Small marital vendettas, useful when you don’t feel too much like arguing

Amelie – in “Fabulous world of Amelie”, directed by director Jean-Pierre Jeunet – specializes in “sweet revenge”: Collignon replaces the odious grocer’s slippers, neatly arranged on the bedside rug, with a pair of the same model and colour, but smaller in size. Sometimes his teasing is so tender that it unlocks his fixations: he steals the garden gnome that his father is so fond of, entrusting it to a hostess who takes polaroids of him against exotic backgrounds and sends greeting cards that the parent collects, chasing away depression . Jean-Claude Kaufmann is a French sociologist who studies coupleswith field research. Several years ago – less precarious times in France – he established that a couple can be said to be such when they buy a washing machine together, ceasing to bring their respective parents’ dirty laundry. Then he studied the early morning that sees the future couple wake up in the same bed and have breakfast. After a microsociology on bare breasts, and a study on women always looking for Prince Charming (an update would be needed after the Nigerian sentimental scams, which follow a precise script) Kaufmann has returned to life in two. Studying the jitters, the irritations, and now the teasing along the lines of Amélie. Title: “Petites vengeances – ou les trahisons positives dans le couple” (editions de l’Observatoire).

Betrayal is a strong word. It is the pique that he or she inflicts on another who has wronged. Keeping them secret, not even confessing them to friends or friends. With the necessary exceptions. In the book, which summarizes 600 interviews on the subject of small spousal vendettas, we find the disgruntled wife who brings together the teachers of the school where she teaches in the “smoking room” (“they are the nicest colleagues”) and entertains them by telling her husband’s defects & misdeeds, amid general laughter. Anyone who has seen the series “The Marvelous Mrs Maisel” recognizes the situation. The 60s: he cheats on her with her secretary who doesn’t know how to use her pencil sharpener, she out of spite in Greenwich Village, becomes a cabaret star thanks to her marital misadventures, and makes friends with Lenny Bruce. “Avenge me, me? Never happened”. It’s the first answer, then digging something comes out. Not everyone and not always feel like arguing, and for certain trifles it’s not even worth it. There remains the desire to let off steam, and to spite your spouse, without him knowing it: even very loved, he is still a different creature from you. Kaufmann gives the example of someone who dips his spoon into the jam, and who puts a single teaspoon into the jar. In France, that’s enough for a culture clash, like cutting camembert into wedges (our food whims are worse, great teasing material).

“He never closes a radio or a light” says the Bella di Lodi in the novel by Alberto Arbasino, speaking of the handsome mechanic Franco. If it’s not the light to turn off, it’s the toothpaste tube that’s causing the fight. The first “amorous” revenge is a good pout. Then the choice is wide. Pretending that the TV doesn’t work when there’s a game: you need a certain dexterity, and sometimes to cause disturbance you just need to choose that moment to vacuum. The “stockings” chapter, already addressed by Kaufmann in “Petite philosophie de la chaussette” is grandiose. Socks thrown in the trash instead of in the washing machine. Or placed on the breakfast table. In a crescendo, there is the “sabotage” chapter: the bed is made, but there is shaving foam between the sheets. Or salt in coffee, or exotic dishes seasoned with pickle pickle.