Wednesday, June 01, 2005
The Six Year Itch
PPMB and SFMB have been down for most of the day.
One thing I find odd about the Daria Universe is the fact that Helen and Jake have been married for almost 25 years. They don't seem like the kind of couple that could make it to their silver anniversary.
Looking at Richard Lobinske's Daria Timeline, and using the 2000 version of the timeline (which assumes Daria graduated in 2000), you have Helen and Jane getting married in June of 1975 and Daria being born between October and November of 1981.
That implies six child-free years. Whether or not Helen and Jake were living on the commune, or as young yuppies, it certainly wasn't children that kept the couple together initially.
However, I ran across this quote on the Internet:
The median length for a first time marriage ending in divorce is eight years (Census Bureau 2002) and, overall, 43 percent of marriages break-up within 15 years.
Helen and Jake have been very lucky for their marriage to have survived so long. It seems that fandom falls into two groups. Group A believes that despite their problems, Helen and Jake have a fundamentally strong relationship. Group B believes the opposite, that despite the good moments Helen and Jake are heading for divorce in the future.
And since the "median length" for a marriage is eight years, it makes me wonder - was having Daria an attempt to provide more togetherness? After all, Helen and Jake had dodged childhood for six years, so Daria's conception was most likely NOT an accident, but planned deliberately. (Quinn, I'm not so sure about.) Did Daria's birth keep Helen and Jake together longer than normal? Would Helen and Jake have had a better marriage without Daria and Quinn?
Just some thoughts.
# posted by James @ 1:36 PM 
