And yet, although he experienced himself as an individual, he had somehow conceded to the union of marriage and wedded a human bride—one who had grown to depend on him for her emotional well-being, which Waldo now experienced as a dead weight. He called it a “Mezentian marriage”—a grim allusion to the Roman myth of the cruel King Mezentius, known for tying men face-to-face with corpses and leaving them to die.
