Jan 09 2009
Do We Need to Bother With Marriage Anymore?
One thing I really like about work is my co-workers. They are incredibly intelligent, thoughtful people and they love to talk about serious things. They don’t shy away from anything. A heart like mine that loves to debate looks forward to coming to work with such people. Though I have to say we often have very different opinions, we do often agree as well, on some surprising issues.
Yesterday, the subject of the day was the necessity of marriage. Our little cubicle world split down the middle - on the one side were three married people, and on the other were three unmarried people (although two of the three are in serious, long-term relationships). We talked about the purpose of marriage - the public declaration of commitment, the element of involving the community in holding you accountable for your marriage, the saying of vows to establish security not just for the man and woman but also for any children that come of the relationship.
Now, myself, my view of marriage is in the context of my faith - but yet the concept of marriage is a universal one. Every culture, every religion has a tradition around the exclusive bonding of man to woman and vice versa, for life. Yet, today, that is being questioned. Is it necessary to be “married”? Is not a commitment more meaningful if it is made in private with nobody else’s input factoring in?
One thing that became clear is that people marrying in the past for the wrong reasons has built up this resistance. Because some people have been “forced” to marry against their will, either by parents or sometimes church (sadly), or community, or peer pressure, it has come to be viewed by some as negative. Because there is this connotation of coercion we rebel instinctively against it. If it could be perceived as forced then it must be eschewed. This seems to me to be faulty. Just because some people misuse or misunderstand a tradition is not the best reason to ignore it.
Is a commitment made in private more meaninful, somehow stronger? I think that depends on your view of mankind in general, and yourself in particular. If you view yourself as complete, moral, and truthful; if you view yourself as one who does not change or waver in your commitments; if you view yourself as such a complete individual that you do not need others’ guidance or support, then I would have to agree. If such a man or woman existed, they could truly pull off marriage without the “marriage” as most cultures know it. But the reason that marriage is universal is because deep in our hearts, we all know just how inconstant, changeable, and prone to stupid decisions we are. The Bible calls this “sin” and calls it universal.
Knowing that humanity is prone to all these things, the process of marriage in its basic characteristics becomes common sense. It becomes a reward for all those participating in it. For the man and woman involved, there is real security, knowing that someone is not just saying what you want to hear to get what they want. There is a foundation of trust, knowing that you and your partner share the same respect for and values of a lifelong commitment to each other. This commitment insulates the marriage against challenges and gives you a foundation to lean on in those tough times, like the classic vows “for better or for worse, in sickness and in health”.
Some people think such language is onerous, or burdensome. They want the freedom to be able to get out if they don’t like it, or if they “fall out of love”. If they seriously feel that way, then they aren’t in love. Love is the selfless giving of oneself for another. If you’re thinking of yourself, you are not in love, and you wrong your partner if that is how you feel. They may not feel that way, and if they knew you did, they likely would not be interested in any kind of long-term relationship.
Following from that I think is the real root of most people’s objections to marriage. It’s not that they have a problem with the institution itself. It is that they don’t believe it is even possible to succeed at it anymore. Why try if it is doomed to fail? Any conversation about marriage inevitably features someone bringing up “50% of marriages fail, so why bother?” As I said in that conversation yesterday, this is a statistic that gives a very false impression - a futile impression that reinforces negative predispositions. The real statistics show that if you take all marriages - 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc, then that statistic is true. But if you look in more depth, the chances drop big time. First, the old “50%” number is old. In the USA, divorce rates peaked in the 80’s around 50%, but that number has dropped down to the high 30’s now. Second, all kinds of background indicators, including education, income, and family of origin can be significant in decreasing your chance of divorcing. For myself, because I had a child after I was married (as opposed to before), go to church, my parents are not divorced, I have some college, and I make more than 50k a year, statistically I am 95% less likely to get divorced - to say nothing of my own personal convictions. But even further, the per captia divorce statistic is skewed because people who divorce are statistically much more likely to be serial divorcees. If you have 100 couples who marry, and only 20 get divorced but each remarries 3 times that is 60 divorces for 100 couples - a 60% divorce rate, despite only 20% actually getting divorced. You can see how looking at that statistic in isolation would make you think marriage is doomed, despite 4 out of 5 people having successful marriages.
Some declare that marriage is a waste of time because it is doomed to fail (see above) and it is expensive, so it is better not to marry at all and “save money”. Again, the statistics work against this argument. Common-law separation is not less expensive, and breakups without marriage are not less acrimonious. Lawyers cost the same whether you are married or not. In fact, it is worse, especially for women, because the breakup will not be divided as evenly as in marriage law.
But that is just the statistical reason. Then there is our culture, which continuously reinforces through media and entertainment the commonplace nature of infidelity. We have social scientists telling us all men are apes, and are designed to seek out multiple partners, and women should simply accept it. We are told that “falling out of love” is a valid reason to abandon somebody.
I think, deep down, we feel unlovable - we feel that nobody could possibly love us forever, or stay with us no matter what. So we settle, we make peace with this “reality” and allow others to simply use us. A temporary fix, a salve, to get us through until something better comes along. We accept the platitude that we want to hear, “Really honey. I don’t need to marry you to love you forever…” but the truth is that without marriage, common-law relationships break up at an exponentially higher rate. The odds against a couple going the distance without getting married are 5 times as high as those who marry. The rates of violence and spousal abuse are significantly higher. It is not reasonable to contend that because marriages break up we shouldn’t get married, when cohabitation is so much less stable. If we truly seek stability and safety in our relationships, we should be seeking marriage, and not settling for less. If we’re settling, it’s because of this deep-seated insecurity about our own value and impatience that one will come along and marry us.
But what is the positive case for marriage? The statistics for the positive effects of marriage on personal mental and physical health are numerous. The statistics for the mental and physical health of children of marriage are numerous. The odds of truly having a partner for life are much much greater. The public acknowledgement of your relationship builds trust and intimacy between both partners. The involvement of friends and family in the marriage gives you hearts and minds to lean on, to turn to, to be counselled by when times are tough. If nobody was involved in your wedding, nobody is invested in it either.
I am not saying all weddings need to be big, lavish affairs. That’s another favorite argument of those who don’t view it as necessary - it is too big and expensive. Of course, it is merely a cop-out as everybody knows it is not necessary to “do it big”. If marriage is really important to you, then you will find a way. If it is not important to you, you will allow such excuses to stand in the way. But I hope that with this essay, you will find that marriage is a little more important than you previously thought. Be encouraged! Marriage is alive and well, and a lot more satisfying than popular culture likes to portray.
