Friendship and Individuality

Evidence that friendship encourages individuality and autonomy appears in its exchanges or content. As evidence of support for individuality I took statements that emphasized a close friend's contribution to self-awareness or understanding; a friend's approving recognition of individual effort, achievement, or self-development; or a friend's privileged access to a woman's authenticity (that is, her perceived "real self").

These exchanges are only part of what we might consider relations of autonomy and individuality. There were aspects of an ethic of autonomy that I did not find in my interviews—specifically, support for unfettered individualism, for a severely differentiated sense of self, or for individuality as a supreme value that should override responsibility and commitment. I believe I might have found an ethic emphasizing more autonomous aspects of individuality had I interviewed more younger women, more unmarried women, more women who had jobs but did not parent. In my sample of mostly married mothers over thirty, themes of individualism were distinct but constrained.

In strikingly similar ways the women emphasized how well close friends knew women's true selves and how friends contributed to their self-understanding. Chapter 2 illustrated the pervasive reliance on close friends for empathy and companionship in self-examination. Here are more examples from two large sets of ques-

tions—one, a set of name-eliciting questions, the other a set of probability-of-exchange questions. The latter set showed women very likely to involve friends in solving personal problems and in discussing love, pride, anger, unhappiness, and self-doubt. For each kind of intimate exchange, no more than three respondents— usually just one—said they would exclude friends. All the women said they would talk with a friend about moral or religious beliefs, all but one about news or politics.

Thirty-four name-eliciting questions sought to identify the people with whom the respondent exchanged intimacy, genuine response, and emotional support. On these questions, eighteen of twenty-one women named women friends (including sister-best friends) among those to whom they would confide very personal problems; all included friends among those whose personal problems they would "take to heart" (although six of the seventeen married women did not include their husbands on this item). About three-quarters listed friends among those "to whom you've told things that you've never told anyone else" and among those "to whom you can confide something you're ashamed of."

Two-thirds of the twenty-one women talked to close friends about their most important beliefs. Seventeen felt that close friends shared their most important values. All but two listed close friends among those who "know and like the real you." The same number placed friends among those who made them feel good about themselves (although six of the seventeen married women omitted their husbands from this answer). Seventeen named friends among those who like to share their moments of pride.

Exploring one connection between friendship and individuality—the mutual recognition of individual striving and self-development—I uncovered some interesting contrasts between friendship and marriage. I found a unique specialization of friendship was discussing autonomous activity and experimentation, as well as the fantasies, ambitions, and plans they generate. Specialization is not entirely surprising: married women might prefer not to confide to their husbands their fantasies about romances with other men. Wishes and plans about work, schooling, and civic participation, however, seem an appropriate subject in a companionate marriage. Certainly, the image of a young husband thrilling his

wife with his grandest vision of future achievements is a staple of companionate marriage's image in literature and the media.

If this image in fact reflects actual husband-to-wife communication, my interviews testify to an asymmetry in this supported self-development. Women not only talk to close friends about such ambitions or strivings; many say they discuss these topics with friends more than with husbands. In the series of questions on how often one would discuss a subject with friends if it were on one's mind, women most frequently answered “A lot of the time" to questions about discussing future dreams and ambitions, work problems, and opinions about news or politics. Each is a theme of individuality or autonomy. Individual aspirations, endeavors, and beliefs are clearly appropriate topics in friendships.

The thirty-four name-eliciting questions allowed me to compare exchanges with friends and with husbands. Women were to name anyone who came to mind for sharing specific kinds of exchanges. In name-eliciting surveys other researchers found that respondents sometimes forgot to list husbands.^[15] To avoid this, I reminded my respondents that they should list husbands, children— anyone—who fitted the description. Moreover, since I asked many consecutive name-eliciting questions, I assumed that husbands would be mistakenly overlooked in some regular way. But there was no regular pattern of husband-absent responses; the rate of husband-absent responses varied by the question. The differences are provocative.

Seventeen married women answered the thirty-four questions asking with whom they exchange intimacy, genuine response, trust, and affection. For fifteen of the thirty-four questions, one to three women did not list their husbands, although most listed friends or kin. For fourteen, four to six did not list their husbands. For four questions, seven or eight did not name them. And for one question—Who encourages you to try out new experiences or things?—ten of seventeen women failed to list their husbands. This last figure contrasts with a total of four married women who did not list friends for this question.

The exceptional absence of husbands from those who encouraged new experiences, with the strong presence of friends among those who discussed future dreams and ambitions, marks women's

perception that friends more than husbands recognize their strivings for individual autonomy. It suggests that a woman friend (and less often a kinswoman) may play a unique role in supporting these individual aspirations.

Responses to other questions in the name-eliciting series supported this conclusion, although much less powerfully. In answer to the question, Who recognizes your talents or abilities?, only two of seventeen married women failed to name friends, whereas four did not name husbands. Only one married woman did not include friends in her answer on mutual respect; four did not name husbands.

It is difficult to interpret these contrasts without more probing investigation; I did not explicitly pitch my interview to this topic. The subject of friends as better support for individual aspiration emerged spontaneously a few times, however, in responses to other questions—for example, in comments on areas that women could discuss with best friends but not with husbands. Rita talked about "my own independence" with June, preferring not to touch the subject directly with her husband. “I act it out more with Lloyd, rather than talking about it ." Debby, who repeatedly spoke of her husband, Jay, as her "best friend and advocate," still preferred to talk with Joanne about "problems of deciding what to do from here on in—knowing there's something better out there, job-wise—wondering what to do about it." Thea, whose marriage is among the most companionate, also preferred to talk to her best friend, Catherine, about "what I personally would like to do with my life." Arlene conferred with Sally when she began "getting involved in new things," like taking on the presidency of a civic organization: "Jeff felt it would be overwhelming for me, which of course it was. He didn't want to hear about it, and I didn't want to talk to him about it." Lisa, one of the youngest in the group I interviewed, summed up the area she explored better with Doreen: "It's different walks of life. Maybe other men. Going other places and seeing new things. Doing other things with my life."

Lisa's comment hints at one reason women may avoid this general subject with husbands: certain ambitions and fantasies may hint at alternatives to marriage. That is why Nancy, like Lisa, confided thoughts of other men to Annette, although she said the topic was entirely fanciful. But Rita, who returned to college in her late

fifties, was content to imagine a future with her husband. It was in work, ideas, and friendships that she wished to expand her autonomy. Rita said that her husband, Lloyd, for all his pride in her accomplishment, found this kind of independence inexplicably disturbing.

Likewise, Arlene was not thinking about leaving Jeff. She simply wished to avoid being discouraged from accepting challenges that might unsettle her life (and Jeff's). Similarly, Kay talked to friends rather than George about her desire for more schooling and then returning to work. "George and I have been on a good ride since I quit my job and stayed home with the kids." Kay was intent on going back to work the day her youngest was old enough for day care. She was postponing the conflict her working raised in her marriage by keeping her plans among friends. Debby, by contrast, never hinted that planning to change jobs was a tense subject at home. Yet the topic came to mind as one she could discuss better with her friend than her husband, simply, she said, because Joanne was thinking about the same thing.

There is some sociological evidence that associates working wives with marital conflict and discusses the advantages in power that wives derive from organizational participation, education, and income.^[16] We might guess that women learned from experience that by doing the planning elsewhere they could at least postpone the tremors in marriage that independent achievements can create.

My theoretical guide for interpreting these patterns is an essay by Jessica Benjamin. Benjamin conceives of individuality as recognized independence, autonomy, and selfhood. Individuals who suppress their awareness of depending on recognition by others— who cannot openly recognize relationships in which selfhood is defined—develop not individuality but "false differentiation."^[17] Benjamin uses object-relations psychoanalysis (and a rather unparsimonious array of philosophy and social psychology) to construct an alternative to the classical psychoanalytic model of individuality. She aims to replace psychoanalytic views that individuation begins in oedipal relations of authority and must repress awareness of dependence and attachment to others.

In Benjamin's view, autonomy and individuality are established through recognition by others. Mutuality is a condition of indepen-

dence, in that "true differentiation involves not only the awareness of the separation between self and other but the appreciation of the other's independent existence as an equivalent center."^[18] Only a person who is an independent subject can recognize the other. And only a person who can simultaneously acknowledge depending on the other for recognition can achieve independence. Dependence and independence, recognition and autonomy, exist in this reciprocal and paradoxical but inevitable relation. Benjamin contrasts this "related" individuality with a widespread "one-sided" defensive individuality that eschews depending on and indentifying with the other and exists through instrumentalism and domination.

Benjamin's work poses an ideal that must be seen as two separate ideals in contemporary gender arrangements. Benjamin joins other object-relations theorists of gender—notably Chodorow— who maintain that the division of labor and authority in the modern family creates gendered personality. Men and women divide the internalized capacities: separation, differentiation, and activity on the one hand (masculine); and dependence, mutuality, and nurturance on the other (feminine). Only men, in this ideal-type, reach the available form of individuality—a falsely separated independence. Men are likely to fear attachment; women separation and independence. This dynamic leaves women with more complex internalized object-relations and a greater capacity and need to sustain intimate relations alongside heterosexual love.

The work of Benjamin, Chodorow, and others in the tradition^[19] suggests how the structure of family dynamics and the psychology of self might be interposed into the causal relation Simmel draws between social organization and friendship culture. The gender structure of family life and its impact on gender personality help to explain how the larger social structure affects friendship culture. These psychodynamics also suggest another basis for my argument that close relationships among women exhibit mutual support for a communally situated and constrained individuality, similar to Benjamin's nonauthoritarian ideal: within the family, women may be structurally inclined toward interdependent individuality and psychologically disposed to favor it as well.

My interviews suggest that women's close friendships, more than their marriages, engender a mode of individuality that ac-

knowledges interdependence as a condition of and constraint on independent striving. I am proposing that there are two strands of unique influence in friendship. The first is support for individuation and autonomy, which marriage suppresses more through asymmetries of power between men and women. Women's economic dependence on men and the "oedipal asymmetries" of gender personality corrupt the possibilities of mutually recognized subjectivity within marriage. Husbands less often than friends support independent ambitions or endeavors. (The reverse is also true: if wives cannot be autonomous subjects when they support— or mirror—their husbands, then men cannot confirm their individuality in marriage.^[20] This lack of confirmation may be another structural explanation for men's lesser interest in marital self-disclosure.)

The second strand of influence in this scheme is the practice of constraint in friendship. A communal ethic of interdependence is evident in friends' recognition of women's dependence on and responsibility for both friends and family. We shall see in the next section and again in the next chapter that friends help each other to emphasize family responsibility over individual autonomy; they do so by muting the claims of independent friendship and by advocating accommodation in marital problem solving. The communal authority of friendship operates in standards of commitment that place vast areas of personal life within the scope of friends' observation and intervention. As in traditional communities, communal constraint is possible because of mutual knowledge and familiarity.

In the friendship, however, the tension between dependence and autonomy pulls women toward the pole of individualism. As I have shown, friends are most often equals in status with symmetry in relational need and capacity. Their standards of commitment center on the mutual intimacy that highlights individuality and admits dependence. And their rules of relevance strongly enforce both personal liberty and ultimate communal responsibility.

In their closest friendships, women may well create a unique moral voice of community. The dependency friends establish in intimate exchange encourages mutual responsibility, mutual independence, and individual agency. Friends reinforce each other's independence within the context of familial and friendship com-

mitments; they do not develop the stark individualism popularly attributed to modern culture. Neither themes of individuality nor communal obligations predominate, although their balance can certainly vary. Friends know they depend on and have obligations to family. By extending both friends' communal responsibility outside marriage and by invigorating their subjectivity that is easily submerged within marriage, friendship builds and strengthens a communally rooted individuality. Within such bounds, friendship's intimacy, autonomy, mutability, and terminability allow individuation considerable play.