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When
I met Mike and Juliette Levinton in 1998 - a Jew from the Bronx
and a Sicilian Catholic from Manhattan's lower east side - they
had recently celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary, making them
the youngest of the long-married couples I had encountered so far.
Both retired, Mike worked as a television programming consultant
and Juliette had a career as a corporate librarian. They live
in an apartment in the Chelsea area of Manhattan. They have
two children.
Mike
& Juliette were not the first couple I photographed for this
project, but they were the first couple I ever interviewed.
After seven years, I returned to record another conversation.
Both visits are reflected in the text that follows.
RF:
Why are you married?
Juliette:
Why?
Mike:
You
better take that one. (Juliette giggles.)
Juliette:
Well,
we met in college, went out for a few years, fell in love; he proposed,
I said yes… and so we’re married.
That’s why we’re married.
Mike:
And
I guess we’re still married… for the sake of the cat. (They
laugh.) Back at the time, the late 50s, that was the
thing to do.
Juliette:
Living
together, you didn’t do that.
Mike:
You
didn’t hook up temporarily as the kids do now.
You lived together as man and wife.
If there was a great deal of the other
kind, it was never publicized; so, as far we were concerned, it’s
the only way to do it. The
only thing to do.
Juliette:
Right.
Mike:
Having
come from families where marital longevity was the norm—(to Juliette.) I guess it was expected of you, in your house, and
it was certainly expected of me, in mine.
It seems to have worked out pretty well.
RF:
Were you looking to be
married at the time that you met?
Juliette:
No.
Mike:
No. I don’t think it was in my mind at all.
Juliette:
Not
then. I was pretty young. We met in college.
Mike:
And
I was just recently, a couple of months, out of the Army.
I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, with career,
with anything.
Juliette:
You
know, and seeing other people, and what have you.
RF:
Had you had any serious
relationships before meeting?
Juliette:
I
did, yeah.
Mike:
I
did too.
Juliette:
I
had just come off one, a little bit before we met.
Mike:
I
had not come off one at that point, because I was kind of out of circulation
for a couple of years before then.
Juliette:
Yeah. In the service.
Mike:
But
before that, I did.
Juliette:
So,
yeah. Not right at the beginning. It was not a matter of love at first sight,
gonna get married. No.
Mike:
I
think it’s something that evolved gradually.
It may have evolved pretty quickly, but it was gradually. We knew we were gonna
be married, what, a year and a half before we were married?
Juliette:
Let’s
see. We met in…
Mike:
January. February.
Juliette:
In
college. What year was that? Fifty…
Mike:
Five.
Juliette:
‘55,
and we got married in December of ’57.
Okay. So…
Mike:
So
I guess maybe halfway through that period.
But not from the beginning, and it wasn’t a last minute, spur
of the moment thing either. It
just kinda happened.
Juliette:
Just
kinda happened; we like the same things…
Mike:
Me. (They
laugh.)
Juliette:
Yes. The sense of humor. We both had a good sense of humor. His was a little weirder than mine, but that
was important. Sense of humor.
RF:
I guess the thing that
intrigues me is your mixed backgrounds.
Mike’s Jewish, and you’re Sicilian Catholic, is that right?
Juliette:
Right. Funny you should say Sicilian. Most people say Italian.
RF:
What kind of factor was
it in the marriage?
Mike:
I
don’t think it was any factor at all. It was a non-factor. I certainly never practiced my religion…
RF:
With your families?
Juliette:
Oh,
now, you mean family… yeah, well, you know…
Mike:
Well,
there was a little resistance on the part of my family, my mother
and father, until they met Juliette the
first time. That disappeared. I had an uncle in Buffalo who, you know, this
was unheard of, totally unacceptable; and it was kind of a shame,
because I liked that uncle, and he was my father’s only relative in
the country. (To Juliette.) Your
side of the family, I don’t think there was any—
Juliette:
Well,
that’s because I was the third marriage, and—
Mike:
Yeah,
you were the youngest, patterns had been set.
Juliette:
My
oldest sister was the first to get married, and she married a Jewish
man; and my older sister—I’m the youngest—she married an Albanian,
they’re Muslim. So, (she laughs) by the time it came to me,
they were—
Mike:
They
kidded me once, and said that her brother at one point was seeing
an Italian girl, and the family didn’t know how to cope.
RF:
As far as between yourselves,
though, it made no difference.
Juliette:
No,
none whatsoever.
 Juliette:
Mike
was always supportive of anything that I ever wanted to do, he influenced
me to do what I wanted to do, and be all you can be, and so on. Even early on, when we had children, and I said,
“geez,
one of these days, I’m really gonna go back to work.” He
says, “any time you want.” Then
when I went back to school, and such—
Mike:
Going
back to school was another thing.
Juliette:
Yeah. But you were there to support me on whatever
I chose to do.
Mike:
Mm-hmm. My perception of this is a little bit different,
in that, at least after the first few years of our marriage, I had
occasion to do a fair amount of travelling.
And by then, we had kids. I
never felt the least bit apprehensive or concerned about anything
when I went on the road. Granted,
it was usually never more than for a day or two at a time, but the
house was in good hands… back there.
I think, in that regard, you’ve been a settling influence on
me. Even to the point of when
we bought this apartment. I
was travelling a lot at that time, and Juliette
was going around looking at places.
The east side, the west side… I was away.
You called me and said, “I saw this place…”
Juliette:
Which
was this one… after seeing
hundreds.
Mike:
Yeah. And my reaction was…
Juliette:
“Go
right ahead.”
Mike:
“If
you think it’s the one, go ahead.
Make the commitment for it.”
Which means there must be some—
Juliette:
He
trusted me.
Mike:
Yeah. I was calm about that. I wasn’t, “oh, geez,
I’d better get home and see what this is like,” and “don’t make a
move till I get there.” No,
there was none of that.
RF:
It sounds like there
were two what might be typically competing role structures. One in the sense that you’re on the road and
she’s keeping the house—in what might be considered a traditional
kind of arrangement—and then, on the other hand, there’s the shared
sense of equal responsibility and decision-making.
Mike:
Yeah,
I think we tended more to complement each other in that regard.
Juliette:
Mm-hmm. Of course, by that time we were both working.
Juliette:
I’m
proud of the fact that, well, in my generation, we raised our kids,
you know… you stayed home. But
then when they were getting older and the time had come, I went back
to school and got a master’s, and that started a whole new career
at age 40. It was possibly
the worst occupation I could have chosen. I graduated in ’74, when there was a marked
downturn in governmental funds for libraries.
They closed them up; I thought I’d go into public libraries.
I had no idea there was such a thing as special libraries. So that was where I was aiming to get a job. That was probably very good, because special
librarians make a heck of a lot more than public librarians. And academic librarians. But through that whole career till I took their
buyout, I closed two libraries. (She pauses,
laughs.) Isn’t that a great
achievement?
Mike:
You
want to parallel that with being captain of the Titanic.
RF:
Let me ask you a little
more about the dynamic of the marriage.
Mike:
It’s
not very dynamic. (They laugh.)
Juliette:
We
don’t fight. We don’t fight.
RF:
Did you ever?
Juliette:
Nah. Not really.
Mike:
We’ve
had disagreements, who hasn’t. We’ve
had arguments…
Juliette:
Yeah.
Mike:
…once
in a while voices get raised, but nothing physical.
RF:
So when you have disagreements,
how do they get worked out?
Mike:
I
don’t think there’s any one formula.
Juliette:
(considering) Nnnnnnnnnnnnno.
Mike:
Usually
after a while, somebody will -- I won’t say give in, but -- somebody
will just stop their end of the thing and go the other way.
Juliette:
And
the beginnings are never anything serious.
Never.
Mike:
I
would say probably 95% of them don’t have anything to do with… our relationship, but something with one
of the kids, or something with the car,
the vacation, another relative, something like that.
Juliette:
Yeah. Right. But
they’re just never… never serious.
Mike:
But
I don’t think these things are uncommon.
Juliette:
Also,
as you get older, I really think, that you get a little testier.
Mike:
(immediately, mock testy) I don’t know about that! (They laugh.)
Juliette:
Mike
was always supportive, in more ways than one.
When the kids were little, we were living in Queens. And neighbors with children, same age as we,
we joined a bowling club. We’d
go one afternoon a week, and we’d take the kids with us. They had a nursery there, and you’d put the
kids in the nursery, you’d bowl your couple of games—
Mike:
This
was the ladies.
Juliette:
This
is just ladies. Yeah. With the children.
Mike:
The
husbands were off working.
Juliette:
The
husbands were off working, during the day.
So we would do that, and really,
you looked forward to that when you had two little kids. At one point, they were both sick. Both of them.
And I said, “well, I guess I’m not going bowling today.” And he showed up.
He took a half a day off from work, came home, and he said,
“go right ahead.” And I went
bowling.
Mike:
You
know something, I don’t even remember that?
Juliette:
Well,
that I’ll never forget; and another very nice thing on the same order,
is that once I started working—and he travelled
a lot. He really did travel a lot. I
started working and it was a professional position, and then I was
allowed to go to my first conference.
So I’d be away for a week.
And it coincided with a trip of Mike’s.
Well, I was not going to leave a 15-year-old and a 17-year-old
alone. He cancelled his trip.
He changed it so that I—do you remember doing that?
Mike:
That
I remember.
Juliette:
So
I could go on my trip. So,
you know, good symbiosis? A
good symbiotic relationship.
Mike:
I
hope that’s the word you were looking for, not parasitic.
Juliette:
No,
not parasitic! (They laugh.)
RF:
Do you feel like your
behavior has changed in any way within the marriage?
Do you feel like you were a certain kind of person when you
started, and you’ve grown to become a different kind of person?
Mike:
I
think most of the changes that have occurred in me, or externally
about me, are the natural process and progression of aging and maturing;
and many of those things would have happened were I not married, or—
RF:
I’m talking about behavioral
things that you’ve consciously made the effort to adjust for the sake
of the other person. Has there
been any of that?
Mike:
Well,
yes.
(They laugh.) I can think of a couple that I’ve done. Number one, I’ve learned to leave the toilet
seat down. I learned that a
long time ago.
Juliette:
He
never left one up.
Mike:
And
I don’t—or at least I haven’t in a long time—left clothes and stuff
that I take off lying around on the floor.
The pile of dirty socks in the corner and that sort of thing.
Juliette:
Did
you do that before?
Mike:
I
must have! Most everybody does,
except for Felix Ungar, you know, people
like that, like in The Odd Couple.
Juliette:
I never knew. I had the feeling you were always pretty neat.
Mike:
Most
guys, up to some point, tend to be slobs.
But I think if I got over my slovenliness, it was not so much
because you were there… but hey. At age 20, I may leave
stuff lying around, at age 25,
I’m not quite so likely to be leaving stuff lying around. I’m basically the same person, I think, I was
then.
Juliette:
Yeah,
pretty much…
Mike:
I
don’t mean mentally, ‘cause
there’s a lot that has slipped there, but…
Juliette:
(Laughing.) Tell
me about it…
Mike:
I
would, but you’d—
Juliette:
If
you remembered, you would tell me!
Mike:
And
then you’d forget right away anyway!
(They laugh.) Okay, ba-dum-bump.
RF:
How did you define a
marriage when you went into it, and has that changed?
Juliette:
When
I went into it, had no notion. Not
at twenty-whatever.
RF:
Well, what was your understanding
of marriage based on?
Juliette:
Here’s
this nice guy you like, you know, you’re getting married, you’re gonna set up your own apartment, you’re leaving home. That kind of thing. Then you learn, pretty much, I think, what it
is—
Mike:
As
you go along.
Juliette:
As
you go along.
Mike:
I
don’t think I had any preconceptions of what marriage was.
RF:
But you had an image
of the institution.
Mike:
Yeah. It was two people, and they seemed to like each
other, at least outwardly—this is my perception of other marriages—some
more, some less, than others. And
kids would come along; after all, I knew the mechanics of that, I
was a biology major (Juliette
laughs). But I don’t think
I thought of long-term either in the sense of “what’s marriage gonna be like?” any more than I thought of, “where do I wanna be five years from now, at work?” I never did that.
Juliette:
It’s
probably different now because they get married a lot later. You know? But
when you’re getting married and you’re 21, and 23… back then… I don’t know. It was just a matter of, here was somebody you
loved. And your mother’s married;
his mother’s married; my sisters got married…
Mike:
My
brother was married…
Juliette:
That’s
the thing you do. You get married. So that’s what it is, I would say, back then. In the ‘50s.
You didn’t think it through.
Then it just evolves, it develops.
Then you have children, and then the extended family comes
in. His
family, his siblings. And you’re all getting together, and it’s not
just you, and me, it’s my
whole family, his whole
family, and the perpetuation of that kind of a group. Marriage includes having everybody, the extended
family. That’s what marriage
is. So you worry about his
family… it becomes yours. That’s
what I think it develops into; that it’s an extended small community.
Mike:
If
the marriage is basically a good one, there comes a point pretty early
on in the marriage where, of course, you’ve stopped thinking of property
as his and hers; but you even stop thinking of the relatives…
Juliette:
As
his and hers.
Mike:
(Simultaneously.) …as his and hers.
RF:
Do you have a different
definition now of marriage?
Mike:
Yeah…
I think so. I think my definition
of marriage is, and has been for quite a while, that it’s an equal
partnership. And everybody involved in that partnership gets
involved in all aspects of it. Just
the other day, I was listening to some music from Fiddler on the Roof. And Tevye’s singing “Tradition.” In which each member of the family has a specifically-defined
role. The papa does this,
the mama does this, the sons do this, the daughters do this,
and nobody should step outside
of those boundaries. Of course,
during the story, the daughters all do. But that has never been what I thought marriage
to be.
Juliette:
Nor
did I ever think that.
Mike:
Even
though, in my family, my father was the head of the household. And I guess your father…
Juliette:
Was
head of the household.
Mike:
But
that, again, was Tevye’s generation.
Juliette:
Your
mother was a professional woman, she went out and she worked.
Mike:
Yeah,
but I’m talking about differences of opinion as far as child-raising,
as far as where we’re gonna live, as far
as anything like that. My definition
of marriage—when I first developed
a definition of marriage, which was sometime after I got married,
because going in I had no real idea what it was—but it was never the
Tevye…
RF:
As master of the house,
to have the final word at home?
Juliette:
Right.
Mike:
Right. I’ve tried! God knows, I’ve tried! (They laugh.)
RF:
What’s been your observation
of the changes in what marriage is and how it’s viewed since the time
that you got married? What’s
your opinion of that?
Juliette:
If
I go strictly with the marriages of our own children—
RF:
You don’t have to, but
you can start there.
Juliette:
Well,
all right, I’ll start there… those are equal.
From Day One. In both
cases. Although I think we started out feeling that
way as well. But I think, as
Mike was saying, that the father does this, and the mother stays home
and cooks… that is gone, from 50-60 years ago.
It’s just the two working parents; their children, they’re
out, they’re both contributing. So
there’s not too much of the woman staying at home and taking care
of children and the father… I think that’s changed.
Mike:
That’s
probably for the good.
Juliette:
I think it’s for the good.
Mike:
But
there’s another aspect of marriage as it exists now, contrasted with
what it was when we got married. There
seems to be—and statistics point it out—there is a lot less permanence
to marriage. I question whether a lot of people… I think
they all go into marriage with the same optimism that young people
always go into marriage with. But I think that optimism gets tempered very
quickly by realism, and so develops into a “well, this will be an
arrangement, we’ll try it for a while, and if it doesn’t work, we’ll
go our separate ways.”
And
that’s disturbing to me, because that’s a lot less importance to the
institution of marriage. And, I think, creates a lot of the problems
we have today in families where that situation exists; I think the
children tend to suffer, as well as—the adult parents suffer, but
certainly the children do. Happily,
or fortunately, this has not been the case with us…
Juliette:
With
our parents…
Mike:
With
our parents. And, at this point,
with our children. Give you
an example: my son got married about six years ago. He was living out in Arizona, and he met his
wife-to-be, who, after the children were born, she was back in school
to get her degree. So he tailored
his work schedule, and ultimately stopped working completely , so
she could finish her school, and then she got a teaching position
in another city, so they moved to another city.
He subordinated his career and his work to become a Mr. Mom.
I’m
not saying this to give kudos to him; I think if the situation had
been reversed, it probably would have happened the other way as well. So I’m happy that, if there is a weakness in
the institution of marriage today, it does not seem to have affected
either us, or the marriages of our children.
RF:
Let’s go a little deeper
into the pros and cons of the changes as you see them in the institution.
Mike:
Well,
the big pro is that there’s more equality now between the partners. Because women are getting out more and working
at the things they want
to do. That’s a plus. The biggest single minus is the lack of permanence—
Juliette:
The
fact that there’s so much divorce.
Mike:
Or
the decrease in permanence
of marriages.
Juliette:
You
know, I haven’t thought about this, but maybe it’s because it’s so
much easier to divorce now. Women
don’t feel—because if they can work and support themselves—they don’t
feel that you’ve got to stay in a marriage that you don’t love.
Mike:
Also
the laws have changed. It used
to be very restricted.
Juliette:
Oh,
there were very few reasons.
Mike:
Now
there’s no-fault divorce.
Juliette:
That’s
right. It used to be, it had
to be adultery, or abuse.
Mike:
Doesn’t
have to be adultery, and you don’t have to go to Maryland or Nevada
and establish residence there.
Juliette:
So
it is easier, I guess that’s part of it.
But also since women can take care of themselves at this point,
and can work and make money; whereas back then—
Mike:
Maybe
this is just the way things had
to happen, and it doesn’t have anything to do with a loosening
of moral values, or a degradation of anything like that; just that
this is the way society evolves.
RF:
What do you think is
being lost, or left behind as a result?
Mike:
I
think what’s being lost is the upbringing and the education—
Juliette:
Of
the children.
Mike:
—and
the mental well-being, as well as the physical well-being, of the
children.
Juliette:
Yeah,
they have had studies with
children—
Mike:
Who
have only one parent. And that
parent works. And that child
ends up being a latchkey child. Or
even if that child has a parent who stays home, but is the only parent. If it’s a father, that kid has lost the female
side of his upbringing, and vice-versa if the man has left. Which is in the majority of cases. That child, especially if it’s a boy—well, I
guess it applies to girls too—need a father figure; and the way the
institution of marriage is today, so many of them don’t have that. That’s a definite bad thing, but maybe that’s
the way things are going.
RF:
What about the way that
family structure has been redefined?
There are now so many ways that a family is defined in modern
society; there are same-sex couples who have kids; either they adopt,
or one carries the child through a donor; you have communities that
raise their kids, help each other out, even if it’s a community of
two families, or whatever it may be. But the whole notion of what defines a family
has gone through a lot of redefinition.
Sometimes to address, maybe, some of the things that you were
just bringing up.
Mike:
I’ve
got a looser definition of family than, “the Mama, the Papa"… the Tevye definition
of family. The traditional. My definition of family is much looser than
that. It’s some combination
of adult influence on some combination of children.
As long as it can be there for a permanent enough period of
time that the child does not feel apprehensive or neglected. And I have no problem with two ladies raising
a child, or two men raising a child, or a donor… if that’s the way
it’s working, if that’s the path that—
Juliette:
Whatever
works.
Mike:
Yeah. I think anybody who says, “the only kind of
marriage, the only kind of family group that should be permitted to
raise children is the mama and the papa.
Even if their roles are different, there’s gotta
be one from column A, one from column B.”
I don’t think that’s necessarily so.
RF:
Because it’s in the news
right now, I may as well ask—there’s talk of a constitutional amendment
to ban same-sex marriages. Do
you have an opinion on that?
(Juliette rolls her eyes.)
Mike:
The
only opinion I have is I don’t think that’s in the cards. I don’t think that’s gonna
happen. Personally, I hope
it never happens, whether you believe in God or not, I don’t think
that’s the business that government should be in.
Juliette:
Hmm. No, I agree with that.
RF:
It leads back to a question
that I’ve taken to asking all of the couples, which is whether marriage
is still necessary as a cultural institution?
Juliette:
Well,
necessary or not, there’s nothing wrong
with it. So why would you expunge
it from the possible… possibilities in life?
Mike:
Well,
I don’t think you were talking about outlawing marriage as such.
RF:
No, no, not at all.
Juliette:
You
meant the legal would be…
RF:
Yeah, is the legal institution
still—
Mike:
I
think that that has some value. I
think for very many people who enter into marriage, whether it’s a
majority or not—I think many people need
that structure. To fit into, “what is my place in this?” If marriage suddenly kind of disappears, then
what is the nature of this relationship that I’m now getting into? Is it a slam-dunk, something that’s guaranteed
to work? Is it “I’ll see you
tomorrow, and by the way, what’s your name?”
Is it a permanent thing? I
think most people, especially children—but I think adults are nothing
more than large children—they need some sort of format.
To say, “hey, here’s where I fit into this.”
Juliette:
And
then legally… just the problems that gay couples are having legally. Inheriting, giving consent for operations, that
kind of stuff.
Mike:
That’s
a little different thing.
Juliette:
No. They don’t have the ability to do that, because
they’re not legally… so they’re… while the laws are there, there’s
one advantage to marriage right off the bat.
You have no difficulty with that sort of thing.
Mike:
Well,
following that reasoning, I would add to it that the definition of
marriage, in my view, should be enlarged and expanded.
That marriage, and all the benefits and perks and… responsibilities—
Juliette:
Yeah.
Mike:
—that
come with it should not be limited just to a union of Man 1 and Woman
1.
Juliette:
Yeah,
so, right. Just what we were
saying. Exactly. There’s nothing wrong with marriage.
Mike:
But
I would broaden the definition of it.
I do think, though, that some of the activists who insist on
the word “marriage” as part of the definition of the relationship
that they would like—whether it’s a male/male or female/female relationship—that
the absolute inclusion of what they are as “married,” I think that’s
pushing it a little too far. As long as whatever you call it gets you the
same benefits and opportunities as the traditional kind of marriage.
RF:
Clearly it’s the word
that sets off a lot of people.
Juliette:
Yeah,
you think that’s it? It’s the
word marriage.
Mike:
It’s
the word.
Juliette:
If
they used some other expression…
Mike:
Same-sex
union, or partnership, or—
RF:
Right. Whereas, you also—and it’s a legitimate argument—you
hear activists saying, “why can’t we use that word? That’s what it is.”
Mike:
Okay. This is an argument that would never be resolved, because your faith-based
organizations, especially your fundamentalists on both sides of the
issue—your extreme Orthodox Jews, and your extreme evangelicals—all
have the same thing: “this
is all that you can call marriage.”
Juliette:
Man
and woman.
Mike:
Man
and woman. Because that’s what
the Bible says. I think that’s
limiting.
Juliette:
It’s
not gonna be solved in our lifetime.
Mike:
I
don’t think it’s gonna be solved, period. I think it’s gonna
be an ongoing thing. Unless
somebody comes up with some sort of definitive proof that’s accepted
by everybody. That either there is a God, and he created it all; or absolute scientific proof that
there is no such God, and everything is just random and evolutionary. Unless either of those two things happen—and
I don’t see either happening—you’re always gonna
have people on this side of the argument, and people on that side
of the argument. So I don’t
think it’s gonna disappear. It’s not gonna be
in our lifetime.
Juliette:
No,
I don’t think so.
Mike:
And
I intend to be around for a long time.
RF:
I wonder what your feelings
are about growing older, and whether age has informed the marriage
in any way?
Mike:
I
think there’s more of a sense of urgency to make sure that all the
things that we wanted to do for our children is done.
Juliette:
Yeah,
we place a lot of emphasis on what we can do, on our grandchildren
at this point. So we have accounts
for them for college…
Mike:
There’s
more of an urgency on getting things squared away; not for our own
demise—make sure that our apartment is neat, and we’re wearing clean
underwear when we finally go—but that all the things that we wanted
to do for the children and the grandchildren, we’re doing.
And not saying, “well, I can wait a few years and get around
to it.” Especially living in lower Manhattan, after
9/11. We could see the smoke
for all that time. It’s a little
paradoxical… although I spend more time worrying about the children,
I spend less time worrying about myself.
It’s like what Charlie Brown used to say.
I wish I could find that comic strip, from Schulz, and put
that up. Charlie is talking to Linus. And he’s saying, “you know, I used to live life
one day at a time.” He says,
“no more. Now I live life half
a day at a time.”
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