What Joe Biden’s and Kamala Harris’ Marriages Can Teach Us
Both are proof that you can have an equal union if you have the right partner
During the early days of the presidential election, I was excited by how the female Democratic hopefuls — Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand, Tulsi Gabbard and Marianne Williamson — had somewhat outside-the-box life stories beyond the traditional romantic script and could be inspirations for young women.
As I wrote at the time:
Some have spent most of their life single. Some married and had children in their mid- to late-30s, and are the breadwinners in their family. Some have no children of their own. Some have been single mothers. Some had starter marriages, divorced and are now in second marriages. And each of them has had long, highly successful careers that have led them to potentially be the 46th president of the United States.
Now that we are on the verge of a new administration — President-elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the first female, and Black, Vice President-elect — it seems like good time to look at their marriages to see what we can learn from them.
And that’s exactly what author Rich Benjamin did in a recent op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, where he’s a frequent contributor.
While he acknowledges it’s impossible to know just what’s going on in another person’s marriage — and that is true — he believes Biden and Harris and their spouses are “beacons in their own ways of what marriage can be.”
That would seem like there’s a “right” way for a marriage to be, and there isn’t. There are many right ways to be married based on the goals and values of the spouses. Still, there are a few things that make their marriages quite modern, and one that many people — OK, well, mostly women — truly want.
Jill Biden didn’t sacrifice her career in education to accommodate her husband’s political career and doesn’t plan to when they’re in the White House, he notes. But Harris’ attorney husband, Doug Emhoff, whom she married at age 50 — her first marriage —has had to in the six years they’ve been married. In fact, he is leaving the law firm he founded.
As political science professor Kim Nalder notes:
“We’ve been waiting for this sort of gender switch for decades now. There is a lot of symbolism from a man stepping back from his high-powered career in order to support his wife’s career.”
Yes, we have been waiting exactly for this! And that it’s coming right after four years of a president displaying the very worst of masculinity is particularly sweet.
Benjamin quotes Emhoff on his appreciation and support of women like Harris — smart, strong and confident:
“I love being surrounded by strong women. I’m glad to have had a strong mother. When I got older, it made sense that I would want to continue to be around smart, powerful women. But also women who are funny and compassionate and actually want to do good in the world. People talk about it like it’s something unique or a big deal, but I think, ‘Well, everyone should want to know strong women and support them.’”
While Harris and Jill Biden are inspirations for women who seek an equal marriage, Emhoff is an inspiration for men — yes, you can do this, guys — and women — yes, you can find a romantic partner who will support you.
Not just supportive in a superficial way, where hubbies applaud and support their wives until it starts to interfere with their own careers. But in actually changing their work life, as Emhoff has. As Avivah Wittenberg-Cox advises women, if you can’t find a spouse who supports your career, stay single.
Benjamin compares the Biden and Harris marriages with the Trumps, calling Donald and Melania’s union “a textbook example of a certain type of marriage, involving an older businessman, a younger model and a prenup.”
But as my co-author and I write in The New I Do: Reshaping Marriages for Skeptics, Realists and Rebels,” marriages like the Trumps are as valid as any other. We call them safety marriages, which, I’ve noted before, are “pretty transparent arrangements; the man knows his money and status are essential to getting the kind of woman he wants. He flaunts it, she bites and they live happily ever after — or some version of that.”
He also compares their marriages to Mike and Karen Pence’s marriage, which he says “appears to be of a stifling type that would have seemed retrograde even in the 1970s. … she openly puts her duties as his wife first.
Again, as we note in the book, when a couple has matched expectations, they have a happier union, even if it’s as traditional and gendered as the Pence marriage appears to be.
Like the marriage of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, whose husband, Martin, was supportive of his wife’s career throughout their five-decade union— “I was blessed to be in a marriage to a man who thought my work was at least as important as his” — the marriages of the Bidens and Harris-Emoff send a strong message not just to women, but to men.
Yes, couples can have equal marriages if both spouses are willing to show up in all the best ways for each other, meaningfully and purposefully. And if you want something more traditional like the Pences or a safety marriage like the Trumps, well, you can have that, too.
Hey, I’m working on a book on changing the narrative about middle-aged and older women. Interested? Follow me here, on Medium, and on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, and let’s do this. Want to learn how to create a marriage based on your values and goals? (Of course you do!) Read The New I Do: Reshaping Marriage for Skeptics, Realists and Rebels (Seal Press). You can support your local indie bookstore (please do) or order it on Amazon. And we’re now on Audible.
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