Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Lois & Clark Could Clark be trapped by marriage?

In a recent thread in the nfic folder, Tooaddicted2tv posted a challenge. I thought the challenge was interesting, and since there was nothing "nficky" about it per se, and since many people here may not check out the nfic folder, I will post at least a part of Tooaddicted2tv's challenge here:

Interesting, isn't it? But the challenge received some negative response, since it was pointed out that Clark wouldn't actively pursue Lois if he was married to someone else. I agree with that. But isn't it possible to think that Clark might be trapped by his marriage? Have you read Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre? Young Jane is in love with Mr Rochester, who is unfortunately already married and who is trapped by his marriage. Also, Mr Rochester isn't honest with Jane about his marriage.



Mr Rochester.

Clark is no Mr Rochester. He would never do what Mr Rochester did. For all of that, though, isn't it possible to think that Clark might be trapped by a marriage that had gone horribly wrong? Isn't it possible to imagine that he might be on the run from his marriage? If that was the case, then obviously he wouldn't be actively pursuing Lois, of course. But what if he needed to work at the Daily Planet for one reason or another, and there he met Lois, and she fell in love with him? She would pursue him, and he would try to keep his distance from her, while he himself fell ever more deeply in love with her at the same time as he decided to use his powers in public as Superman.

I think that this is a very interesting challenge. I would love to see how Clark could be trapped as well as threatened by his marriage, and I would love seeing him being on the run from his wife and trying in vain not to fall in love with Lois.

Ann

Perfect candidate for his wife: Lana Lang....

CC Aiken did a trapped in a bad marriage story with the late great lois lane

I think one of the Clarks has an affair in Yvonne's Clark Kent, This is Your Life? Gotta re-read it to remind myself...

JD

Yuck.

There's some underlying premises to this scenario that seem off to me with respect to the character of Clark Kent.
His being trapped in a bad marriage suggests a foolishness, a gullibility that he 'could' be 'trapped' in the first place.

As well, it suggests a demonising of the woman involved, which is a tad uncomfortable as a concept: how can we take her seriously and therefore him seriously? is it she who makes the marriage 'bad' (or maybe it's him, in which case he's not 'Clark Kent' but a somewhat integrity challenged whoever, a man with neither honour or compassion. Do we even care about him then? Mr Rochester was a monster, recall, - he chained his mentally ill wife in the attic for years.

Let's say, for argument's sake, we accept that he's married - would he cheat on his wife with Lois? Wouldn't that be a betrayal of both his wife and Lois? Which brings us back to integrity again. I don't see Clark Kent as that sort of sleaze.

c.

Clark trapped in a bad marriage is she central theme in one of my favorites. ML's The Other Woman - Part 1 and The Other Woman - Part 2

Now, these are alt-verse where Lois had been lost in the Congo, but are fantastic examples of "Clark trapped in a bad marriage." Clark and Lois are trying to deal with mutual attraction in a VERY difficult situation.

Bob

Carol wrote:

You are applying 21st century mores to an early 19th century situation, and you should not do that. At that time, the only options for the care of the mentally ill were home care and commitment to a sanitarium where those in charge would have treated her in a manner quite similar to Rochester's, except it would have been much more impersonal. Besides, this woman was not in touch with reality and had repeatedly proven to be a danger to both herself and those around her. Locking her in an attic was not an act of kindness, but Rochester had very few options.

On top of that, the social stigma of committing a spouse to an insane asylum would have been devastating. Insanity was valid grounds for a divorce, but the problem of what to do with her afterward would not have gone away. Likely she would have ended up in Bedlam or one of the less well-run "hospitals" of the time.

This is not to excuse our fictional romantic hero. His decision to marry her even when he knew something wasn't quite right with her means that he was thinking less with his brain and more with either his wallet or "little Rochester." Recall also that at this time, class distinction was a huge factor in any romance. He was pushed by society and family into marrying a woman from his level even though she wasn't English. The world of Rochester and Jane was not the world in which we live today.

On the subject of the thread, I think that if alt-Lana had not been able to finagle alt-Clark into marrying her, alt-Mayson might have succeeded. Alt-Clark might have been "trapped" in a marriage without his Lois had Wells not shown up. That doesn't mean that alt-Mayson would necessarily be a demon or a witch, but it does mean that a Clark-Lois romance would not have been a clean one. They (especially Clark) would have gotten to know each other slowly and been able to learn each others' strengths and weaknesses without that "threat" of a possible relationship hanging over Lois' head, and by the time they both realized that they were meant to be together, they would have run up against that round gold roadblock on Clark's finger.

Of course, all they'd really have to do is to wait until Intergang blew her up. Then they could deal with Clark's guilt over not saving his wife and his certainty that any woman he loved would be killed in short order. Angst and WHAMs would abound.

Hmm.

You know, if I weren't already working on a couple of other things, I might take that plot bunny and hop with it.

Bob, I'm not sure that changes my argument. Should alt Clark either lead Lois on or cheat on his wife, he becomes far less than what the character of Clark Kent is. He loses his integrity. For that matter, so does Lois. That it is a difficult situation is not the question, really. As I recall, ML solves the problem by killing off 'the wife' (although that is not a happy solution for the wife) while neither Lois or Clark behave unseemly (euphemism warning there btw)

c.

Here I must agree. Were a married Clark to offer romance to an unmarried Lois, it would be out of character for him, and it would demean him as a hero. I don't think it would demean him for him to think about it, but he could never act on it without permanently tarnishing himself. And the same goes for a married Lois offering romance to an unmarried Clark.

And I also agree that such a situation would marginalize whoever his wife might be, whether she were Lana or Mayson or Rachel Harris or someone else. A story like this would have to be handled with extreme care and skill to prevent serious damage to the character of both Clark and Lois. And that's another reason I don't plan to take this on as a challenge. I'm not sure I'm good enough to pull it off.

The only thing I would remind us all of is that Clark, despite his incredible powers and his super-high ethical standards, is a fallible human being. We all fail in some aspect of life. We often do (and probably should) expect better from our heroes than we do from ourselves, but even heroes sometimes have feet of clay.

Carol, I may have missed the point you were trying to make. The only thing I was trying to say is that the concept of how Clark would handle being trapped in a bad marriage has been explored. One of the reasons I like “The Other Woman” is that no matter how bad the marriage to Lana got, Clark insisted on honoring it. He remains true to himself even though he knows Lana has completely dishonored their marriage.

Terry said I think this is a very important point. This goes back to the problem of what happens if you have an individual with Superman’s powers, but without his morals. Once Clark comprises his morals, what’s the next step?

It might be interesting to see a scenario where Clark starts with this single act of moral compromise, but then is drawn into a downward spiral where after a few years the Clark (and Superman) we know is gone. I would have no interest in reading it, but it is an interesting idea.

Now, an alternate (crazy?) thought… How about a crossover between LnC and Heinlein’s “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” along these lines.
1. Clark lands on the moon.
2. He grows up in the farm tunnels. Since he never gets exposed to sunlight, his powers never manifest. He’s just another guy.
3. He grows up and joins a group marriage. (For those that haven’t read MiaHM, this is the standard form of marriage on the Moon.)
4. At some point, he comes to Earth. His powers manifest.
5. Superman appears. He meets Lois. The attraction is mutual and strong.
6. Now, he was raised in an environment where multiple spouses is normal. He has no personal moral reason to avoid pursuing a relationship with Lois. His ultimate goal would be for her to join his group marriage.

Crazy? Probably. But it would solve the problem of how Clark could be married, want to pursue a relationship with Lois, but still be basically the high-morals person we know.

Bob

Bob wrote:

I get what you are saying, Bob. But I haven't read Heinlein's book(? short story?), and I'm not going to. I'm just wondering what sort of marriage arrangements are compatible with a high-morals personality for a person in that sort of marriage.

I once saw a documentary called "One Man, Six Wives and Twenty-Nine Children". It was about a family belonging to a "renegade Mormon" sect. The sect practiced polygyny, that is, one man could have as many wives as he liked, limited only by how many women he could find who agreed to marry him. This man had married six wives and had 29 children.

In the documentary, the man claimed a very high moral ground for himself. Polygyny was perfectly acceptable, he said, because it is common in the Old Testament, it is not forbidden by the New Testament, and the founder of the Mormon Church, Joseph Smith, had himself had many wives because he had been told by God that this was perfectly all right and desirable.

The man also claimed that he himself was a very good husband to all of his wives, neglecting none of them. He was loving and attentive. He was strict and fair. He gathered all his family around him every night and told them about morality and love. He took care of his family. He worked and earned money and provided for them all. He was, or so he claimed, a high-morals kind of person. The documentary also showed interviews with his six wives, who all seemed happy with their situation.

But there were cracks in the facade. There was obviously a somewhat cruel hierarchy among the flock of children, which meant that at least one child was not accepted by the others. And what morals had the father really taught his kids? A beautiful boy, probably the inoffical leader of the flock of children, was asked what he wanted to be when he grew up. The boy grinned and said that he wanted to have a lot of wives just like his daddy.

The father did not really care about all his children. One child had died in a fire, and the father talked about this accident with no sign of emotion or even any sign of any real interest. One child was dead; well, he had twenty-nine others. But the mother of the dead child cried when she talked about it.

The husband also wanted to marry again. Why settle for six wives when he could have seven? But the wives got upset and deeply troubled when they were asked about the husband's plan to take another wife. The six women didn't want to share their husband with yet another wife. But their opinion meant nothing: A man could marry as many women as he wanted, and the women he had already married had no say in the matter.

My impression of the husband was that he was incredibly self-satisfied and very selfish. He was happy to have six wives and would be even happier to have seven, and he didn't care what his six wives thought about his plans to marry again. He allowed his kids to establish a rather cruel hierarchy among themselves, and made his sons long for the same kind of marriage arrangements as their father had. He didn't mourn his dead child; why should he, when he had twenty-nine others?

My reason for bringing all this up is this: Can Clark really be a high-morals kind of person if he tries to bring Lois into a group marriage?

Ann

Given how Lana and Mayson were portrayed in the series it would be unusual for Clark not to feel trapped in a marriage to either of them.

Lana's controlling nature and Mayson somewhat pathetic clingingness would quickly turn those marriages into unpleasant experiences whether there comes along a Lois or not.

If you hold true to Clark's basic personality as it has been presented in the continuity of the series; he would never cheat on either of them (or any other wife for that matter). But does that mean that he wouldn't seek a divorce to get out of a bad marriage? Would that make him a bad man?

Satistics show that more than half of marriages fail for various reasons. I would think that Clark would give his marriage more chances to succeed and survive than most would, but even a Superman can't create a loving relationship that isn't there. It does take two to tango.

In my opinion, Lois would become the catalyst for Clark to actually examine his marriage and realize that it's not what it should be.

If Clark is in a solid marriage with a woman he does love and loves him back, the addition of Lois would only introduce a wistful 'what if' element to his life. He would need a reason to end his marriage beyond a 'she's not Lois'.

Tank (who knows of a couple who got married to each other twice before they realized they weren't compatible in the long run)

Ann, your points on the tragedy that is polygamy in the real world are all too correct. One could argue that the happy and functional extended families of Luna in MiaHM are the most fantastically unbelievable part of that whole story.

Here is the problem of crossover ideas. Without a familiarity with that story, there is no background to understand the situation. MisHM is a novel of nontrivial size that won the Hugo award in 1966.

When this idea came to me, I visualized Clark as a variant of the lead character of the story. I would characterize him as a person of high morals and not at all like the real-life person that you referenced.

Bob

I haven't read the Heinlein book either, but I'm going to hypothesize that the group marriage involved both men and women, so that in this hypothetical scenario Lois would have easy access to multiple partners, too. She would not be , uh, bored when Clark was elsewhere occupied.

But the thing is, doesn't group marriage presuppose a mind-set that excludes the one man-one woman love bond? In fact, such a way of thinking would undermine the group. I'm supposing that these men (and women) on the moon were conditioned to believe that way from infancy. So Clark, with his newly acquired and strange earthling notion of love would then become a destabilsing force in the group, wouldn't he? Besides, if he had 'fallen in love' in the Earthling sense why would he then contradict that position by bringing Lois back to his group? (and why would she even accept in the first place???) Wouldn't that action make him dishonest, a hypocrite, not to mention a betrayer of the woman he loved? Which makes him 'out of character' for Clark Kent/Superman.

But... on the other hand...

What if the moon really is made of green cheese?? Does that then change everything, values, morals etc?? Are these moon men part cheese -- cheesecake rather than beefcake??

c.

I think there's a bit of subjective thinking in the wording of your question, Ann. 'tries to bring Lois in' kind of sounds as though he's coercing her in some way. Personally, I don't see why someone couldn't be a moral person and still be part of such a marriage arrangement - providing that all parties involved were there of their own free will and were getting satisfaction out of the arrangement.

For me - and where I entirely agree with your assessment of such arrangements - the problem of morality falls down when one person is gaining from it and the rest aren't. And, in general, my feelings on this subject are that I remain deeply sceptical about how many of these men, who so embrace the concept as a wonderful thing, would feel so enthusiastic if it were the women having multiple partners and not the man. Somehow, I suspect that for most of the men involved that would be a very different kettle of fish.

Like you, I've found that most of the group marriages I've heard about seem to be about one smug, self-satisfied, domineering man and a lot of women who claim to be happy and satisfied with the arrangement, until you delve more deeply and question them more, when the facade starts to crack.

But that isn't to say that they are all that way. I haven't encountered every single example of the concept and I would guess neither have you. It's not outwith the bounds of possibility that there are such arrangements out there now which are working extremely well, to the happiness of all concerned.

In fact, I recently watched a documentary on this very subject. Almost all of the examples shown were in the category above with only the man in the group truly seeming to be getting something out of it. But there was one which did challenge my preconceptions of group marriage, which did seem to be working to the benefit of everyone concerned. This was one man with four women. An arrangement which really did seem to be based on mutual love and affection between all concerned. Household and child-rearing chores were shared out equally between the five of them. All seemed to be getting a lot out of it and the man in question certainly wasn't seen as the most important figure in the group or the one whose needs must be met and paramount to everyone else's.

So, in such a case, I would say these people are no less moral than the rest of us and if it's truly making them happy, is working well for them and they are all there freely, why not?

LabRat

I like the premise, Ann. Most of us share the idea that Clark shouldn't love anyone but Lois, much less marry anyone else. So the question is, how he would end up married to anyone but Lois in the first place?

In my opinion, he could be tricked into a marriage. Let's say that he's dating Lana Lang in his late teens. He might stumble across kryptonite, accidentally gets drunk and hungover. Lana tells him that they made love, which of course isn't true, and she got pregnant.

Later on, he might find out that she fooled him into marrying her, but he cannot prove it. For the good of the child, he stays with Lana. There's bound to be a strained relationship between the two of them, getting even worse as Clark meets Lois.

To add onto your idea, bakasi, maybe Lana and Clark were dating. Lana sleeps with someone else - a college guy who is just passing through. So when she finds out she's pregnant, she convinces Clark that when he was drunk on red kriptonite, they slept together and that she didn't say anything at the time because she wanted him to remember.

Another idea... When Clark was pursuing Lois on the show, he was married. He didn't know it, but he was already married to Zara. What if Zara showed up before Lois knew that Clark was Superman? Zara, for some reason, introduces herself to the world as Superman's wife. Now what does Clark do? He's in love with Lois. Does he continue to pursue her - after all, his marriage to Zara is only a paper marriage. Or does he give up his dream of Lois?

ML

I've been staying out of this discussion because the question of what's morally correct is such a can of worms.

But I couldn't resit ML's post
Well... it could play out like in The Wedding Crashers

Michael

Interesting posts.

I'm thinking the marriage to Zara is irrelevant, a red herring so to speak when considering Clark as a moral man because it was a contract that was made without his consent.

Also, it was arranged by others whose norms were different from those of his own culture as well as when he was a baby (a cute stage to be sure but not yet a morally or ethically aware one) Not to mention, he had no idea that the marriage existed while he was pursuing Lois. Also the marriage was never consummated, so it's not a real marriage.

In short, he can not be judged on moral terms when he had no say in the contract.

c.

Getting back to the group marriage thing, I believe that in "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress", the marriages were polyandrous (usually.)

Heinlein posits that the Moon was set up as a penal colony. It's pretty standard that there are more men than women in prisons. So he makes a throwaway comment about the most common marriage on the Moon being "a troika" - one woman and two men.

So, for the sake of argument, maybe Clark's group marriage has more males than females. Then Lois gets involved, and Clark finds himself becoming very very possessive...