A Lesson on Marriage

I recently observed a most beautiful expression of the nature of marriage from the  most unexpected of sources: TV.

Specifically, the Butler did it. In the pantry, in conversation with the cook.

If you’re a Downton Abbey fan, you know what I am talking about. For everyone else, a little background. (Spoiler Alert!).   

At the end of the last season, Mr. Carson, the Butler in this Masterpiece Theater production, proposed to Mrs. Hughes, the head housekeeper (though Mrs. is apparently a title of respect in that era, as neither she nor Mr. Carson have ever been married, and both are of late middle age).  

Well, in between the fifth and sixth season, apparently Mrs. Hughes realized she “hadn’t fully considered all the aspects of marriage. Of what I was getting into.” Mrs. Hughes laments she is no longer a young woman, and expresses to her friend the cook her anxiety over letting her husband “see me as I am now”. When her friend inquires if she prefers to live like brother and sister in marriage with her beloved, Mrs. Hughes responds “I don’t know what I want. Except not to feel embarrassed and absurd.”

And so the cook scurries off on her assignment to assess Mr. Carson’s “expectations” for this marriage.

It was a marvel to witness them discuss with such delicacy matters we usually hear described with vulgarity on our screen. The cook apologizes to Mr. Carson if she has embarrassed him by bringing up such an intimate topic. Though clearly uncomfortable, we get a glimpse of his wisdom and manliness in his response: “I’m not embarrassed, exactly. I do not believe that embarrassment has much of a part to play when something is as important as this.”

I could not help but think of the discomfort endured by many a man, discussing details they surely would rather leave unspoken, in their NFP appointment, an awkwardness they embrace “when it is as important as this”

When asked what response he would like conveyed to his betrothed, Mr. Carson responds eloquently (as perhaps only a man with a scriptwriter can) to tell Mrs. Hughes “That, in my eyes, she is beautiful. You say she asks if I want a ‘full’ marriage and the answer is yes, I do. I want a real marriage, a true marriage, with everything that that involves. I love her. I am happy and tickled and bursting with pride that she would agree to be my wife. And I want us to live as closely as two people can, for the time that remains to us on earth.”

The Butler gets it! And because of course no woman could hear that from the man she loves, and respond with anything but an open heart, the deal is sealed with the most moving kiss scene ever on TV—-an embrace that reflects the love, tenderness, and devotion with which they regard each other, and their treasured union to come as man and wife.   

The brilliance of the show, is the stark contrast of this insight with a story line that finds another character explaining her motives for a secret hotel rendezvous with her intended. Asked by her father why she risked bringing  embarrassment and scandal upon her family with her extramarital test run, she asserts “I just needed to be sure”. She then explains her rejection of his marriage proposal following their weekend together “Because, when it came to it, he wasn’t right”. In a seemingly odd dialogue to follow, her father expresses newfound confidence in her ability to run the family estate as well as any man, an acknowledgement she had long awaited. Perhaps her father saw in her ability to use another, the same callousness he thought it would take to succeed in the world of business.

A sad and empty victory, in stark contrast with how to treasure another, TOB style.