Thanks to Broadsheet, or I would have never read the ridiculous but telling comments for this article from a woman who doesn’t want to get married and is perfectly happy “living in sin”. The sheer anger that comes out at her reaffirms my desire not to get married and my suspicion that there’s a “misery loves company” element to all the pressure put on people to join the institution. Even, weirdly, from people who are happy being married but still somehow need everyone else to do it in order to feel more justified in their decision. But less telling! More showing!
If all the customs of marriage are purely for ‘inner emotional’ reasons as Ms. Eslinger assumes, who needs the ring, dress, ceremony, family etc. But, the ring is a reminder of public vows, not a reminder of how someone feels. Feelings vacillate. That’s why you make vows. She wants to shack up, on a semi-permanent basis. What’s new here? It sounds very open-minded, inclusive etc. But what would she say if she found Jeff cheating or ditching her. If she really were the soul mate she claims, she’d feel hurt, betrayed, and want to hold him to a standard of love that is publicly held, “you cheated on me, and lovers don’t do that.”
Pretzel logic argument #1: It’s better, if you find that your lover is a lying, cheating SOB to be entangled in a relationship with him that’s hard to exit. Because it’s not hard enough finding out that your true love is betraying you. You also deserve to suffer the divorce as well. Because…..? Misery loves company strikes me as the only reason.
As I remember from my college days the original meaning of sophomore is ‘wise fool’. Or as one of my professors used to put it ‘a person who has read one book too few.’ Which is exactly how I feel about this article. Another sophomore who has just discovered something that has been tried countless times before and is now going to enlighten the rest of us. Apparently Bonnie slept through most of her history classes otherwise she would have learned that this idea was tried during the 60s and 70s along with a number of other ‘with-it’ and ‘tuned -in’ relationship twists. Notice how many of them are still being practiced. You’re about thirty years late with this one, Ms. Eslinger. We’ve already seen this one. Now grow up and join the rest of us in the real world. Oh, by the way, if I remember correctly after a certain length of time living with someone constitutes a common law ‘marriage’. Good try though.
Translation: I’m going to treat you like a fool because you put the energy into thinking about your life choices, because it’s a hell of a lot easier admitting that I did what I was told and was too afraid to ask questions. Harrumphing: The easy way to feel smart, without having to do the work of being smart.
Sounds to me like a bash against the institute of marriage. I have been married for 23 years, am committed for life and have a silly piece of paper. Yes the divorce rates are high but then again there are no statistics as to the rate that poeple simply walk away from a relationship, which Jeff could do at any time.
Fuck love. What you need is a bear trap.
One of the silliest stories I have ever read in My Turn. It sounds like Bonnie’s personal rant against marriage carries extreme undertones of personal self-affirmation.
What women need to do: Less trying to feel like worthy people, more submitting graciously to male power and social pressure.
I am a straight married woman and I feel that my relationship with my husband is more intimate, defined, and beneficial than it was when we were just living together. I have always gotten a lot of crap for being young and married, like I somehow gave up my feminist principles. But isn???t the point of feminism to let women make their own decisions in life? I made the decision to get married because I found my life partner, not because of ???society???. And society can mind their own business when I decide to be a stay-at-home mom for a couple of years too. Again, being a feminist means I have the choice to work or not work, and I will choose not to.
God save us from where this was going if she had more room in the comment box. “Yes, my husband laughs at me and says, ‘Shut up with that feminist stuff and make me a sandwich!’, but isn???t my feminist choice to serve him drinks??? on all 4s??? with a tray on my back???? Isn????t feminism about choices?”
While I fully respect the author’s decision to reject legal marriage, the only argument she makes against it that I do not find offensive is her statement about the exclusion of gay couples from the institution. Everything else was belittling, presuming that all married people need a formal marriage ceremony to feel good about themselves and their relationship.
Judging from the tone of the comments, what married people seem to need is not in fact their own formal ceremony, but everyone else to get married. Of course, tedious disclaimer, not all married people etc. but certainly the ones who get all pissed off because some 42-year-old woman writes an article about how she doesn’t want to get married.
Reading this article saddened me for the author. She should count the times she chose to use “I, me, and my” throughout the course of her writing. Marriage is about commitment to the other person, and Bonnie is clearly thinking only of herself and manipulating the definition of marriage to suit her agenda. Being married is satisfying and beautiful when both parties are committed to the process, and a “piece of paper” does NOT define what a marriage should be. It does, however, show that you are willing to let go of yourself a little bit, in order to become a unit with your spouse.
I get the suspicion that in this guy’s world, you get married by hatching from a pod.
What a bunch of bull. This has been one of the most disappointing articles I have read on Newsweek thus far. What young girl doesnt dream of getting married and having a family. Ofcourse, as we get older, priorities change and goals do to. However, one thing I do honor is marriage and what it represents.
So, get married because little girls dream about it, even though you grow older and your priorities change, you should still get married whether you think it’s a good idea or not to honor a dream that you admit you grew out of (and was instilled into you as a kid for unsavory, patriarchal reasons). Got it. I can’t wait to get married and do my part to perpetuate the indoctrination of little girls into the patriarchy, if that’s really what marriage is about.
All of her excuses are what one would call a cop out. I am all about same sex marriages, not just unions and everyone having the right to choose a partner. But I am so tired of people who are commitment phobic using that as an excuse not to be married until ‘we are all equal’.
She’s “copping out” of marriage. Do people really “cop out” of things that are positive for them, as marriage is touted as being for its participants? You don’t cop out on orgasms, ice cream, or roller coasters. You cop out of going to parties with bores, taking on extra work assignments, and apparently getting married to quell the doubts of others about the wisdom of their own decisions. If marriage isn’t about making people happier, then I really don’t see the point of it. The arguments of most of these comments are based around the idea that you submit to the institution because it’s an institution and you just do. Because if people quit submitting to the institution then there wouldn’t be an institution, and then there wouldn’t be an institution! The tautological existence of so many institutions confounds me.
None of which is to bash people who get married by any stretch. There’s logical reasons to do it, and there’s emotional reasons. The fact that having someone willing to stand up and marry you is pretty validating, especially for women, who’ve been told our whole lives that our value as romantic partners and sex objects is the end-all, be-all of our existence. (Thus the “little girls dream of this” stuff.) I’m not immune to the allure of making it official; so far I have held back because I’m not at all convinced that the trade-off is worth it. I think some people get married after thinking it through and realizing what they’re buying with it (not just validation, but a set of rights and economic changes) is worth the high risks of divorce, feeling trapped, the raised possibility of taking someone for granted. I think most people get married still, though, without even looking at some of the hard questions. If everyone who married did so after thinking about it long and hard, our divorce rate would be a lot lower. But fat chance that happening—even bring up the question, and people pull out every trick in the book to guilt trip you out of even talking about it. These comments were mostly about fidelity to institutions over people, which disturbs me.
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Even, weirdly, from people who are happy being married but still somehow need everyone else to do it in order to feel more justified in their decision.
These are often the same people who think everybody must be HETEROSEXUALLY married or civilization will topple like a house of cards.
I am all about same sex marriages, not just unions and everyone having the right to choose a partner. But I am so tired of people who are commitment phobic using that as an excuse not to be married until ‘we are all equal’.
I know of long-time cohabiting heterosexual couples who busted up over this issue. One or the other had at one time said “when gays can marry …” thinking it would never happen, while the other bought in out of a larger sense of justice. Then it happened and suddenly the qualifiers came out, and breakups ensued.
Not that it didn’t happen to gay couples, but anybody who uses that line better be ready to make good! Otherwise, it is manipulation.
Right on.
I was happily married (widowed now) but don’t agree with the “better defined” crap. It IS crap. We weren’t more committed to each other after we married, we married because we were already committed to each other. If other people don’t want the piece of paper (or the legal entanglements) who gives a shit?
I think there’s this weird blind fear of someone else getting more than oneself in these comments. More happiness, more sex, more choice. If a woman’s unmarried but has a guy staying with her voluntarily (they think), what does that say about women who really want that ring on their finger? What does that say about men who secretly think a woman won’t really want them if they have a choice? (Then they drag out the “think of the children” stuff).
If people aren’t adult enough to sort out the difference between actual commitment and enforced, legislated duty, they shouldn’t be making commitments in the first place.
That’s a funny story, Ms Kate. I may have to steal it.
In France, the losing candidate Ségolène Royal was never married to the father of her children. No voters cared about that.
The winner Nicolas Sarkozy is twice divorced and now going out with an ex-model. He even took her to the Vatican when he met the Pope. What hypocrisy on his and the Pope’s side. But no one cares about these things except some who think that Sarkozy is putting on a show.
Here is an interview with great American artist R. Crumb and his equally artist wife who moved to France long ago. They talk about open marriage.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7382111
I guarantee you that this is not suitable for xian broadcasting.
I just wrote (on my little low readership blog) about my decision not to marry, even though I do have a partner who is the father of our children. Although I did complain about the menz, I in no way suggested that other women should not marry. But it got taken that way.
Also, I got the comments of “Well, then you only must know a bunch of assholes! There are great men out there!” Which was confusing because I did talk about how my partner and some of my male friends are very non-asshole-y. I don’t like the “you must know a bunch of assholes” thing when talking about how I haven’t found a guy worth marrying (which in my case, is more about marraige itself than finding the guy.) I think it is a convenient way to say, “you must be no good since you only know assholes. I have a great guy! Worth Marrying! So I must be better than YOU!”
BTW, link: http://twinklelittlestar.typepad.com/letter/2007/12/the-post-about.html
*Love* the post title! Best Freaks reference I’ve seen in a long time.
Not just that, but also that strange resentment you see from people who think that if you don’t subscribe to their worldview, you are getting away with something. They don’t like it, not one bit.
If you don’t want to get married, then please don’t; but I do think there’s an aspect of marriage that can only be appreciated from the inside.
As I guy I can’t help but speak from a position of privilege, but it’s not clear to me that I’d be fundamentally less privileged if my wife and I were just cohabitating. At least, not in any way that my wife doesn’t share as well. Our relationship is certainly privileged by virtue of it being “official.”
Living with another human being is hard. If that human being is someone you want to have in your life in the long-term, it’s inevitable that one or both of you are going to go through a period where you’re so pissed off at each other that it’s hard to remember you wanted that long-term arrangement.
Creating an obstacle to breaking up - the hassle of divorce - can act as a buffer against doing something rash in response to a temporary feeling or situation. I think as human beings we’re improved by that kind of long-term closeness to another person, and so it’s a net benefit to have level of relationship that’s a little harder to get out of.
But I understand that others may not agree. I’d never pressure someone into marriage. If it fits into your idea of the life you want to lead, do it. If it doesn’t, then don’t. The pressure that comes from society and from married people is dangerous and stupid.
I think most people get married still, though, without even looking at some of the hard questions. If everyone who married did so after thinking about it long and hard, our divorce rate would be a lot lower.
Agree totally. It’s the most cliched advice to suggest that you shouldn’t rush into it, because it’s true advice. Of course, part of the problem is that our culture really doesn’t provide much of a model for how that conversation about marriage is supposed to go, or what the hard questions should really be.
Instead the subject is loaded with a whole lot of garbage about “you know when you know” and “every little girl wants to get married” and “if you’re afraid of marriage, you’re a commitment-phobe and you should just get over it.” It’s no wonder that hardly anybody feels like they can enter into a marriage having made a free and considered choice.
This presupposes that monogamy is the only way to live and that humans are hard wired to have monogamous expectations in relationships.
What if women want to have open relationships?
Ms. Kate–
I think you’ve found a major reason why people are so enraged at the thought that some couples would prefer to live together without getting married. Because if marriage isn’t the greatest thing in the world, what’s the fun of excluding people that you don’t like from the institution.
By challenging the notion that all loving couples ought to get married, Eslinger threatens to take the sting out of excluding gays from marriage.
I forgot to mention - you get presents when you get married.
So, you know, there’s that. Presents.
Breaking up once you’ve been in a long-time relationship isn’t easy, regardless of whether or not the state is involved officially. Amy and I have been together 7 years now–longer than either of us were married–and if we split up, we’d have as much if not more drama than when either of us got divorced the first time, because we have more invested in this relationship now. To act as though marriage creates that much more of an obstacle to breaking up a long-term relationship is simplistic at best.
*raises hand* Honestly I didn’t even think about marriage until my sister got married and showed me what a disaster it can be if you don’t think about it and just do what your boyfriend and his family want you to do. They even showed me how superficial the commitment of marriage really is. Their divorce happened almost exactly a year after their wedding, it took less then a month, and neither had to hire lawyers. I think my mom put it best when she said marriage isn’t really a commitment. The only real commitments are buying a house or having kids together. Kids being the biggest commitment ‘cause even if you never marry or if you do and get divorced, you still usually have to deal with the other parent as long as everyone’s still alive.
It’s sort of amazing to me how defensive the commenters are. The article itself seemed to be her writing a personal piece about her own life and what she felt like was the best decision for her and her partner. I didn’t feel like she was passing judgment on anyone else. She was perhaps complaining a bit about others passing judgment on her, but that’s a very justified complaint. I certainly hate it when people (especially family members) assume my boyfriend is a commitment-phobe who’s taking advantage of my good nature. It doesn’t seem to matter to them that it was my idea to shack up.
The legal deck is stacked against people who don’t get married, which is about the only legitimate argument against your decision. But rather than brow beat you into tying the knot, I’d rather work towards a legal system that only recognizes civil unions for all and marriage for none.
RE: obstacle to breaking up.
Its kind of patronizing isn’t it? The thing about not being married is that it is somewhat related as to how much you’ve put into it as to how hard it is to get out of. If you’ve just been dating a few months, it is usually easy to walk away. If you’ve been living together for years and have children together, it is just about as messy to leave as if you were married. There is a nice symetry to that.
The other thing about having the freedom to leave a relationship as you see fit instead of following arbitrary government set-up red tape procedures is that you have power in deciding how it is going to go down. Some people arguably NEED to get out of a marriage as fast as possible and formal divorce procedings create a dangerous barrier to that. Other times, perhaps a separation makes you see that you want to be together again. If you are not married, no problem. If you have already filed for legal separation and divorce, it is a bit of a mess. I don’t think there is that much of an argument for a government buffer. If you personally use the marriage buffer as a method of intervention during the tough times in your relationship, fine. But there are other effective ways to push yourself to “stick it out.”
Many of us have heard a teenager explaining why marriage is obsolete, and I’m typically suspicious that these essays are going to be a tired retread of what we’ve heard before. On the other hand, the essay was clearly honest and written after much thought on the matter, and the author answered a lot of questions I always had about why people don’t immediately think of marrying their long term partners. She either doesn’t see her long-term partner as a part of her family, in the same way her parents and siblings are family, or she doesn’t associate family with having all of the binding ties that marriage entail and views all relationships as essentially “chosen.” In the latter (more likely) case, the clear demarcation a lot of us have that divides relationships between “family” and “not family” (and where spouses are clearly “family” and other romantic entanglements not) is something she just doesn’t have.
she felt like was the best decision for her and her partner.
Well, her partner wanted to get married. It was she who didn’t see the point. Obviously, her lack of interest in marriage was not a show-stopper for their relationship, but it wasn’t as though this was a mutually agreed decision. It’s just that her desire to not marry was stronger than his desire to get married, and he figured that it wasn’t worth ending the relationship over if not getting married was what made her happy.
I’m a little embarrassed to be married. The commitment came when we ditched duplicate books and CDs, when we both signed the mortgage, when we decided to have a kid. (Well, long before that last one, thanks) Getting a license and some tipsy JP was irrelevant to those things, and to the difficulty of untangling our affairs.
There is something, I think, to be said for the idea of marriage as a public ceremony. It’s nice to have a party where all your friends get to celebrate your relationship intentions with you. But none of that requires civil or religious sanction — it’s a symptom rather than a cause.
( think that the christians who talked about the sacrament of marriage were right in a way that they didn’t fully understand — it is indeed an outward sign of an inward grace. And it’s the inward stuff that’s important, the outward signs are just that.)
I’m happily married, and I can honestly say that being married feels a lot different than cohabitating. It’s hard to explain, but it’s there. That said, I don’t care if other people get married or not, and I’ve tried to subtly discourage my friends from rushing into marriage (as several have).
I’ve felt for awhile that it should be harder to get legally married. Not in the sense of restrictive, but that you have to sign a bunch more papers (say, acknowledging you’ve discussed finances, children, whatever) and have a mandatory waiting period. We make people go through huge hoops for every other life event, why not marriage? I think if it were harder to get married, it’d discourage marrying on a whim and the divorce rate would subsequently go down.
Wow. After reading the comments you posted, I clicked the link to the article expecting a harsh anti-marriage diatribe, not the reasonable article I found.
Uh huh. Here, how about this:
There, fixed it for him.
Oh, by the way, if I remember correctly, common law marriage is a vanishing institution in many states; in those places you’ll spend more time in court proving your pretend, no-longer-assumed marriage requires a divvy-ing up of the goods then you would getting a divorce.
So sorry, your trap is less effective than you thought. Good try though.
If marriage sucks so much why do gays want the right so badly? Just to emulate their heterosexual friends? No. Marriage affords benefits that livng together does not(community property, custody, insurance, taxes, etc…). Watch a week’s worth of Judge Judy, the majority of the cases are couples who lived together, now breaking up and fighting over stuff.
You can get married without all the frippery.
Forest for the Trees, pablo, Forest for the Trees.
Hehehe. Good one, Ross.
I’m with Ashley. I’ve been married to a man for a few months, and I love it; it feels different to me in a positive and fulfilling way.
But I don’t give two flying figs if any other hetero couple friends of mine get married.
Sometimes the highly-accurate “you don’t have to get married to be a happy woman!” message gets distorted into a “you’d have to be an automaton robot shell of a woman to get fulfillment out of a heterosexual marriage!” message by the end of the paragraph, which puts hetero married feminist women like me on the defensive. This post does NOT devolve into that sort of simplified either/or argument. Amanda is careful not to suggest that marriages are inherently miserable; they just appear to be miserable for many of the people who insist that others get married.
But it’s easy to adopt a patronizing “oh lady, you only THINK you want to get married” or “you’re not a REAL feminist” tone when this topic comes up. Trust women to make the decisions that they want to make. I trust women to handle their unwanted fetuses, and I want to extend that trust to women in their (non-abusive) relationships. I’m not accusing any posters here of being patronizing; I just think it’s easy to do if you’re not double-checking your language, and it’s a pattern I’ve been exposed to in the past all around the Internets.
That said, all the magical fairy unicorn princess slop in bridal magazines gives me the willies.
I think after I’m done planning my wedding (I’m already legally married, but we’re doing a more conventional wedding gathering, too) I’d like to write a mini-guide on how I pulled off a vegan, gender-equal, semi-affordable wedding.
I forgot to mention - you get presents when you get married.
So, you know, there’s that. Presents.
The carrot to the pressure stick. The ugly truth is that the tradition of giving a newlywed couple a bunch of stuff is quickly becoming problematic, because most couples, by the time they marry, don’t need that stuff. I think one of the penny-dropping moments in my life was going to a wedding shower of a young bride and her older sister was griping that she also needed these things when she set up her own household, but no one stepped up. And she had a really great point. What’s harder to pull off and more worthy of congratulations? Getting someone to marry you or being a young woman in a harsh world (West Texas) who nonetheless manages to put together a life for herself without a man coming in and doing it for you? Hint: The latter. Contrary to the hand-wringing articles about the plague of singlehood, getting married is more common than cavities.
Also chiming in with Brian: Ending a long-term relationship is rarely easy. I think, however, for people who really do need to get out immediately, having the option to do so is a real blessing. When my ex and I broke up, I was incredibly glad to have the ability to get out relatively quickly, which wouldn’t have been the case if we’d married.
Several comments say she’s “condescending,” as if telling other people what she thinks and feels is the same as telling others how to think. This happens a lot when a woman says something that isn’t smothered in statements like “maybe I’m the only one, but,” or “this is my opinion only,” or “you might think something else,” or “I could be wrong,” or “you’re entitled to your own ideas on this.” Just expressing her opinion is threatening.
Others focus on how she seems unemotional to them. They equate not wanting to get married with not really having an emotional relationship with Jeff. It’s like Leora said — the suggestion is that she’s not with the right guy, or wedding bells would be ringing and she would not be able to resist.
There’s the one commenter who was a nurse and traveled the world, then she met a guy and all she wanted to do was be his wife. It wasn’t the most important thing — it was the only thing. Wow. I mean, I guess I could maybe see that, if he was Mozart or something, and you were granted 24X7 access to the music as he is writing it. Maybe. Or if he were literally God.
Another one chides her for not describing how Jeff feels about the whole thing. Holy shit. The article is called “my turn,” not “my turn which I will use to describe the views of someone else.”
The ‘you know when you know’ thing in the comments is particularly galling. My partner would very much like to get married, and I’m hesitating, largely because I don’t “know”. I blame equal parts the idea that one must be self-certain in this way (I’m not that self-certain about *anything*) and the standard-patriarchy-issue lack of male emotional self-knowledge.
Ok, I’m going to have to say that I think she’s naive at best, and probably should get married. Here’s my reason:
They can’t just “break-up” At best, they’re jointly and severably liable for a mortgage. Someone’s (usually) sunk a fair bit of money into a down payment. Right now, if things go south, I don’t think that she’ll get out of it without a court fight at least as bad as a no-fault divorce.
She keeps arguing that a marriage license is just a “piece of paper” but deciding to pass on the rights it confers because “And for me, that’s the bottom line when I consider cashing in on all the benefits our heterosexual relationship is entitled to. My gay friends can’t do that.”
Perhaps she and Jeff, like her gay friends, have gone to a lawyer (or lawyers) to obtain legal documentation for everything they can - legal and medical proxy, estate planning, etc. etc. I doubt it. I think that if they;d had to go through that she’d have written a very different essay.
And for all her talk about not needing a wedding, which is I think the most sensible part of the piece, she wants one. I can’t think of what else you’d call a:
So she wants the ceremony, without the dress and the tradition but with the family and celebration, and doesn’t want teh paper. I think she needs to explain that. Especially before she finds herself in court demanding her fair share of her house.
Actually, one of the reasons I got married is that it protects my rights if we break up. I worked while he was in grad school, I’m not working while our kid is young - a formal divorce process will offer me a lot more protection if our relationship ends.
I agree with Paul, by the way. My husband and I own a house together, we have a child, we own cars in both our names. Our music and videos and books are shelved together. That was commitment. Marriage was about taxes, wills, and medical power of attorney.
Well, and living up to familial expectations.
I can’t claim to be an expert since we’ve only been married a little over a year, but I do agree with the other married posters that being married is Different than living together. That said, it’s not a reason to insist that everyone is better off married. It’s not one size fits all, and people who don’t want to get married shouldn’t be pressured into it.
weird. in my experience, living together and being married have been entirely the same thing. at first people kept asking me (some still do) ‘wow, so what’s it like being married?’
well, pretty much like being single, actually, except it’s easier to file taxes, and when one of us has a job offering health insurance, the other can get insured too.
seriously no difference. at all.
maybe we’re doing it wrong?
It’s okay to want the ceremony without the paper and the tradition. I never dreamed of getting married and could have continued to cohabitat happily for years if something hadn’t come up that made it a practical necessity. Our ceremony was distinctly low key. That said, it was awesome to have a party where everyone you care about is there telling you how much they love the both of you and what a wonderful life they hope you have. I basked in the glow of it for weeks. I don’t see why people should have to enter into a legally binding institution that they don’t care for just to have a party.
But it’s funny how societal norms play with your head. Anytime I hear my husband say “We got hitched so we could serve together in the Peace Corps,” I flinch. I flinch even though he was the one who wanted to get married and I was the one who didn’t, and if we could have served together without getting married, we would have put it off a few more years at least (until one of us needed health insurance from the other, probably).
I think a lot of the hostility directed at the author of the essay — like Carrot’s comment, above, that she “needs” to explain something (to whom? to us? to America? to God?) — comes from her making clear that the man in the picture offered her marriage and she *turned it down*. So now, in a way, *she’s* the one getting the marital-style milk for free! oh noes!
I think the current conventional wisdom on living together is that it is okay if the woman is pretending to be “liberated” about it but the rest of us can secretly think she’s just coping as best she can with her fella’s refusal to commit, or (better) just waiting for him to pop the question and maneuvering him toward that conclusion, like, she may be silly for giving away all that free milk but, after all, poor darlin, she’s powerless either way, really.
While in this case — the man said he’d BUY her milk! And she said, no thanks! Let’s have a party instead! I mean, how presumptuous is that? She sure has got a lot of splainin to do.
I also think being married is subtly different than living together, but not all those differences are good ones. I do think it’s easier to take someone for granted when you’re married. I’m not saying it has to be that way, but I think for a lot of people, myself and my husband included, you have to work harder to not fall into that trap. I thought we were better and bigger than that, but these things can affect you in ways you don’t expect.
I agree with Mnemosyne. Being married is different than living together, but perhaps it isn’t for everyone. Marriage now is a legal institution, and in this day and age this is important. I now wish that we had “civil unions.” I was careful not to get married in a church or with clergy because I did not want my marriage caught up in that religious stuff.
every relationship-y step my significant other and i have taken makes the relationship feel “different”. it felt different when i quit my job to move where he was, it felt different when we moved in together, it felt different when we recently moved into one-bedroom instead of two-bedroom, it felt different when we discussed exchanging powers of attorney. i imagine that actually exchanging powers of attorney will feel different than all of that, too.
i bet this “marriage is just different” mantra is related to the relationship-y step feeling.
Heh. Rachel, I was going to ask “why” marriage is different/feels different, and wonder if it’s not because there’s something so different about marriage, but because we have expectations of marriage that makes it feel different than living together.
I am very much like the author of that article– although I’m 26, not 42, so obviously she has a bit more life experience. But I have no desire to get married– I love my partner, but I just don’t want to marry. In March, we will have been living together for two years, which means we will be officially considered “de facto”, which where I live, means you have most of the same protections as marriage.
I have had friends get defensive, because I think that they interpret “I don’t believe in marriage for myself” as “I don’t believe in your marriage”– when what I really believe is that consenting adults should be able to define their relationships for themselves.
Amanda wrote:
I haven’t read everything you’ve written, so maybe you’ve mentioned it before, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen you mention that the idea of getting married has at least some attraction for you.
But what is the negative trade-off? You mentioned being able to get out “reasonably quickly” with an ex-boyfriend, but unless you and your current boyfriend have maintained everything very separately, breaking up after a long period of living together is still a physical and economic nightmare. God help you if you bought a house together!
weird. in my experience, living together and being married have been entirely the same thing. at first people kept asking me (some still do) ‘wow, so what’s it like being married?’
It was pretty weird waking up from surgery and finding out that the doctor had G. authorize a nerve blocker that the doctor and I had discussed but he hadn’t actually officially written down as something I had consented to. It’s odd that someone is suddenly your next of kin and has that kind of power. (It was fine because G. remembered us discussing it and that I wanted it, but it was still weird.)
The wedding itself didn’t do much for the feeling of “being married,” but that realization did.
this is such a timely topic, i was just talking about it with friends last night.
for me, a lot if the reason i won’t marry is because i’m not sure what benefit is in it for me. if i can save money on taxes/healthcare because of it, how much money are we talking about? 9 thousand? 35,000? 80,000? that amount of money ….. it doesn’t exist, if that makes sense. we’re doing fine without the additional 9 - 80,000 dollars, i don’t imagine what my life would be like if i had an extra 9-80k to my name. and as far as i can tell, losing 80k dollars in order to avoid being oppressed by a formal institution is a pretty decent deal.
unless there’s another benefit i’m missing, money won’t buy happiness. neither will marriage.
Being married does feel different than not being married. It hasn’t changed my relationship with my husband at all since we got married because we already had a commitment to each other. For ourselves, a marriage doesn’t mean much. We had a “commitment ceremony” just the two of us where we promised to stay together and take care of each other. It wasn’t legal, it wasn’t public, and it was enough.
But we wanted to celebrate our relationship with our families. Up until our wedding, our families had held back getting attached to us as a couple because of the possibility of a break-up. It would hurt them to come to think, for example, of my husband as family and then have him not there anymore. Our wedding was a way for us to publicly show them our commitment, to let them participate in our commitment, and to merge our families. It was also a way for our extended families to meet and come to think of each other as related.
And like I said, it feels different to have that acceptance of us as a family unit of our own - not just from our relatives, but also from society at large.
Not to mention all the other privileges, like being able to have my husband pick up my mail when I’m too busy because we finally have the same last name. And, of course, the presents
For us, marriage was the best choice. I was never one of those little girls who dreamed of a wedding and, in fact, we opted out of the whole ring thing. We thought about it long and hard and picked the traditions we liked and those we didn’t and I encourage everyone to do the same. I think one of the worst things you can do for yourself is go along with something just because “that’s how it’s done.”
I’m going to have to disagree with the other happily marrieds in the comments. I don’t feel that there’s anything different about being married versus living together. As I’ve said to many people, we still have the same relationship as before, we just have these rings on our fingers now. I do, however, notice that we get treated differently. By our families, by our landlords, by our friends and so forth. We’re treated as if our relationship were “real,” whereas before people didn’t quite know what to make of us. To those others on the board who are commenting that marriage has changed things: could it be that what you are feeling comes from without - in other words that what you are feeling is a reaction to the increased acceptance you get from those around you? I’m not making a pronouncement, I’m just wondering.
I have to say, as someone who is unhappily married, that I wish the institution that we currently know as marriage would just end. I would much rather see kind of civil union, perhaps with a time limit so that you have to renew every few years or so. My experience with both “living in sin” and being married is that once you get married it is way too easy for patriarchal expectations to creep into your marriage. At the very least, I wish marriage was easier to get out of.
I think the increased acceptance from others could be part of it. I also think some of us internalize those things. I grew up very secular and very little emotional baggage around the idea of marriage and no pressure from family. My husband grew up in a very religious family and had a lot of pressure and also, if this isn’t TMI, some hang-ups about sex outside of marriage. Those hang-ups were greatly reduced well before we got married, to the point that I thought he had dealt with it 100 percent. But from this side of the thing, I can say he had only dealt with it 97 percent of the way. So one of the positive “subtle differences” was him finally letting go of whatever inhibitions were left. I bet there are women out there who have gone through a similar transition.
Also, for those saying they notice no difference, how many of you have been married a long time? I ask this question with utmost sincerity and no snarkiness. Cause if you had asked me in my first year of marriage, I would have told you “no difference.” Conversely, I’m sure a relationship with a mortgage and a kid and demanding jobs and chronic health problems would feel different than those first few years of living together whether we tied the knot or not. So who the hell knows?
Chingona - I’ve been married for a little over a year and a half and, in our private relationship, I can’t say that I’ve noticed a difference. Of course, as you say, we don’t have kids or a mortgage. I think it may be that this is the difference you are perceiving, not the marriage. The fact that you didn’t notice a difference for the first year either suggests this to be the case.
I think what I’ve learned from this post and this thread is that, unless you’re harming someone or something else, you’re really under no obligation to explain your choices to The World. I think, as a rule, I’m just going to lay off people. If you’re not being a douche or contributing to global warming or abusing children, it’s none of my business.
Bonnie Eslinger, the author of the Newsweek article, has been put in an awful position by societal convention to have to defend herself for a non-action. Similarly, at least one comment in this thread has said that people who feel different once their relationship is made legal are just reacting to cultural expectations about marriage, implying both that this feeling isn’t authentic and that we need to defend this feeling.
I think women are especially susceptible to men (and women) who feel entitled to question women’s decisions. There’s a lot of head-patting when women make choices that don’t involve fashion. “Are you SURE you’ve thought that one through, sweetie? Oh well, it’s a phase.” When was the last time a man had to write an article defending his choice not to get married?
Also, I think it’s important to distinguish individual choices from cultural trends. I think it’s completely appropriate to chide society for guilting women into, say, staying home and making babies, while it’s not productive or appropriate to pick on individual women for staying home if they so choose.
I’m sure her age has something to do with the reaction to her. She might have been getting more of a head-patting “Oh, you’ll change your mind” sort of response were she 15 years younger.
But 42? My God, doesn’t she know this is her last chance???
Marriage is one of the patriarchy’s many fungo-bats. If you do it (and you are a woman), there are subtle rewards. If you do not, there are not-so-subtle reminders that you are not doing as you should. The writer is getting some of those reminders.
The one reward that I appreciate when it happens and resent the hell out of later, is my parents are less likely to bring their shit to my spouse and I’m usually not visiting them without him. They also treat me like more of an adult after marrying, because moving across the country, getting advanced degrees, building a life was not adult but speaking some vows to a man is. It’s just like Amanda argued in an earlier post, women do not get to be adults simply by being adults in our culture. I find it infuriating that my folks believe as they do, but I’m thankful they finally act better towards me now that I’m almost getting in line (I would really get to be a grown up if I pushed some infants out of my vagina-not going to happen).
Wasn’t much of a choice in our case - if we wanted to live together, we had to get hitched. My wife’s employer, the United Methodist Church, gets pretty damn worked up about their clergy cohabitating.
At least that’s not a concern for the vast wide majority of Americans any longer.
Grimalkin - or could it just be that it takes more time for patriarchy to work its insidious magic?
On the other side of Marriage is Somehow Different, I present my father-in-law. I know that saying “I don’t want to be married anymore” is one of the major cliches of our time and is often followed up by a quick rebound marriage, but he really, genuinely disliked being married. He didn’t like the sense of obligation towards his spouse that he felt was put on him and was different than the obligations he felt towards his children. He has happily dated and cohabited since the divorce, but he didn’t like the person he became when he got married, so he will not remarry. Ever.
Creeping patriarchy may be a bit part of the answer.
To everyone declaring that feeling different after being married is an insincere reaction to cultural expectations that this is how we should feel, I have bad news for you: EVERYTHING we think and feel is determined by outside forces at one point or another. Every last thing, from where we live to what we wear to who we sleep with to what we eat. Some people are investing a lot of effort into constructing a hierarchy of whose feelings are the most authentic. Choosing the unconventional path doesn’t automatically mean that your choices are more genuine.
Grrr, stop deciding that because you don’t feel a certain way that others who do feel that way are victims of social pressure. (And thanks to those who posed their queries nicely. I mean that.)
I sympathize with Rocket Girl’s comment, while at the same time I’m irritated by the assumption that marriage itself is to blame for patriarchy and gender inequality infiltrating a relationship. If both partners in a het relationship are dedicated to equality (and I think it takes more work on part of the man because he stands to gain the most by following the status quo) before a marriage, there’s no reason this should change after a few papers are signed.
Marriage is like abortion. If you don’t like it, don’t get one. (Man, I’m sounding grumpy today! I think I’m getting caught up in that need-to-defend-your-choices thing.)
I really enjoy the thought that we’re not allowed to expect fidelity from men we didn’t get a ring from. So nice.
Obviously, I”m one of the happily married peeps. We’ve been married a year, but were practically married from about 3 months into our relationship. It progressed very quickly, and now 3.5 years later it’s still going well.
I didn’t feel any different right away. It took probably 6 months of marriage before things felt, well, married. In that time we bought a house, I had 2 miscarriages, and we were dealing with friend drama. I’m sure that stuff brought us closer together, but we had had medical and personal issues before that again, brought us closer together.
While in a lot of ways I’m not very traditional, I very much wanted marriage and a wedding. I wanted the public recognition of our commitment, though we did do it in our own rather non-traditional way (I’m a wedding planner now, and I tend to work more with unconventional and budget brides. Non-evil wedding people do exist!). There’s somethign different about waking up every morning next to your spouse, feeling more secure and attached than just committed cohabitation.
And I found that our relationship got MORE feminist post-marriage. Because we’re stuck with each other we’ve had to work on things that I was largely ignoring before, and it’s gone well. The chore division is much more equitable now that everything is “ours” vs. “mine and his,” we are more committed to working out our issues, etc.
For us it wasn’t the legal paper, as we had that 8 months before we were engaged (needed financial aid). It was the public commitment. It would have been the same without the legal papers, but the convenience is awfully nice.
Oh, and I want to mention that you mentioned my hubby here today. He’s Hob from Taser of the Day.
And he tried posting a comment to that entry but it got eaten.
Okay, here’s a totally random Freaks question that’s bothered me for years: why do I hear “gooble-gobble, one of us!” when people on the East Coast (like the Ramones) hear “gabba-gabba, one of us”?
That has bugged me for years.
Full disclosure…married very young. I like being married and I would not have had our children outside of the institution. That’s just me.
But I’m 50 in late 2008, wildly menopausal and downright cranky. And as a thought experiment…I recently wondered that if I’d not been so keen to send the genes downrange and knowing what I know now…would I have been eager for marriage?
Cranky me says no. Nor would I have gone with cohabitation. Frankly, if I have to put up with half his bills, half his mess, all of his indifference to some things that are important to me, restrictions and demands on time that would otherwise belong to me, not to mention sex when I don’t want it…why go there?
Were we unmarried and childless…separate domiciles would suit me fine.
Crankier full disclosure…we are four years into major homestead renovations, and my head is about to explode.
kidlacan, I’ve been married for 15 years and it still feels the same as the 4 years we lived together before that. We’ve been best friends since the day we met; 20 years ago this August 10th at 8:45 pm. (Is that sappy or what?)
“there’s a “misery loves company” element to all the pressure put on people to join the institution. Even, weirdly, from people who are happy being married but still somehow need everyone else to do it in order to feel more justified in their decision. ”
-Same thing happens with kids: couples with children feel the need to pressure other married couples into parenthood. Usually when their own child is making everyone in the room reconsider the whole question of offspring, they turn to the childless couple, either asking, “When are you two going to start a family?” or saying, “Wait till you have kids of your own!” Note: telling them to fuck off is the fastest way to get them to stop, but does tend to alienate them…
I would dearly love to tell some child-happy types to fuck off, but I suspect it would, in fact, alienate them.
Sigh
My sympathies, ahunt- we’re year 11 into rebuilding a 100+ yr old beat-to-hell farmhouse. When we first moved in, it still had the original windows- many of them broken or held together with packing tape- and the kitchen sink drained out of an automobile radiator hose out of the house and directly onto the back lawn. So many other things screwed up… It needed full renovations; we’re getting there. My gram told me it would take 20 years AT LEAST, and she was spot-on.
Hang in there!!
Well, I’m married and it doesn’t feel even remotely different than it did when my partner and I were “just” living together.
I’m married, and I’m happy, and C says that she’s happy (I just asked her), but I’m certainly not going to tell other people they sould get married. If they want to, great — if not, great. Its their life, even if I had an opinion on marriage in general (which I don’t) why should that opinion matter to anyone else?
I do think that a public ceremony provides a minor benefit to the friends and family of the people getting married.
Living together is a purely personal decision, getting married [1] is a public affair, its involving your community of friends and family in the relationship, as wittnesses and observers nothing kinky, and getting their acknowledgement that the two (or more) of you are involved. So public committment ceremonies have, I’d argue, a small social benefit to all the friends and family in that they encourage networking, help affirm social bonds that already exist and possibly create new social bonds.
Which, I think, is why its getting to be less of a big thing today. Back in the bad old days, when we depended on that network of friends and family for our very survival such drawing close things were necessary not only to our lifes, but to eveyrone else’s lives. These days we don’t need that type of social network based on physical proximity, so we’re moving away from all of the social mechanisms designed to produce that sort of network.
And some people will read the above and wail “OMG, the horrible modern society is evil and atomizing”. And I say, naah, its just different. Turns out a lot of people apparently don’t really like having the sort of tight knit community that used to be essential, them that like it can still have it, and the rest of us can enjoy a looser group of real friends (including some we’ve never met physically) instead of a terrified group huddling very close together for survival.
[1] For the purposes of this comment I’m defining “getting married” as any sort of “hey, we’re formally living together” type ceremony, not the actual legal bit, so neo-pegan handfastings of gay folks in states where gay marriage is illegal count, but people who just go for the legal bit with a JP don’t. Not that there’s anything wrong with going to a JP if that’s what you want, its simply not what I’m talking about here.
Nothip–
-I hear you: the only ones I did tell to fuck off were ones I had no long-term reasons NOT to alienate. People who are going to be in your life a while are harder to stop. It’s even more fun when you find out, as I did, that you’re infertile, and you don’t want to make that public knowledge, or play it as a sympathy ploy. I came up with two non-eff-off responses: 1)Smile (as much as possible through gritted teeth) and say, “It’ll happen when it happens.”;2) Feign curious expression, and say, “Why do you ask?”
You may now take these and use them as your own.
Tyro, what does marriage have to do with whether you consider your partner family or not? I’m genuinely curious. Do people really need a legal marker of some kind to tell the difference? That hasn’t been my experience, so it baffles me a bit.
Mnemosyne:
Because you’re a freak.
Sorry, that was too easy to pass up
I thought the subtitle of the original piece was a little dissonant with the perfectly sane and reasonable tone of Eslinger’s essay. “I am committed to Jeff for life. I just don’t need a pretty white dress and a piece of paper to prove it” kind of implies that everyone who is married does need those things, which sounds kinda condescending to me.
And while I’m at it, I thought I’d quote Jonathan Richman on this topic:
When I Say “Wife”
When I say “wife”
It’s cause I can’t find another word
For the way we be.
But “wife” sounds like your mortgate
And “wife” sounds like laundry
When I say “wife”
It’s cause I can’t find another word
For the way we are.
But “wife” sounds like your mortgate
Sounds like the family car.
Well, the tax forms come and I fill out “married”
Cause I know what they’re looking for.
But I’m telling you that I’m just a person
Same as I was before.
When I say “wife”
It’s cause if you said “lover” every day
You’re gonna begin to gag
But “wife” sounds like your mortgage
Sounds like the laundry bag.
Well, the tax forms come and I fill out “married’
A technicality —
But I’m telling you that I’m not married, I’m not single
I’m still me.
I say “wife” because it stops all talk right away
About the way we be,
But “wife” sounds like your mortgage and
“Wife” sounds like laundry.
FWIW, I think that Jojo and his wife have since divorced.
Pesto: Because you’re a freak.
Well, duh! That I already knew.
Back on topic, can I say how much the argument “it’s just a piece of paper” annoys me? Your marriage certificate is a legal document. My birth certificate is just a piece of paper, too, but I’m not going to be able to get a passport or a Social Security card and a job without it.
maybe we’re doing it wrong?
No, you’re doing it right.
You just haven’t hit the point where your partner disappoints you in the deepest possible way. And assuming you married a human being, they almost certainly will.
I think that’s where the difference lies, but I can’t know for sure, of course.
there’s a “misery loves company” element to all the pressure put on people to join the institution. Even, weirdly, from people who are happy being married but still somehow need everyone else to do it in order to feel more justified in their decision.
That thumping sound you’ve been hearing in the background throughout that thread–that’s the sound of a gay man, 17 years into a relationship, who would like to get married and who is not allowed to, beting his head against the wall. Marriage is like a country club, I guess, with the right kind of people recruited to join, and the wrong kind blackballed . . .
That’s true, rea. I’m sorry. It’s insensitive of me to speak from a privileged point of view about mine, since we had a choice about whether or not to “bother”.
Still, I don’t get why those commenters care whether other people do what they do or want what they want. Oh, wait, that’s right…it’s life-long junior high, and if we don’t all wear the same shoes we don’t know who belongs and who’s an outcast.
But what is the negative trade-off? You mentioned being able to get out “reasonably quickly” with an ex-boyfriend, but unless you and your current boyfriend have maintained everything very separately, breaking up after a long period of living together is still a physical and economic nightmare. God help you if you bought a house together!
Indeed, and thus the only solution is to make it even more miserable so that the patriarchy gets its due in blood. The more people like you try to talk me into it, the more I really hate the idea. If it was so great being married, you wouldn’t have to pressure people into it, now would you?
I have, by the way, bought a house. Your belief that I’m a child because you refuse to accept a woman’s full adulthood doesn’t adhere to real life. I’ve dissolved a complex relationship. It made me all the more sure that I don’t want to add marriage to the mix. Also, the threat of being taken for granted—I think one of the major reasons so many men get upset when a woman resists marriage is it sells out the male privilege to take women’s support and love for granted.
I don’t see my hesitation with marriage as somehow opposed to supporting gay marriage rights. I think gay marriage is the next step towards the ideal situation, where “marriage” the patriarchal institution is dissolved completely and perhaps replaced with a civil union that gives people a set of rights necessary to set up a household, but isn’t “marriage” with all its baggage and that’s hard to get out of when you need to exit immediately. While I do appreciate Chet’s point about forcing patience in a committed relationship, the knowledge that this is abused to keep women in physically abusive situations so very often tends to make me think that society-wise, the trade-off is not worth it.
While I wouldn’t go so far as hostile, I think that disdainful might hit it on the head
I admit to being a happily-married. But I’m also a child of divorce, and I guess I see marriage not so much about extra affirmation when it’s good as extra protection if it gets bad.
Your partner ends up in a hospital. If you’re married you can make decisions when they can’t. If you’re not, either you’ve planned for this horror, you hope the hospital believes you (and why should they? would you want them listening to your boy/girlfriend if you’re only in a casual relationship?), or they call in your partner’s legal next-of-kin.
You own a house together. Your partner dies. Are your wills in order? Will you be “inheriting” their half of the house, and can you pay the taxes on it? (Surviving spouses generally pay little or no taxes here)
Also, does your life insurance name each other as the beneficiary? (and will your partner’s surviving family contest this?) Do you depend on his/her income? Will you receive pension benefits? (I know you won’t get social security survivor benefits).
And perhaps, for some reason, it needs to end. Your partner ran off to Reno with your next door neighbor. He drinks too much. She comes out as a lesbian. You just can’t be married anymore. Divorce, while messy, is established case law for dividing your joint property as fairly* (let’s leave kids out of it for now).
Without it, property belongs to it’s owner. And proving who-bought-what, and who paid how much of the mortgage, etc. etc. without it sounds like a fight I wouldn’t want to get anywhere near.
That piece of paper means something. It’s a shortcut for a lot of rights you never hope to use**. If things are going well you’ll never have to use them, but if they aren’t, I believe that it’s a lot better to have “that piece of paper”
*I know that in a lot of cases it isn’t fair. That a lot of men screw their wives and kids over. I don’t think that letting everyone fight separate legal battles with separate lawyers would help in any way.
**There are minor benefits in the good times. For example, you can contribute to a stay-at-home spouse’s IRA, even if they didn’t earn any income in that year. (The equivalent, I would guess, would be to pay a stay at home partner out of your income, pay all the taxes on those “wages” and then make the contribution out of that, but that seems both stupid and complicated)
I suppose I should add “You’re in a heterosexual relationship” to “she came out as a lesbian.”
Random thoughts…..
Always wished we’d have a plethora of styles of relationships we could sign up for. “Marriage” carries so much unspoken baggage with it (religious and cultural expectations) that it seems to be very hard to walk into without dragging some of that with you.
Go read some of the stories written by Marcel Prevost around 1900–it was very obvious that in France the upper classes were expected to marry for economic and social reasons, and then after the kids were of a certain age, it was perfectly fine for the woman to “play around”, provided she was discrete about it (men of course always were free to have a little something on the side.)
And with the continued elongation of both partners’ lives and the fact that women don’t standardly die in childbirth, it might be better if we broke it up into 5 year chunks–every five years you have to make a conscious decision as to whether you will stay in the same marriage, or renegotiate it (or split).
“[Marrage is] a shortcut for a lot of rights you never hope to use.”
This is the reasons why I think that marriage/civil unions are a good idea (at least in some circumstances). I know for a fact that if my mom outlives my dad, his parents will be a pain. They would be worse than a pain if my parents weren’t married, but that marriage helps protect my mom from losing everything to them. If your “in-laws” are psycho, marriage is a very good idea. (A good reason to support gay marriage, as well.)
While I hate the idea that marriage traps some people in abusive relationships, I also hate the idea that a lack of legal protection can allow someone outside of the relationship to take everything away from the surviving member, just because they didn’t approve of the relationship. Both situations are ones that should never happen
And if you’re like me, surrounded by relationships where this happened practically the day after the wedding, even to couples that appeared to be very egalitarian, well…
No, you’re doing it right.
You just haven’t hit the point where your partner disappoints you in the deepest possible way. And assuming you married a human being, they almost certainly will.
I think that’s where the difference lies, but I can’t know for sure, of course.
Wow. I don’t think that’s even remotely true. Sure it happens, but “your partner disappoint[ing] you in the deepest possible way” isn’t a given. If you believe it is, maybe you should look at your expectations that you have of your partner and your relationship. If you’ve set them so high that you know your partner and your relationship will not be able to maintain them, maybe you should reassess those expectations.
If you’re talking about staying together through tough times, that sounds like you are referring to commitment, not marriage. If your commitment isn’t real and strong, the legal status of relationship is meaningless.
Yes, financially, materially, and legally, it has benefits that non-marriage relationships don’t have; but, emotionally, marriage only has the meaning that you give it, just as any relationship. Everyone should be allowed to choose marriage but not be pressured to do so. And that’s what the article and subsequent post are about, the unbelievable pressure put on heterosexual couples, and women in particular, to get married. Not the benefits (real or perceived) of marriage.
In this day and age of Bush-onimincs and marriage hand wringing, who can afford to just live in sin?
Here in Michigan, you can insure your dog but your employer can’t cover your live in lover, no mater how long you’ve been together.
Oh, and to get out of your marriage, that takes longer now. Like forcing people to marry and then keeping them together longer is going to have fantastic benefits for society.
Yeah, sure…
Wow. I don’t think that’s even remotely true. Sure it happens, but “your partner disappoint[ing] you in the deepest possible way” isn’t a given.
People are people. They make mistakes. Invariably they’ll make a huge one.
If you believe it is, maybe you should look at your expectations that you have of your partner and your relationship. If you’ve set them so high that you know your partner and your relationship will not be able to maintain them, maybe you should reassess those expectations.
Well, I mean, it already happened. It occurred. It wasn’t a matter of any expectations but the lowest, most basic expectation to be treated like a human being that was important to somebody else.
It happens in relationships. People make big mistakes, forget what’s important to them. And then you’re put in the position of being forced to make an important decision at precisely the time you’re least likely to be able to think in the long-term.
When that happened to me, I was thankful for the inertia my marriage represented. There wasn’t a whole lot else to get in the way of simply dissolving the whole thing - we didn’t really have any major assets jointly owned, we were renting, most of our possessions were books of unambiguous provenance.
And we worked it out. And I’m glad we did. And, you know, if it hadn’t been her mistake, it might very well have been mine, later. I don’t think either of us are particularly abnormal in that regard, which is why I think sooner or later every person experiences a great disappointment from the person they love.
It just happens.
And that’s what the article and subsequent post are about, the unbelievable pressure put on heterosexual couples, and women in particular, to get married.
The pressure is wrong, I agree completely.
Conversely, I’m sure a relationship with a mortgage and a kid and demanding jobs and chronic health problems would feel different than those first few years of living together whether we tied the knot or not. So who the hell knows?
Yeah, those four items did cut into the weekends in bed.
The marriage license, OTOH, made it faster and cheaper to get a lot of practical child-custody and property legal work done.
Thus freeing up options for weekends away from the kid and the demanding jobs. The chronic illness and mortgage are there whether we’re at home on the couch or…somewhere much more exciting.
You asked.
chet, i know what you mean about the disappointment thing. my significant other did something that doesn’t need to be mentioned. i thought long and hard about ending it but decided not to for a variety of reasons. which, again, dispels the idea of a marriage as being anything special. it was the strength of what we had before and what we were capable of having in the future that made me decide not to.
People make big mistakes, forget what’s important to them.
Yes, people make mistakes, yes, relationships are put to the test by one or both of the people or by outside forces. Your and your partner’s commitment to your relationship (in this case, a marriage) is what keeps you together, not the “institution of marriage”. Non-married people can most certainly have this type of deep commitment to their relationship. The only advantages to marriage that can be applied collectively to almost all marriages are either financial, material, or legal (by legal, I mean health decisions, etc, not in reference to break-ups – ending a marriage is not illegal). Commitment in married relationships are not universal, instead, they are personal and they vary greatly.
I don’t think either of us are particularly abnormal in that regard, which is why I think sooner or later every person experiences a great disappointment from the person they love.
People are absolutely going to make mistakes and disappoint each other. But you seem to be assuming that, eventually, one (or both) of you are going to hurt each other so terribly that it’s going to rock the foundation of your relationship. And that’s just not true. It happens, yes, more often that it should, but it’s not a given. A lot of people have relationships without being “put in the position of being forced to make an important decision at precisely the time you’re least likely to be able to think in the long-term.” A lot of couples go an entire relationship without something like that occurring, some of them stay together and others break-up. Just like the relationships were something that serious does occur: some last, some don’t; irrespective of marriage.
That you and your wife have worked to continue your relationship after something so profound, is a wonderful, amazing testament to what a good, committed relationship (which happens to be a marriage) is all about. It is not, however, a testament to marriage in general. The personal aspects (re: level of commitment, honesty, love, etc) of a marriage cannot and should not be used as an argument for or against the institution of marriage precisely because they are personal and, therefore, unique to your relationship/marriage. I would argue the same point to a person trying to stop someone from marrying with stories of their terrible divorce.
Tyro, what does marriage have to do with whether you consider your partner family or not? I’m genuinely curious. Do people really need a legal marker of some kind to tell the difference? That hasn’t been my experience, so it baffles me a bit.
My brother has a long-term commuter relationship which is finally getting toward marriage and consolidation of households, etc.
She has four children from a previous marriage. My parents treat these kids like they are their own grandchildren, I refer to them as my nieces and nephews, and my children refer to them as cousins.
It doesn’t get any more real than that, now does it? The rest is simply international legal meanderings.
The problem here is that it’s a continuum. There’s always something we should be doing for the patriarchy. When we were living together, everyone wanted to know when we were getting married. When we got married, everyone wanted to know when we were having kids (my mother-in-law actually asked me at my wedding reception - she couldn’t wait till the honeymoon was over?). Literally the day we brought the baby home from the hospital, people started asking when we were having more - even though I had the pregnancy from hell. I think there’s more to it than misery loves company. It’s a constant reminder that we should be doing more to make everyone else happy.
My partner and I, who have been together for 13 years and have two children together, and live in separate households about 3 blocks apart, yet see each other 5-7 days a week, sat down with an attorney for two afternoons and made out medical power of attorneys, advanced directives, wills, life insurance provisions, guardianship for our children, visitation (although we don’t really need it) and child support arrangements.
The total cost was about $300 (150 ea.) and took approximately 4 hours with the lawyer and several hours of discussion on our own that all families should do anyway. We file taxes separately and I get the kid tax deduction (as I am the primary physical parent.) We actually CAN’T get married due to health insurance or he would lose his military dependence insurance which is essential as he is disabled. But yes, we do lose out on some of the perks of health insurance covered by spouses employer. And also the understanding of the outside world, as “partner” and “coparent” are sterile little words that don’t convey to others that we are FAMILY. A committed family that has been together and been through more ups and downs that most and survived.
I know our arrangement would not work for everyone. And of course, I’m fine with that. But it works for us. The fact that we spent a few hours with a lawyer and spent a couple hundred bucks does not seem like a trade off for thousands of dollars and hours of planning for a wedding just to get the piece of paper that would give us power of attorney, estate/property rights, etc.
I only bring this up because of all this reasoning about getting married so you can make decisions for each other in the hospital or have rights after their death or whatever. It takes less planning to take care of all that than it does to plan most weddings. Again, I’m not saying it is wrong to get married and get those advantages that way, I’m just saying that there is an easy solution to most of those marrital perks. Since we had to be proactive about it and really think it all through, we are probably in better shape than some married couples who never discuss it or make the hard decisions.
[from the second bozo Amanda quoted]
We all know what they say about reactionaries attacking their opponents where they, the reactionaries, are weak, right?
A 42-year old “sophomore,” forsooth!
And soon bernarda, at Jan 12 3:06 PM Pandagon Discoballitarian Standard Time, linked us to Aline Kominsky and Robert Crumb’s interview. Let’s see, I recall reading a Crumb/Kominsky comix that was published, when, the mid ’70s or so? And Al Franken, still married to the same woman he married back around that same time?
And I daresay that there are quite a few 60-year-old hippies, (20 years down the line from The 40 Year Old Hippie of the 1980s) who are still shacked up together, especially around here on the Granola Coast and I suppose in Austin, the Berkshires, Grenwich Village, etc, without ever even bothering with the damn paperwork.
Groovy, as they used to say back in the day.
The National Party Line (as Abbie Hoffman used to call it) is that the 60s and 70s were some kind of nightmare. Insofar as they were, it was because of reaction. But aside from the occasional police riot, National Guard massacre, the foundation of Republicanism as we know it today with associated covert-action government, and the backlash against Civil Rights, feminism, etc, as I recall as someone born in 1965, and even from the marginal places I lived in the heyday (Darkest Whittier; Loring AFB Maine; Panama City, Florida; Montgomery, Alabama) it was a, well–groovy–sort of time to be an American. At least, a middle-class American, post-Watergate.
But we wouldn’t want those dark days to return, oh noes!
Actually this modern stuff (not the wingnuttery but people like Bonnie Eslinger) is even better because it goes deep and casual.
Perhaps I should re-read her article more carefully, Amanda–I have a lot to do tonight and so am skimming–but I didn’t see any “anger” in her account at all, nothing at any rate beyond “hey, this is how I live my life, I’m happy with it, if you have a problem, get over it or go away and MYOB!”
And I thought I was being lame in my first off-the-cuff comment, snarking about some silly person calling her a “sophomore!”
She’s 42, Tyro! She’s the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Not a teenager.
Cripes.
The defensive and patronizing comments remind me of the typical responses reported by my vegetarian friends whenever they mention their eating choices in public. People always seem to take it as an indictment on THEIR choice to eat meat and get the same kind of weird. I assume that many people just sort of marinate in a narcissistic haze that translates everyone else’s lives into a footnote or commentary on their own and react accordingly. I’m thinking also that there must be a lot of reactionary people that can only fathom that other people make life decisions similarly — based upon peer pressure or perceived opinions of others.
You know, one thing I’ve noticed, is that there seems to be a lot more pressure on me to get married from friends of my own generation (I was born in 1981; most of my friends are within 5-6 years of that either way) than from people of my parents’ generation. My parents certainly don’t care, nor do my partners’ (though his dad’s wife wants us to have children :/). I spent the day with my parents and a bunch of aunts and uncles a while back, and I was struck by the fact that not a single one of them asked, “So are you planning on getting married then?” They asked me about my life, and about my partner, etc– they simply didn’t have that expectation that we needed to get married to validate our relationship. It was very refreshing.
Just re-read the article again carefully; it seems just as it did when I first speed-read it. Amanda, I don’t detect the slightest tone of “anger,” sheer or otherwise, in it. Except of course we can reasonably project the exasperation any of us might have with buttinskys yammering away about “marriage marriage marriage” when a non-marriage relationship is going perfectly well, thank you very much, onto her. But she doesn’t lose her cool anywhere, not even with her prospective in-laws who seem clueless that the “law” part is not important to their son or her. Expresses some regret at their density, yes. It’s a very reasonable essay making reasonable points from actual experience.
My own situation was somewhat different; in some ways the reverse. I was in a relationship, for nearly 15 years, to a woman who did want marriage, as far as I understand for purely symbolic reasons–because she had been told, as a young disabled teenager, that she would probably never live long enough to get married and anyway no one would marry her with her physical liabilities, I suppose. And perhaps she felt that she would be more secure knowing I was tied to her legally.
But I was her care provider, and the greater part of the monthly income we lived on was In-Home Supportive Services payments she received to disburse to her care providers. Had we gotten married, about 40 percent of the hours she was deemed eligible for would have been stricken, or rather deemed her spouse’s responsibility to provide for free, so that not only would I take that pay cut if I continued to be her provider as well as husband, so would the funds be reduced for anyone else she might have wanted to hire alongside me or to replace me at those duties–if I wanted to work some other full-time job for more household income for instance. Objectively, her independence and discretion would actually be reduced. We never did research exactly what would happen to the rest of the package of aid she relied on to live if we were married; off the top of my head, her HUD Section 8 rental assitance would have almost certainly been cut if she were not dropped from the program completely, and who knows what would have happened to her Medicaid (Medi-Cal we call it hereabouts) and Medicare eligibility.
Ironically, considering this real and very substantial “marriage penalty” (as opposed to that alleged tax code thingie I keep hearing tell of but do not comprehend; I thought married filing jointly was the very best way to file, if the spouses can trust one another) and that social workers were quick to venture the opinions that the program frowned on relationships getting mixed up with being a care provider and expected “professionalism” at minimum wage, the program was actually founded way back in the ’60s precisely to enable people who, because of their caring personal relationship (such as being a close blood relative, or spouse–and just one guess which gender tended to make up most of those volunteer care providers in the old days as well as now) devoted much or all their time to enabling their loved one to live independently of institutions rather than being gainfully employed to survive while doing so.
Economically then, from the state’s point of view I was a very cheap solution to a potentially very expensive problem, whereas from Natasha’s point of view I was someone who even when we were quarreling would diligently enable her to do whatever she wanted, rather than live incarcerated in some institution.
So I have some experience with the phenomenon that ring or no ring, serious relationships create their own committments and entanglements quite automatically. The fact is, I loved her and she loved me and we each enabled the other to live better than either of us could alone. But quarrel we did, sometimes quite dramatically. But although we both had opportunities to leave the other, neither of us did, until she died.
So I don’t really understand the reasoning that marriage is good because it puts some kind of a buffer on ending a relationship, buying time for a cool re-appraisal. If a relationship is any good, even if both parties meticulously avoid entanglements deliberately to leave both a free chance to leave at a moment’s notice, presumably the fundamental attraction that originally held either still holds, and after some separate cooling off time both get back together of their own free will; or the departure of one or the other and non-return indicates that for that person at least, the relationship has lost all value. In which case it is best done cleanly and quickly. In real life of course, it is unlikely that they would not be practically entangled, which raises practical issues–but that strikes me as more of a problem than a solution. Actually the freedom to leave seems to me to be the great secret of an authentic relationship; if it exists, one can be confident it is real, and knowing that the other partner is not stuck with oneself is a good motive to keep it alive authentically, or give up on it honestly and with minimal recriminations.
Reading down the comments, I think of a couple who have been close friends of mine for close-on 20 years. They’ve gone through many troubles, even once a temporary separation (one of them did something which I won’t go into that the other person found unbearable): money problems, addiction, life-threatening illness. They’ve remained together because to each of them the other is the most important person in their lives. And that is what makes or breaks a marriage. Not the ability to have children (though the anti-marriage crowd have vocally argued that this is the only thing that’s important) not buying a house together, not even the point when you throw out your duplicate books and CDs: but whether the other person is the centre of your life, and they yours.
As it happens, it has been legal for my friends to get married for the past couple of years (they had the religious ceremony six or seven years ago, privately because while their local priest supports same-sex marriage, their church as an organisation does not): they’re contemplating doing the legal thing, not a ceremony but just a joint signature, strictly for the legal benefits - especially next-of-kin rights when one or other is in hospital. Legal rights are undeniably important to a committed relationship. The idea that legal rights are what bind a couple to a committed relationship could only be argued by someone who’s never been in one.
I asked:
To which Amanda responded:
[sigh] I asked a serious question, as respectfully as I could, but you assumed that, since I’m a wicked conservative troll, that it must have been made snarkily. I neither said nor implied that a 30-year-old woman is a child.
Dana: I asked a serious question, as respectfully as I could, but you assumed that, since I’m a wicked conservative troll, that it must have been made snarkily.
It saves time, Dana.
“Frank: What I don’t understand is why do people take an instant dislike to me?
Trapper: It saves time, Frank.”
Leora, I wish that you had been the author of the Newsweek piece.
I think that you would have (and have, here) presented an alternative to marriage that I could really think about and respect. Something that would have showcased the positives and negatives - and the importance of considering your situation and making a rational decision.
Instead, my biggest impression of the article was “My love is so pure I don’t need a piece of paper” and an argument that rambled between denouncing traditional weddings and denouncing marriage (without offering much of a reason for either).
I told a friend of mine who bought a house with her fiance that buying a house together was a bigger commitment than getting married because it’s easier to get a divorce than it is to sell a house. I was only half-joking.
The primary benefits of marriage are economic and legal. Many states do not recognize common-law marriage and some can be damn punitive to couples who are not married. Guess which partner bears the brunt of this? (”You may have raised his children and kept his house, but he made the money so it’s all his. The court wouldn’t want to encourage ‘living in sin’, now would we?”)
I agree with the idea of “civil unions for everyone” and doing away with marriage, because the purpose of the law should be to regulate the economic relationship, not the personal relationship. This would not just be a different name for the same thing, but a somewhat different legal concept. For example, the fact that one partner is unfaithful should have no bearing on a property settlement. Perhaps the idea that only an economic and legal partnership would be dissolved would make divorce less acrimonious.
I’m really kinda taken aback at Carrot’s list of reasons why marriage is a good thing. It essentially boils down to “because it will be very expensive to get the same legal protections and some bigoted people will treat you like shit if you don’t.” That doesn’t make legal marriage a good thing, it just means civil society is set up in a particularly nasty way around relationships.
(It is, all godwin aside, rather closely akin to the reason some of my ancestors converted to christianity in the late 19th century. And you know what, that didn’t turn out so good either.)
While I would love to see the law stay out of everything but the economic and legal aspects of a relationship, relationships do not happen in a vacuum.
Both my wife and I grew up in conservative families in a conservative part of the country. Marriage instantly changed us from being rebellious children to responsible adults in the eyes of our parents. The external “pressure stick” played no small part in our decision to get married.
While it improved our position to the outside world, getting married didn’t change much between us. Having kids did. Having children is a far bigger commitment that causes a far bigger change that is far harder to break (you can get a divorce, but you’ll always be a parent) and that should be entered into with far more caution and preparation.
Well, Dana, I can be initially less dismissive of your claim to be asking an honest question, and still arrive at Jesurgilac’s snarky conclusion.
Isn’t it obvious that if we have an institution–legal marriage–that is premised on the idea that it facilitates a union of two people, that if they subsequently seek to dissolve that union, that the institution will by its nature impede that dissolution?
There would be no point in having marriage as a legal entity if it did not formally merge two formerly separate, independent people. This inherently means creating ties that will take some work to disentangle.
One might suggest that some of the inconvenience of breaking up a relationship, legally formalized or not, is a matter of losing the advantages of the sharing that the relationship offered in the first place. This category of trouble, while subjectively painful because both parties got used to the convenience, leaves no one objectively worse off than before the relationship began. And it is shared in any breakup regardless of legal status.
Similarly there is additional trouble from disentangling affairs that in principle could have remained separate, and the matter of resolving dividing up things and obligations arising from the relationship itself. This counts but is common to all types of relationship.
But if you weren’t being disingenuous, Dana, you’d acknowledge right away that legal marriage creates specific entanglements that an informal one does not, and tearing these apart will be extra trouble.
I gave an example from my own life above; it was rather specialized, being about marriage for disabled people dependent on major social services. That could be resolved by rewriting marriage and social services codes. (But it is the way it is because of policies written to gratify and reassure conservatives).
Or, since I have a Catholic background and you are often reminding us of your own fidelity to that Church, I could point out to you what a nightmare it would be for a Catholic to marry a person–even, say, someone who was also raised Catholic or a fervent and devout convert to the faith–who has ever been married to someone else, if that third person is still alive. That’s not a problem for people who don’t put any stock in a religious tradition that dictates in the draconian manner of this particular “faith of our fathers” that marriage is inherently and properly indissoluable.
But since you profess to believe that particular doctrine, and to believe (by the Catholic claim that its moral dogmas actually represent rational, univesal, natural moral law for all human beings) that it really does apply to everyone, whether they know it or not, how can you come here pleading you were just asking a civil, reasonable question? Whether we heathen admit it or not, by your often-cited beliefs you believe that dissolving a marriage is not only a hassle but a sin and technically impossible, to the point that a particular “divorce,” however reasonable and necessary it may have been in fact, can only be OK in the eyes of your Church by the workaround of formally determining that actually no true marriage existed in the first place!
If you had two people who are now devout Catholics who want to marry, is it not the case that if neither had ever married then no amount of “living in sin,” however outrageous (as long as it stopped short of irreversible genital mutilation anyway), is no impediment once the parties involved have become contrite, made a good confession, and done appropriate penance? Whereas if either had ever been married in any form, civil or religious or even in pure privacy, and then separated for any reason, however justifiable, from a spouse still living, that they are in a whole other world of hurt regarding the necessary forms and hoops and delays and so on, which in fact may never be granted them at all? Clearly for Catholics at any rate it is far better to fool around and shack up without benefit of clergy, or to kill their ex-partners off, than to marry in haste–repenting at leisure could be a literal Eternity!
(It goes without saying of course that this hypothetical couple is a man and a woman, if they are seeking the Church’s blessing as devout Catholics must to remain devout Catholics. And if the former marriage were in fact to a person of the same sex, well I guess the silver lining of the dark cloud of the Church’s dogged patriarchial heternormativeity is, that relationship, however much penance the “guilty” groom or bride must have done to atone, wouldn’t count.)
Leading me to Jesurgilac’s point after having wasted much time.
Exactly, Mark.
I don’t care what people choose to do whether it is to get married or not to get married. The one thing I can agree with some commenters that did get married is that it doesn’t magically make you feel more bonded to each other. I have been married for six years now and I lived with my husband in what most of our family members considered living in sin for about five months before we got married. I think we would of just stayed “living in sin” as they called it if it weren’t for the benefit to us as an individual couple to get married. I mean for us it was just simpler to get on his insurance and benefits if we were married. It was more just a legal thing for us we already felt the soulmate, bonded forever thing. I was never one of those little girls that dreamed of a big wedding so we just did it one afternoon at the local county courthouse with a judge since neither one of us is very religious. But this is just my story like I said if one chooses to live together what’s the big deal?
No, Dana. I read correctly that you assumed I was a simple-minded child, despite all evidence to the contrary. I concluded, correctly, that you think all women are morons, a belief that you hold no doubt so you can feel superior to someone, which would be hard for you to do on merit alone.
“Sophomore” meaning “wise fool” is a a false etymology. I learned that from Gertrude Yorkes!
When I was a little girl, I dreamed of being a dinosaur queen. I better get right on that.
Also, whenever I have completely random, rude types (who usually don’t even KNOW me) telling me that I REALLY want kids, I just don’t know it you’ll change your mind someday etc., I have some responses prepared.
“I have (medical condition goes here) that renders me incapable of bearing children, actually; thanks for bringing that painful topic up. Igocrynow. *sob*”
-OR-
“And you know me so well, for all of what, 10 minutes, you presumptuous twit?”
-OR-
“I take it you had kids?” (wait for affirmation) “OH, YOU’LL CHANGE YOUR MIND SOMEDAY!!!111one!!”
-OR-
“I believe that children should be aborted and not heard.”
———————
Crude, but effective. They shut right up and never bother me again.
I’d add that I take a “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” attitude towards marriage. Again, I might be overly paranoid, but I’ve seen far too many couples get married when they should be breaking up, and they marry to continue the illusion that they’re good for each other, rather than face the facts. You also see the marriage-fixing babies get produced, and that also does not work. The romance surrounding these things sucks people in when they should be running away, and only makes the eventual break much harder.
Then there’s the gender Republicans issue, which is to say most of us are not superhuman and have trouble not slipping into traditional and unfair gender roles in heterosexual relationships. While a lot of like to offer self-congratulatory pats and assume that avoiding this problem is a matter of will, in reality I find it’s much easier to keep you on your toes and making sure that the woman isn’t getting the shaft if you introduce plenty of non-traditional elements to your relationship. Joining the oldest patriarchal tradition in the world doesn’t strike me as a very good way to protect yourself from said patriarchy. Which is also why I support gay marriage completely while being iffy about it for my straight self—gay marriage isn’t exactly a patriarchal tradition that reinforces unequal gender roles.
When I was young, my brother gave me some of the best advice of my life.
“Never invite the church or state into your life if you can avoid it.”
So far, so good.
I know our arrangement would not work for everyone. And of course, I’m fine with that. But it works for us. The fact that we spent a few hours with a lawyer and spent a couple hundred bucks does not seem like a trade off for thousands of dollars and hours of planning for a wedding just to get the piece of paper that would give us power of attorney, estate/property rights, etc.
A marriage license, complete with a volunteer to marry you, costs $70 in Los Angeles County, and that’s on the high side, nationally. So you paid about $200 more to get similar legal rights as marriage.
Not debating your larger point, but a LOT of people seem to be confused about the difference between getting married and having a wedding. You can get legally married without a wedding; conversely, in some churches, you can have a wedding without being legally married. I know a fair number of people who got married quickly in the courthouse to get benefits that they needed (like healthcare) and then went on to have a wedding with their family present.
Marriage =/= wedding. I know conservatives like to harp on it as though it’s the same thing, but it ain’t. Your minister or priest can say the entire marriage ceremony over a couple, but if they don’t have a marriage license from the state, they’re not legally married.
I remember when my now husband filed for the marriage license, we had to wait a few days to pick it up. So he gave me the directions where in downtown Baltimore to pick it up- except he had been coming NORTH up the street. I was picking it up on a break from working at the hospital and heading SOUTH down the same street.
Not knowing that there were 2 buildings on either side of the street involved with such things, I went to the clerk’s office and asked for our marriage license. She started laughing like crazy, then explained- her office was where you file for divorce! Somehow, the instructions once entering the buildings was exactly the same…
I’ve been thinking about this a lot - what accounts for the different feel that marriage has for a lot of couples. I’m coming around to the idea that the public commitment is a big part of it, maybe more than the legal commitment. In the years that we lived together, there was an unspoken assumption that we were together for the long-term. But we never faced each other and said - out loud - I’m with you, no matter what. And that’s what marriage vows essentially amount to. That’s pretty potent stuff. For some couples, speaking those words aloud draw them closer and make them feel more secure and fulfilled in their relationships. For others, it opens the door to taking the other person for granted or, in the worst case scenario, for abuse. Yet other couples don’t feel anything different because they either already had that level of commitment explicitly or implicitly or because they continue to have the present-mindedness that is more characteristic of not being married. And for yet others, the risk of losing that present-mindedness and appreciation for the other person - precisely because you could walk away at any moment but chose not to - is not worth whatever additional security, or whatever, marriage might bring.
In short, those who feel something different in marriage versus living together are not imagining it, and those who fear the trade-offs are not imagining those either - despite the existence of couples who perceive no difference between the two states.
Watching the back-and-forth here, I get a sense that perhaps some of the defenders-of-marriage aren’t so much interested in convincing the non-married partner types that they should get married as they are in convincing them (and the peanut gallery) that not being married is inferior. Sure, the shacking-up folks can buy houses in the nice neighborhood, but they’ll never get to join the country club.
One of the strongest arguments for making civil marriage and divorce easier and accessible to all is clarity. A clear distinction between “marriage” (which would have clear legal consequences) and “cohabitation” (which would be the more flexible institution) is to, paradoxically, grant greater freedom to those who choose to stay out of marriage. There are an awful lot of people out there who want to commit to a partner, perhaps a life partner, without triggering a massive series of automatic legal assumptions and obligations, especially in light of the fact that the courts change the so-called rules with distressing frequency.
chet, i know what you mean about the disappointment thing. my significant other did something that doesn’t need to be mentioned. i thought long and hard about ending it but decided not to for a variety of reasons. which, again, dispels the idea of a marriage as being anything special.
For you, I guess it does. But for me at the time it was very definitely a case of starting to pack a bag, and then thinking “you know, I made a promise in front of everybody not to give up when things got rough. Maybe I’ll take it easy, here, and think things through.”
If I hadn’t been married I wouldn’t still be in the relationship. I really do know that. It’s hard for me to ignore that, I guess. Your mileage may vary. If you had the strength of character to avoid rash action on your own, then you’re a commendable human being. I didn’t, maybe I don’t now, and the little bit of inertia I had from marriage was something that I needed, and I was glad to have it. If someone doesn’t need it, then aside from presents, maybe there’s nothing in marriage to recommend it to them.
This is why I think “marriage” should be left up to the churches and we should have a series of choices made available from the State that we could call civil unions.
Your and your partner’s commitment to your relationship (in this case, a marriage) is what keeps you together, not the “institution of marriage”.
That’s great, Shelby. Funny, I don’t remember you standing there in my apartment when all this was going down, but I guess you must have been, since you speak with such authority about my relationships and marriage.
Incidentally - can you tell me where I put my keys? Since you’re such an expert on my personal life, after all.
Unless you’re harming someone or something else, you’re really under no obligation to explain your choices to The World.
Absolutely. And isn’t it so ironic that the people who feel that those that choose not to marry are somehow “harming” something are often the same people who ignore or defend actually doing real harm to others as long as it’s done on an institutional scale? I’m blown away by the worldview that people “living in sin” hurts society, but polluting the environment, war, and an economic system based entirely on debt-slavery–these things are either no big deal or are even a societal benefit. Which brings me back to Amanda’s comment:
These comments were mostly about fidelity to institutions over people.
One commenter wrote to the article’s author, “Yet you fail to understand that ‘pieces of paper’ are required proof for the essential elements of our lives.” Uh, authorian mindset anyone? Vere ah your papers?
This people vs. institutions idea also reminds me of the American obsession with street crime. Corporate crime kills more people, ruins more lives, and costs society more money than street crime to the nth degree (you could even call the Iraq war a corporate crime, and make those numbers even higher). Yet, because corporations are powerful institutions, they are lauded, but the man who robs a liquor store is beyond contempt. He opted out of a criminal system to become a criminal, and we hate him for it.
I’m not saying that marraige is like crime (if it is, I’m guilty). But the fact that the individual who opts out of marraige is somehow a huge threat says something similar about the institution of marraige, that there is an elephant in the cultural room being aggressively ignored.
That makes sense on the surface, tzs, but there is one thing about it which bothers me a great deal about it. “Marriage” is our culture’s colloquial shorthand for “official, recognized bonding ceremony/institution”. I see know reason why the churches should be given licence to the word. They have had enough freebies and cultural assumptions unjustly defaulted their way already; they don’t need another.Chingona, I was thinking much the same thing. Well said.
A fair amount of the discussion here has turned on the issue of recognition of differing types of romantic relationships for the purposes of legal assumptions and benefits. We should take steps back, back, back and question why such things should be limited to romantic or sexual relationships. If two people decides to enter into a long-term room-mate friendship (for lack of a better phrase), one that is based on affection, trust and mutual support, why should (for example) my partner not be on my dental plan or vice-versa? What makes our desire to have a mutually supportive partnership less valid than the couple next door? They are identical to us in all respects, save one: they fuck each other and we don’t. Is that a valid basis for the gain or loss of benefits?
So far, I can’t say marriage feels any different than cohabitation. I feel no greater obligation to stay just because we swapped rings in front of family members and no greater desire to leave just because now I’m “trapped.” We got married so that I could cover him on my health insurance plan, and so that I could make medical decisions for him in the event of an emergency. Everything else was pretty much a non-issue because we were already jointly on the hook or because we could have coasted on heterosexual privilege with a pair of cheapie rings.
My mother used to pull out that argument when she was pressuring my partner and me to get married. I’d ask her “If it’s just a piece of paper and no big deal, then it’s not such an important thing to get, right?” I mean, you can’t have it both ways: either it’s a big deal and you should do it, or it’s “just a piece of paper” and hardly worth the bother.
Chet, YMMV indeed. “But we made a public commitment” is a good thing when it’s a reason not to do something rash. It’s not a good thing as a reason to stay in an abusive marriage, or even a severely dysfunctional marriage where things aren’t going to get better even if you try your damndest.
To me, having kids with somebody was a much bigger and more permanent commitment than merely getting married. I was married once before–no kids and I haven’t seen or spoken to my ex in over fifteen years. But I could find out tomorrow that my marriage was legally invalid and my husband ran off with the pool boy, and I’d still be tied to him in ways that no “piece of paper” could undo. YMMV, of course.
preying mantis noted:
and eat his head off during sex; you left that out.Mr Foxwell wrote:
Can’t say that I agree with that. Assuming some sort of lengthy cohabitation arrangement is the alternative, there will be all sorts of financial and legal entanglements. If there is a child involved, in a divorce the male is legally assumed to be the father, and thus responsible for either custody or child support, as the case may be; in a cohabitation arrangement, the male could throw all sorts of roadblocks into that, with legal motions challenging the assumption of paternity.
Mrs Pico and I bought a house, after we were married; there is no question at all, under the law, that we are equally and jointly owners, and there can be no (successful) legal motions to challenge equality of ownership.
It’s pretty obvious that if a couple is together only a short while, there will be fewer entanglements, but as time passes and they furnish a home together, they become de facto joint owners in something that could become de jure difficult in a contentious break-up.
Most of the focusing on whatever down-side that exists is a focus on the consequences of a break-up; it seems to me those consequences are going to be serious regardless of whether a legal marriage occurred.
That’s only if he fails to distract me with something fun beforehand.
I say with admiration and terror that preying mantis wins, hands down, the nomination for the Foreplay Through Fear Party.
Vote now or vote headless!
Mr Foxwell wrote:
Ahhh, but you make the mistake of assuming that devout Catholics can sin all they want Sunday afternoon through Saturday, go to confession, and all will be forgiven — and then they can start the process all over again Sunday after Mass. You knew the stumbling block, when you used the word “contrite;” the very example you gave (let’s shack up in case we ever break up and want to marry someone else), because it removes the possibility of true contrition, as in “Damn, I’m glad that I only shacked up with Sue, so that now I can marry you.”
Catholicism is a purel;y voluntary religion; if someone wishes to switch churches to avoid the problems of a potential divorce, well, the Episcopalians are always looking for new members!
Amanda wrote:
No, Amanda, you assumed that, as an evil conservative troll, that must be what I think about you specifically and women in general. I can think that you are wrong about most things without assuming that you are either a child or a moron. I have my doubts that you’ll ever change your mind on your assumption, but it really is incorrect.
Even assuming some kind of ‘arrangement’, which most people cohabiting don’t bother with (says the lawyer, wearily), those financial and legal entanglements are not imposed in block form by the government. So I’m not quite sure with what you’re disagreeing.
and eat his head off during sex; you left that out.
Covered by “making decisions during medical emergencies”, I believe.
From Paul: I get a sense that perhaps some of the defenders-of-marriage aren’t so much interested in convincing the non-married partner types that they should get married as they are in convincing them (and the peanut gallery) that not being married is inferior.
Exactly. No one has the right to push their view onto someone else. I like being married, but I also liked living together (much to my parents’ chagrin). The one person who supported my decision to live with Charlie for years was my 83 year old grandmother, who remarked that she wished SHE could have done that!!
Here’s my favorite response:
“Oh, I had some children.”
Pause.
Smile.
“They were delicious.“
It’s not a good thing as a reason to stay in an abusive marriage, or even a severely dysfunctional marriage where things aren’t going to get better even if you try your damndest.
Well, I agree of course.
I just don’t think that’s a reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater and to reject the legitimacy of marriage for people who’ve had a positive experience with it. Not that a lot of people are saying that, of course. YMMV really is the watchword here - marriage is the solution for some and not for others, and nobody should be pressured from either direction - to be made to feel that they’re a traitor to feminism for marrying, or a traitor to family for not.
To me, having kids with somebody was a much bigger and more permanent commitment than merely getting married.
Fair enough. Being childless and not owning a house, marriage is the biggest commitment in my life so far. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least to learn that there were even larger ones.
Actually, nobody’s said that. Except perhaps for the voices in your head, or the Strawfeminist.
Oh dear god, yes.
The same summer - practically the same month - that I started graduate school and got an apartment for the first time, my younger cousin began her train wreck of a marriage. I was very pissed that she was getting tons of useful stuff for doing nothing more than saying “I do” to someone that she obviously should never say that to, while I - who graduated cum laude and was taking on massive loans for graduate school - got jack shit.
Yes, I was immaturely bitter for quite awhile.
And I’m still bitter that when I made noises re: getting a hope chest for Christmas when I was the same age my sister was when she got hers, I was told quite emphatically “No” - bolstered by a “duh, what were you thinking?” reaction from my brother. So….the fact that I’m not getting married and nor having kids in the next few years means that I don’t have hopes and dreams? Stuff to store and cherish? (Me, the pack rat, doesn’t have a desire or need for a big trunk to store treasures in?) Am I only half alive until marriage and kidlets?
The main difference for us in getting married was people went from asking when we were going to get married to asking when we are going to have kids. The big Holy Shit We Are Totally Commited thing happened way earlier, when I moved from New Jersey to California to live with him. While we were waiting to board the flight, actually.
from Mickle: “…the fact that I’m not getting married and nor having kids in the next few years means that I don’t have hopes and dreams?”
This reminds me of when my cousin, the first of us grandkids, got married. A bunch of the family went down to NH from Maine for a few days for the ceremony. The next day, I drove down to move in with my boyfriend/now husband in Texas.
Before the wedding, my grandfather (whom I was especially close to) took me aside to give me a gift- the same amount of cash he gave my cousin! He and Gram had discussed it (and certainly it was alot of money for them) and they knew that I was making a serious commitment. I didn’t expect it and was especially pleased- it was an acknowledgement from them of the relationship that I did not get from my parents.
Jesus. Christ. Dana.
Aren’t there some other blogs you can go crap on? I’m sure you can find a different blogger to become infatuated with.
louise - that’s very sweet.
I’ve been with my opposite-sex partner for 14 years last Saturday. We’re expecting our first child (a daughter) in April. Never got married, never saw the need. We had a party for all our relatives on our tenth anniversary that served as our “wedding.” Everyone who attended said it was the best “wedding” they’d ever seen, and our family said they were surprised by how close to us and our values they felt afterward.
We have the longest relationship of anyone on both sides of our family since our grandparents. Our own parents have been married a total of ten times between the four of them. None have lasted as long as ours.
Two of my four brothers went the standard marriage route. Of those, I think one of them will do very well and I worry about the other. I worry because of what I’ve seen of their relationship and how they interact with one another. That, to me, is what marriage is really about. You can get that piece of paper and you can say all the pretty things you want, but ultimately you and your partner have to have a good relationship with one another. If we spent more time thinking about what we want out of our relationships rather than just expecting them to go a certain way, we’d have far fewer divorces, I think.
Congrats, furious T!
All happy thoughts to you all.
I’ll take April 17th on the pool; it’s my daughter’s 10th birthday this year.
One of my aunts was married for about 15 years when she divorced her husband, left the boys with him, and started over on the other coast. There she met a wonderful man and they have been living together for about 30 years now. He’s as much my uncle as her first husband was; I adore him!
Actually, nobody’s said that.
Well, no, Zuzu, a few people actually are saying that - ‘marriage can’t be anything but a trap for women; therefore we should get rid of marriage. For everybody.’
If you’re not aware that that position is being taken by some, you’re just being purposefully ignorant.
or the Strawfeminist.
Sure, sure. Because there doesn’t exist a single human being who advocates a vision of feminism not personally approved by you, Zuzu.
“If you’re not aware that that position is being taken by some, you’re just being purposefully ignorant.”
Are those some actually in this thread, or are we talking about the fringes of discourse more notoriously inhabited by Tibetan molemen and the folks who insist that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is both legitimate and a deliberate leak?
Are those some actually in this thread,
Not to my knowledge, which is why I never said that there were. I was speaking about the larger context of the feminist conversation aboout marriage which is not, to my knowledge, limited to this one single thread at one single website.
A failure of imagination. You can live in a world where people are atoms. Elsewhere people live in dense lattices. Marriage makes a lot of sense in the latter world and not in the former. To imagine one or the other is correct and the other wrong is to miss the point. The dislocations that you feel is because of the overlap of the two worlds.
Just FYI, in the dense lattice world, when a woman marries, from her point of view, she’s not just getting a spouse relationship, she’s getting relationships with father-in-law, mother-in-law, sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law, etc., and each has an individual character, roles to be played, responsibilities, customs and little rituals that go with it. (It is similar for a man.) To simply shack up with someone is to miss a lot of life. All that in the dense lattice society becomes somewhat meaningless and difficult to maintain when a couple from the dense lattice world moves to USA which is the atomic world.
If you understand the paragraph above, then you will understand the importance of family, family reputation, how arranged marriages work in traditional Indian culture, etc. A responsible parent would want a child to marry into a family where all these relationships can healthily exist. A marriage is between families; a shacking up is between individuals. If the American family no longer extends beyond the nuclear family, then marriage as an institution makes much less sense.
Creating an obstacle to breaking up - the hassle of divorce - can act as a buffer against doing something rash in response to a temporary feeling or situation.
Chet, that is a good point but not necessarily for marriage, but for knowing how one reacts to obstacles. I know that I resent the hell out of them, and become obsessed with getting around them. It’s easier for me not to smoke if I have cigarettes handy, and easier to stay if I have a free paths to the exit.
It is generally strange how this obstacle thing plays out. Some people I know don’t want to marry (again) because divorces are such a hassle, while those who actually are divorced had been living apart for more than a year (it’s the law) — so it had been a matter of walking out on a moment’s notice, maybe even more easily because they had a year to come back should they change their minds.
IME, people marry because they feel the legal package is a good deal, or they don’t because they think it isn’t. But as it’s easier to get the package than to return it, the ones that got it are more worried about whether they might have bought a lemon.
Tyro: She either doesn’t see her long-term partner as a part of her family, in the same way her parents and siblings are family, or she doesn’t associate family with having all of the binding ties that marriage entail and views all relationships as essentially “chosen.”
As they say, you can choose your friends, but not your family…
Ross: You’re saying that only because you never found the right spaceship. And because you fear getting trapped without energy or life support on the far side of Pluto.
Just FYI, in the dense lattice world, when a woman marries, from her point of view, she’s not just getting a spouse relationship, she’s getting relationships with father-in-law, mother-in-law, sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law, etc., and each has an individual character, roles to be played, responsibilities, customs and little rituals that go with it. (It is similar for a man.) To simply shack up with someone is to miss a lot of life. All that in the dense lattice society becomes somewhat meaningless and difficult to maintain when a couple from the dense lattice world moves to USA which is the atomic world.
I’m not married to my partner and I have all these relationships. That’s what happens when you enter a long-term relationship with someone.
Your argument assumes a rather simplistic view of Western vs. Eastern societies. Rarely are things so neat. And reducing Indian marriages simply to the “lattice density” or some such pop sociology without acknowledging the role of caste, property, etc. in same is rather, well, shameful, imo.
Louise, I’m extremely interested in your experience with the lawyer. My parents are really concerned about me, not getting married and living halfway across the country from them. I want me and my boyfriend to go to a lawyer and set some things up. What were the things you were able to do? I’m impressed that it only cost $300, I was thinking it’d be a lot more! I do NOT want to get married, ever, for many many reasons. But, I would like to have some of the protections that marriage provides. (Mainly just if I get in an accident or something)
When I think about marriage, I have to think about privilege. Marriage is basically a privileged institution for those deemed worthy (any hetero person). Heterosexual people can get married and sign up for a very long list of privileges, that gay people can not get. And single people do not get.
The way I see it, getting married is the same thing as going down to the office of “white people’s privilege” and signing yourself up for even more privileges that you only get because society is unjust and fucked up, and you happen to be in the privileged class. This doesn’t seem right to me at all. I will not go sign up for even MORE privileges that I can get just because I have sex with a man, not a woman.
Why can’t we all just decide who our next of kin is? Who gets to make decisions for us in a medical emergency? Why is it all about being a couple? Why is that the MOST important relationship? Why can’t a friend be your next of kin?
Whoops, Leora, not Louise. Sorry!