expressed are not necessarily
shared by members of the Coalition.

To SUBSCRIBE, UNSUBSCRIBE, or Change your subscription address,
use the form at: http://www.smartmarriages.com. Click Newslist - in the left
column under the puzzle piece.

To read past posts to the listserv, visit the Archive at:
http://lists101.his.com/pipermail/smartmarriages/

12th Annual Smart Marriages® Conference, Hilton San Francisco Hotel,
July 2 - 5, 2008  
Pre-Conference Training Institutes June 30-July 2
Post-Conference Training Institutes July 6

List your program and resources on the Directory of Classes at
http://www.smartmarriages.com

Order conference audio & video CD/DVD/MP3s: 800-241-7785 or
http://www.iPlaybackSmartMarriages.com

Coalition for Marriage, Family and Couples Education, LLC (CMFCE)
Diane Sollee, Director
5310 Belt Rd NW, Washington, DC 20015-1961
http://www.smartmarriages.com
202-362-3332

FAIR USE NOTICE: This e-newsletter/site contains copyrighted material the
use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright
owner. We make such material available in our efforts to advance
understanding of marriage, family, couples, divorce, legislation, family
breakdown, etc. We understand this constitutes a 'fair use' of such material
as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with
Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. For more
information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you
wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own
that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright
owner.