James Braly’s ‘Life in a Marital Institution’ Will Have You Reconsidering Marriage

James Braly’s Life in a Marital Institution: Twenty Years of Monogamy in One Terrifying Memoir is one of the craziest books I’ve read in a long time. To all the men out their who think their marriage is crazy or hard to understand, spend some time in James’ marital institution and you’ll definitely feel much better about yours.

It’s a classic love story, really. A relatively conservative man marries an increasingly progressive woman with whom he tries (and frequently fails) to find middle ground – with a uniquely modern twist. Because in this house, progressive can mean having a high-risk homebirth, breastfeeding children past their first birthdays, and burying the placentas in the backyard – If you don’t eat them first.

These issues may sound absurd, until you consider they were featured on recent covers in Time, New York and the New York Times magazines that reached millions of readers. In other words, the world is changing, and if you ask Braly, not necessarily for the better. Life in a Marital Institution examines the clash between the old world and the new in the context of modern romance and timeless male/female dynamics and differences.

To give you a sense of what’s in store for you, James made a Top 10 Things About Marriage list:

You just got married! Congratulations!!

1. Your sex life will die the moment your first child is born. Your wife will do all she can to meet the needs of the new most important person in her life. She will not feel the need to meet the needs of the old most important person in her life. That person is you.
2. You will have sex with every woman in your neighborhood, and all your wife’s friends, and all your Facebook friends, all in your head. When you get that faraway look in your eyes and your wife asks, “What are you thinking?” you will tell her, “What?” To give yourself time to think.
3. Your sex life will improve, moments before your wife wants to make you the third most important person in her life.
4. A few months after you impregnate your wife again, she will become a woman you do not recognize, telling you she wants to have your second child in your living room, on purpose. You will think your wife is joking. Until you find yourself buying a sump pump and an inflatable kiddie pool.
5. Shortly after your second child is born, you will say to yourself, “What have I done?” Your second child will vomit on you, urinate on you, defecate on you, in that order. That’s when you will know what you’ve done.
6. You will move to a new neighborhood where your new neighbors tell you that your newborn baby’s placenta is a delicious piece of meat that is best prepared pan-roasted in cumin, or possibly curry, or something with a “C.” You will think you are a long way from home, though this is where you live.
7. You will be relieved to discover your wife would rather bury the placenta under a fertility tree than eat it, but that this is easier said than done, as burying human remains in city limits is illegal. You will start saving up to buy a country house with a little plot of land, and in the meantime your baby’s placenta will sit in a little clear plastic tub in your freezer, where you used to store the Klondike bars.
8. Your Klondike bars and anything else you enjoy made of cow’s milk will be replaced by things made of frozen soy milk, coconut milk, or almond milk, which look a lot like the vials of frozen breast milk. (Don’t eat those! They’re for your children, when your wife can’t come back from the healing circle in time to nurse them.)
9. Your children will have teeth, hair, party hats and baseball gloves as they wash down their third, fourth, fifth and sixth birthday cakes with sips of room temperature milk from your wife’s breasts. You will say, “Stop nursing the shortstop!” Your wife will smile like a Madonna breastfeeding a shortstop. The shortstop will nurse like a baby.
10. Your marriage will never, ever be crazier than mine. So relax, and enjoy yourself!

Life in a Marital Institution is a book that both married and single people can identify with, and James Braly’s hilarious and raw stories really make this book a must-read for men everywhere!