MARRIAGE DISH
By:
August 29, 2025
Cross-posted from Josh Glenn and Rob Walker’s story telling experiment GIVE IT UP. Earlier this month, GIVE IT UP mounted exhibitions of meaningful objects in venues around Kingston, NY… and asked the general public to help persuade the experiment’s participants to let these objects go.
HILOBROW readers, we need your help! After reading the story here, click on the response link below and share your advice with the author…
When Rob and I purchased our first home together, the sellers each came to the closing with a separate lawyer and sat on opposite ends of the huge glossy table. The ex-husband didn’t make eye contact with anyone. The ex-wife smiled sadly and said, “The soil in the yard is amazing. You can grow anything there.” I had the distinct feeling that they both hated us. (It wasn’t like we held hands at the closing — we weren’t that insensitive — but we were in love with the idea of our new life together, and that was hard to hide.)
That afternoon, we let ourselves into the house, which was empty — except for a small dish I found under the kitchen sink. The shallow kind you might keep on the windowsill, a place to put your rings while you rolled out meatballs. It had a quote in French: Le mariage est un duo et un duel. Marriage is a duet and a duel; there should be enough wiggle room to do battle, but not so much that you end up divorced. “We should keep this,” I told Rob, “as a reminder not to turn into those people.” Newlyweds can be such arrogant pricks.
The dish looked tacky and mass-produced — probably in China — and my heart hurt a little for this estranged couple that had never even made it to Paris. It was years before I caught my misreading. The dish actually says, Le mariage est un duo ou un duel. Marriage is a duet or a duel. You’re supposed to pick just one, I guess.
Not only was I mistaken about the slogan, but I later discovered that the dish is Henriot Quimper pottery, hand-painted in France. This was disappointing; I’d always liked the fact that I had attached such meaning to a piece of tat. It felt more personal.
Two decades on, I’m inclined to think the dish got it right: A couple has to choose between duet and duel. When I was younger, I assumed that choosing the former meant never fighting. But the whole point of a duet is that there are two contrasting parts. Choosing the duet simply means you both agree this isn’t a solo performance.
I am allergic to anything that would qualify as a knickknack or trinket, and now that I’ve learned its lesson, I might be ready to let this misunderstood dish go. For now, I keep it on the windowsill in our kitchen. It’s where I put my rings when I make meatballs.
If you were in Emma’s place, what would you do with the dish? Please SUBMIT YOUR PERSUASIVE RESPONSE HERE.
All GIVE IT UP stories can be found here.