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| unrealistic photoshop, but ADORABLE |
The main thing that's seemed to shift, to me, is that marriage is no longer the first step in becoming recognized as an adult: it's the final piece of adulthood, the cream on the cake, somewhat frivolous or unnecessary if you've already established financial success and a career and all that. My mama married the first time at 18, and lived in a house in New Jersey that used to be where migrant workers who picked blueberries would live (i.e., it was incredibly small and cheap). Financial stability was not a pre-requisite then the way it is now.
But I really don't buy this article's premise. If marriage was actually dead, why do 95% of people still say they want to marry some day? Perhaps it's not in the same manner or time frame as our parents did, but that's still a pretty high approval rating! Or maybe I just feel that way because I love weddings with a stupid passion. What do you think?
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| some thoughts, care of Gloria |
Much love,
The Sheriff
I was SO surprised by that 40 percent stat — considering how many effing weddings I have been to in the past five years and how hard the Christian right is fighting to keep gay people from getting married! Hmmph.
ReplyDeleteBut I think your take is dead on: The institution isn't obsolete, but it's purpose has shifted, as a way of cementing your transition into adulthood, rather than being your first step out into the world. And this is a pretty great thing, if you ask me, because being married can be super great, but also super hard — and it's nice to feel like you've figured out a lot of your own shit first. Of course, I'm speaking as a married person...but one who was very ambivalent on the marriage question for a lot of years, and might actually have said, "yep, it's obsolete" about 4-5 years ago. I was in a super great, committed relationship, and I didn't love the idea that a piece of paper would give us more validity than we could give ourselves by choosing to be together.
But then something shifted, and I decided, "hey, I AM in a great, committed relationship where we choose to be together — we should get to celebrate that with our loved ones and have it recognized by the world!" For me, getting married was absolutely about recognizing all the work we'd done to get to that point, as much as being excited for what the future would hold.
And I think an institution that helps people recognize those things, and kind of helps cement who they are together and where they're going — that's a pretty great thing that I'd hate to see become obsolete. I don't even think it is all that frivolous — it can be an incredibly useful and important (and protective).
But if the old model of marriage (where you dive into that before figuring out anything about yourself and your own plans first) is dying off, well, that is just fine by me.
Sorry, apparently I had a lot of thoughts about this! Nice post!
The most interesting part of that article for me was the comment regarding marriage and social status. The fact that marriage has now become more common in people with higher paying jobs is very indicative of how it is perhaps no longer about double income anymore. People with lower paying or no jobs wait to get married much later...which is interesting, considering we think of marriage as a financial institution. Is that really the case anymore?
ReplyDeleteAlso, it mentioned how it is more common for people to marry someone with the same career path as them. As in, dr. to dr., versus dr. to nurse. Anyway, glad you mentioned it, was an interesting read, even if it was in that crappy magazine.