2015-08-07

Jennifer Aniston's reported marriage this week to Justin Theroux seems to have sparked a collective insane sigh of relief from the zeitgeist that Jennifer Aniston is, indeed, marriageable. We can relax, after a decade of worry and confusion, because this intelligent, accomplished, independently wealthy actor with a thing for Mexican vacations, edgy and loyal sister girlfriends, Pilates, and increasingly challenging film roles—who has also, by the way, carried on like an entirely normal divorced person and person, for that matter, since her divorce—finally has a husband.


Image: © D. Long/Globe Photos/ZUMA Wire

Jennifer was the crowd favorite girl who got away, and quite possibly your favorite Capital F Friends friend. The indicator of Brad Pitt's right to choose his own adventure and Angelina Jolie's superiority, or their respective stupidity and penchant for homewreckage, depending. I remember the Vanity Fair interview, the one where she said some people had a missing "sensitivity chip", and she talked about her dog Norman, and I felt her, man. Jennifer was just like me, except not at all, and not just because she probably had waterfalls inside her house.

She already needed to be unsinkable, that nervy woman who would go on to date a series of almost maybe also-rans for longer than our cultural heart could take it, because she still wasn't married. Married!

She is your girl whose texts about John Mayer you responded to very very carefully, because your intuition knew as much as hers demanded to believe the opposite that you'd be the last one standing long after that guy riffed his way out, leaving jazz shoe prints on her heart (and Taylor's, and Katy's, and ladies, can we stop with this guy please? He is a bad times guy.) and nary a song she can even think is about her.  You needed to stay neutral. You needed to stay cool.

Yesterday, The Washington Post wondered if Aniston's marriage is "the end of a tabloid era."  A columnist at The Daily  Beast wrote a satirical indictment of the media's hyperfocus on Aniston's marital and motherhood status while it obsessed about her marriage and motherhood status. I shook my head at the Post, because no, she will never be free, and also, no.  I smirked with the Beast writer because I got where he was going with this. I gave him some credit for an obvious high five for feminism, and a middle finger of a column directed towards his very own media that couldn't handle the concept of an unmarried, unmothering (because that's really the deal here, I'm thinking) woman in her mid-40s, who just didn't seem to be as externally freaked out this situation as everyone seemed to think she should be.

Image: © Mark Suban/AMPAS/ZUMAPRESS.com

The truth is that no one besides another single, unmothering woman in her 40s in this culture has any idea how freaked out Jennifer Aniston may have been, because she made a years-long press tour out of not telling you, exactly as she should have. No one--even us, because we all walk different paths for countless reasons--has any idea how much and how deeply her divorce may have affected her, and how long it might have taken her to cop to the idea of joining her life legally to another human.

It turned out to take just about ten years, as it turns out--both an eternity, and an intelligent blink if you're trying to live your life right, and not rush, and not marry the wrong person again, or at the very least the one who won't last, or hurt you on such a gigantic scale on a global cover photo stage that you literally cannot leave your house without facing questions about it and photographic reactions to them.

But besides all this, and the obvious difference that Jennifer Aniston is one of the most famous people in the world and everything that happens to her, especially this, is reported in full color, this is another thing.  Besides the collective giggles at the silly media for how mean and stupid they are to make such a big deal about a woman with the audacity not to be married, there is one big thing that is easy to miss:

It's still extremely suspect for a woman to be unmarried and unmothering in her 40s, according to People magazine, and many people's uncles, and co-workers with not enough work to do obviously because they are hanging in your office doorway asking questions no one should. The magnified attention on Jen for this is because she is Jen. The single everywoman next door neighbor may compute. Your office neighbor who minimizes OK Cupid when people walk by, yes, total sense. God, get that girl a partner, please, Internet.

But Jen? Beautiful, funny, had-and-lost-Brad Jen so she doesn't at all count as a spinster anyway? No sense to be made, and all damns to be given--especially about the part about the baby. The dating and partnering failures could be forgiven and understood. Vince Vaughan has always looked a little shady around the eyes to me. But the baby. THE BABY. No sense, all damns.

As disturbing and painful as this concept of singleness and not-motherness is for people, yes, and no that is not sarcasm or hyperbole, I will concede that things have gotten a little better than they were in modern marriage's heyday. No, it's not as alien to be unmarried as it may have been in the pioneer days when they'd ship us off to the Dakotas to teach in harsh prairie winters because what the hell if they lost one of us on a wagon train? We may not always get thrown off the lifeboat first now, especially if one of us is a surgeon or knows how to grow things. Typhoid is not always our lot, and neither is social ostracism or the need to wear special jewelry or a not-scarlet S to indicate our spinster status.

But I will tell you that people still want to know why this is so, for even the previously-married like Jen, who could never claim gold star spinster status because she'd shown it could be done, and to the sexiest man alive at that. (Where do you go from there, anyway? That's another story that I really don't want to think about today.) Often, I would guess that most of us kind of wonder that too, before we have to get on with things that are more pressing and important, like work, and friends, and avoiding or embracing knitting and cats, or Cabo and our own personal Chelseas and Courteneys. And John, or Vince, or Lisa, or Heather.

I'd like to think the concern and the reaction to Jen's marriage is because people are as happy for her as they can be for someone they don't really know, but kinda do, because they definitely know Rachel Green and the girl with the flair from Office Space. Except that it's probably not that entirely. It's probably that and because 45 is just...old for a woman to be single and without children in this culture. Justin Theroux may be lesser known than Aniston professionally, but that's not the only reason his bachelor status is less interesting. It's just not his job to snag a wife. Annette Bening was Warren Beatty's media concession those many years ago, as much as Justin is Jen's gold medal.  Amal was Clooney's accomplishment, not his saving grace from an uncertain, God knows not lonely, future.

I'm a bottomless-hearted never-married romantic and I don't know that I can help a bit of cynicism about marriage. Earlier this week the internet that is still healing from a freak accident of a Ben Affleck/Jennifer Garner breakup went into mourning over Gwen and Gavin on top of Blake and Miranda and just the mere whisper of Will and Jada finally calling it off in public. Even Reba and Narvel two-stepped their way in opposite directions, y'all. It was a dark week. So Jen and Justin is a double winner. It's a reminder that one couple can indeed still get married at a big party at their house while everyone else is destroying the institution, and also? Jen is saved. Not-alone or probably lonely (although who knows that about anyone, ever?) is not alone or lonely. Hooray! It's the equivalent of so many celebrity marriages. This is the one ring.

Now where's that baby, right? People--and People--can't stop won't stop.

I know that it might be too much to ever concede that a woman could be happy single. It's way more than too much to contemplate that she could be better off-- at least better than winding up with the wrong person, that sexiest man alive who will ditch you for a costar and the family you may or may not have wanted. As you have the audacity to spend the balance of your 30s and half of your 40s heading to Mexico  with your friends and figuring out your professional life in a business, and a culture, based on youth and more and dreams. Well, love slacker? What's the end game?

For Jennifer Aniston this week's  just for today game is a relationship with Justin Theroux, he of the very nice smile and not-shifty eyes, that has hung in there for awhile and is now potentially a little more solid, at least on paper. And also a honeymoon -- friends included, naturally -- in Bora Bora. And for all of this, I genuinely wish her happiness and love, because everyone should have a shot at that, however long it takes, wherever it comes.

Laurie White is online at LaurieMedia. 

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