Not class. A married man and father made a lot of noise on May 19 because of an article in the New York Times. In the article in question, which is part of the magazine’s The Ethicist marriage column, written by philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah, a wife complains about a hard-to-understand habit of her husband. As she explains, the latter “loves to travel and always opts for first class or gets an upgrade”. The problem being that he travels first class alone, and that the reason he gave to his wife is difficult enough for her to digest so that she ends up talking about it in a column specializing in marital problems.
In her letter, the woman explains: “He justifies traveling first class alone by the cost and by the fact that our children (12 and 16) might feel lonely if I traveled first class with him, and that I left them in the aft cabin. I find that unfair”. And she’s probably not the only one to find this kind of behavior unfair. After the publication of the column, the article turned on social networks to support this woman whose husband does not seem to realize the aberration that this attitude represents. Especially since he even went so far as to offer an equally offensive solution.
A fairer solution
“My husband offered to travel alone on a different flight than ours so that we wouldn’t feel uncomfortable with this disparity, but that doesn’t really solve the problem of selfishness inherent in his reasoning,” he said. she pointed. Faced with this, the philosopher in charge of the column, Kwame Anthony Appiah, took the side of the mother who considers herself, rightly, wronged, and offered her a fairer solution. “A modern marriage takes the form of a couple of two equals, in which each partner treats the other with respect, consideration and dignity. (…) If your husband feels that only one adult per trip should travel in first, why not suggest that you take turns doing it?”.
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