In 1960, the average marriage encompassed twenty-nine of those thirty-seven years; in 2015, it was eighteen. As I read statistics on marriage, divorce, and surviving spouses, I was reminded of Susan Sontag’s remark about the precarity of health: “Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick.” Most of us hold dual citizenship in the kingdom of the couple and the kingdom of the single. It’s prudent for us to embrace forms of connection that exist beyond the dominion of romantic relationships.
