First, I think that we are all spending a lot more time "detached" from the people who are supposed to be part of our "meaningful relationships". I don't think that's a "normal" state. I mean, what ever happened to tribalism?
In the tribal cultures I've lived in I noticed that people didn't really spend that much time with their spouses; also that this didn't seem to bother them much. What they had that we don't were intricate networks of other relationships: family, and friends they had known all their lives. Each of these relationships may have been individually less important than the primary relationship, but taken all together they provide an invaluable web of emotional support.
I think a lot of the problems we modern folks have with primary relationships come from the absence of that net of secondary relationships, caused both by our busy schedules and our extreme mobility. We start depending on one person to fill all of our social and emotional needs, and we are inevitably disappointed. We think it's a deficiency in the primary relationship when in many ways it isn't, it's just that we're expecting a greater range of interactions from one person than one person can possibly give.
To bring that back we would have to move back into villages, though, and that won't happen. It could be argued that the "normal", "sane" size for a human community is a few hundred, but it would be a fairly pointless argument. |
