January 27th, 2010

The new book that was just released and the book I’m currently working on feature the complex issue of marriage in the Old West. In the Many Loves of Buffalo Bill I highlighted the affairs he had and in the book Howard Kazanjian and I are writing about Elizabeth Custer, we look at the extra-marital relations both Libbie and George had. It got me thinking about marriage as a whole this morning. I can’t help but notice the changes that have taken place in the institution of marriage itself since people wed in the Old West. People tended to stay together back then in spite of their problems. They either worked things out or learned to live with that which would never change. Not today. It seems now of days that couples are breaking up like a four-thousand-year-old Peruvian vase shipped UPS. And that’s too bad, because marriage can be one of the most rewarding experiences you will have on this planet – if you meet the right person. (George and Elizabeth never doubted they had met the right person, but Buffalo Bill?) If you don’t meet the right person marriage can be as tedious, ugly, and soul-crushing as driving on the 5 Freeway to Knott’s Berry Farm with the windows up and no air-conditioning on Labor Day weekend. The vows are scary enough. I mean, “We are gathered here to witness the joining of two people?.” Joining. Could we come up with a slightly more industrial term? How about, “soldering?” Yeah, have a couple of guys from the machinists’ union swing by, drop the welder’s masks, and handle this part of the ceremony. It seems like the only two times they pronounce you anything in life is when they pronounce you “man and wife” or “dead on arrival.” More often than not in the Old West couples just eloped. They were spared all the arguments that come with planning such an event. After close to 21 years of marriage, I’m sure of two things – first, never wallpaper together, and second, you’ll need two bathrooms?both for your wife. And now on to an event that took place on this day in the Old West in 1890. Heck Thomas, a lawman from Oklahoma, tried to arrest Jim July, one of criminal Bell Starr’s paramours, who was a robber and bail skipper. July resisted arrest and was killed in the ensuing gunplay. That was one of the reasons relationship worked out so well in the Old West. There was so much gunplay many were killed before they had a chance to be really unhappy with their situation.