Establishing a Home
In his Pulitzer prize winning novel, Angle of Repose, Wallace Stegner describes the way in which one couple remained together, through a series of disappointments and losses in their lives as pioneers in the early American West. Stegner described a couple that remained together by sharing small things and simple moments of joy. They savored small things and events that allowed them to lean against each other, to find meaning (however small) in their sacrifices and their mutual commitments. This is the “vernacular” life that we identified when describing a couple’s establishment of norms and forging a covenant.
This domain of daily living and the common place is no more plainly evident than in the small decisions made by and actions taken by men and women as they establish a home together. Moore (1994, p. 236) suggests that the vernacular “is located in some place — in one person’s life, in a neighborhood or a region, in a specific culture or community.” The couples we interviewed often located it in their home. As a result, the decisions they made about the nature and character of their home, the objects that they placed in their home, and the special activities that they engaged in while living in their home (ranging from cooking meals to hosting birthday parties to raking and burning the leaves each fall) often provided an unrecognized but stable foundation for their relationship.
This plate usually is prevalent early in a couple’s life. It typically begins after the couple has moved through a state of infatuation, commonly known as the honeymoon period. The couple is often most clearly and tangibly defining its own unique character or “soul” in these early decisions about the way they choose to live together. Many couples build their covenant around these daily matters. It is, in the words of Stephen Sondheim, “the little things we do together” that makes relationships work and define their unique and sustaining character.
A couple that we know well (Peggy and David) has candlelight dinners together each night, despite the busy lives that they both live. This ritual was first established when Peggy was -living in New York and David was living with his children in Oregon. David would prepare dinner for his children, light the candles and then call Peggy. Peggy got to know the children (and David) in a very special way while they were eating their candlelight dinner each night. This ritual continued after Peggy decided to move to Oregon with David and his children. Even after Peggy moved in and while David’s children were still young, candlelight dinners each night were a given.
