“The course of true love never did run smooth.”

—Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I, scene i

The media seems obsessed with following the lives of famous couples, watching and commenting as relationships run their course from flirting, through initial dating, perhaps marriage and eventually (most often) a horrific, and captivating, messy breakup. At some point in many relationships there will inevitably be a “tragic turn for the worse,” in the language of The E! True Hollywood Story. However, most of the relationships that the media focus on seem somehow unrealistic: They are both movie stars, or one is a supermodel or one is just insanely rich. A refreshing change can be found in Homer and Marge Simpson.

Homer and Marge’s relationship has many qualities that are common in “typical” American relationships. For example, the family consists of two opposite-sex parents, three children (the oldest being a boy, as preferred by most couples according to a Gallup Poll in 1997) and a variety of pets, consisting of mostly dogs and cats (admittedly, there have been some atypical pets, not found in most households, such as Princess the pony, Stampy the elephant and Pinchy the lobster). Marge is a homemaker and Homer maintains a middle-class job from which he gets little sense of purpose. They have annoying in-laws, go through financial hardships and often question each other’s decisions and choices. Although the traditional idea of “family” in America is certainly changing rapidly in the modern world, it is easy  …