{"id":5790,"date":"2016-05-06T08:45:36","date_gmt":"2016-05-06T13:45:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/?p=5790"},"modified":"2016-09-14T09:48:12","modified_gmt":"2016-09-14T14:48:12","slug":"opening-up-marriage-on-house-of-cards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/2016\/05\/06\/opening-up-marriage-on-house-of-cards\/","title":{"rendered":"Opening Up Marriage on “House of Cards”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Frank<\/a><\/p>\n

Spoiler alert! This season the popular Netflix series \u201cHouse of Cards\u201d got a bit more radical. Main characters and power couple Claire and Frank Underwood are unapologetically, consensually non-monogamous. In fact, sociologist <\/span>Mimi Schippers<\/span><\/a> says the show portrays \u201c<\/span>one of the best television representations of an open\/poly relationship I\u2019ve seen.\u201d In the fourth season, Claire, married to the President of the United States, becomes sexually involved with Thomas Yates, a writer. While many shows depict \u201cextramarital affairs\u201d as inherently negative, \u201cHouse of Cards\u201d Frank\u00a0affirms that Tom\u00a0can “give” Claire things he can’t.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a <\/span>blog post<\/span><\/a> for NYU Press, Schippers argues that the Underwoods go \u201cbeyond\u201d marriage, monogamy, and dominant gender norms. According to research she conducted for her upcoming <\/span>book<\/span><\/a>, men in <\/span>polyamorous<\/span><\/a> relationships tend to shift their understanding of masculinity because they must forgo jealousy and control over the women in their lives. The openly non-monogamous relationships on \u201cHouse of Cards\u201d thus challenge more than just ideas about what relationships should look like. It confronts gendered expectations for men to be competitive and possessive and grants women sexual autonomy, independent of men. <\/span><\/p>\n

[T]he Underwoods distinguish themselves from society\u2019s ideas of the \u201cperfect couple\u201d by being both child-free <\/span>and<\/span><\/i> consensually non-monogamous. They are something else\u2013something beyond \u201cperfect\u201d, beyond marriage, and beyond traditional gender arrangements. Rather than representing bad character or immorality, Claire\u2019s increasingly intimate relationship with Tom and Frank\u2019s enthusiastic acceptance of it (the very definition of polyamory) <\/span>punctuates and solidifies <\/span><\/i>the strength of their marriage as one between equals.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spoiler alert! This season the popular Netflix series \u201cHouse of Cards\u201d got a bit more radical. Main characters and power couple Claire and Frank Underwood are unapologetically, consensually non-monogamous. In fact, sociologist Mimi Schippers says the show portrays \u201cone of the best television representations of an open\/poly relationship I\u2019ve seen.\u201d In the fourth season, Claire, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2020,"featured_media":5791,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,55],"tags":[39112,70,39114,40309,320,1976,2179,19781,99,120,176],"class_list":["post-5790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-gender","tag-culture","tag-family","tag-gender","tag-house-of-cards","tag-marriage","tag-masculinity","tag-monogamy","tag-polyamory","tag-relationships","tag-sex","tag-sexuality"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/files\/2016\/05\/house-of-cards-season-4.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2020"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5790"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5879,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5790\/revisions\/5879"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}