Five Big Opinions About Marriage

posted 29th June 2011    Written by: Laura    CATEGORY: Laura, Love/Relationships, Season 4

I’ve been mulling over writing a post about marriage since I was first chosen as a Season 4 blogger. My parents divorced when I was 14, my Mom has since divorced again, I have a newly-divorced BFF, Hunny and I were together for 10 years before getting engaged last November, and Elizabeth Gilbert’s Committed was a recent beach read of choice.

In a nutshell, I’ve spent more than my fair share of time thinking about this topic and I would be doing the Stratejoy tribe a disservice if I conveniently skimmed over it.

While I could probably write a series of posts about marriage, for now, I’ve summarized 15 years of thinking into a Top Five list. These are the pillars of my perspective, if you will.

Here we go:

1. A wedding does not make a marriage.

I’m with the lovely Amanda on this one: the cocktail party isn’t the point. So often, weddings – and people’s reasons for wanting to get married – miss the mark. Millions of people out there bicker about orchids, wine menus and dress necklines, as if they’re factors in a loving, long term relationship. This loss of perspective is so contrary to how I want to live my life that, for 10 years, my reservations about weddings held me back from wanting to be married.

That may or may not have been right. But here’s what I discovered: in waiting until my heart desired a marriage, my ego no longer needed a wedding.

Couples shouldn’t need a legal document to tell them how to take care of each another. The focus all along should be on cultivating the love, understanding, patience, commitment, laughter, intimacy, and fun that make a marriage. Weddings – at both their simplest and most significant – are a one-day celebration and expression of that.

2. Marriage is not hard work, a life with meaning is.

“Marriage is hard work. I don’t foresee much benefit being returned to me for all of the effort that would be required. Therefore, I will not get married.”

There are plenty of people who believe in this line of thinking – or at least, one similar to it. I recently came across one such person, who blogged about marriage being overrated, and I surprised myself by getting really fired up about it. This is my uncensored response:

If you think avoiding marriage is protecting you from investing a shit tonne of effort in another person, you’re wrong. Any relationship between two souls is hard work.

I can think of oodles of times when I invested “marriage-like effort” in a relationship with someone else. I’ve compromised, trusted, done favours for, made sacrifices for, supported, encouraged, accepted faults, forgiven mistakes, been hurt by comments and actions, cried, argued, bit my tongue about annoyances, and looked past imperfections. Haven’t you? For your parents, siblings or best friends?

The simple truth is that interpersonal relationships bring meaning to our lives. Marriage is simply one label for one of those relationships. Avoiding the label doesn’t avoid the effort behind it.

Besides, being in love with another person inevitably means you’ll be willing to invest the effort required to share your life with them, whether you’re married or not.

3. Avoiding legal marriage does not mean you avoid heartache, or hassel.

If you are in love with someone, breaking up is going to suck the big one, whether you’re legally married or not. If you live together, bought anything together, share children, hobbies, pets or friends, are legally considered common law, or made any long term plans, breaking up will hurt. It will also be a nuisance.

Sure, dissolving a legal marriage adds a few additional layers and more paperwork, but compared to the knock-you-on-your-ass amount of pain that is likely to exist anyway, its not all that significant.

4. Fearing divorce doesn’t prevent it from happening.

Life is full of curve balls, don’t you think? Job losses, opportunities, surprise pregnancies, illnesses, temptations, windfalls, tragedies, and so much more. All of those things can affect a couple’s ability to stand united, find intimate connection, and sustain their love. Can anyone guarantee that their relationship can withstand each and every possible curve ball? I don’t think so. I won’t guarantee that Hunny and I can, but that uncertainty doesn’t scare me.

Why waste time thinking about how to avoid divorce from becoming a possibility? Its way more rewarding to love someone with your whole heart during the time you do have together – whether its a few years or a lifetime.

5. Legal marriage is old school, but that doesn’t mean its useless.

Sure, I see a pile of flaws in the institution of marriage. I hate that additional legitimacy and legal rights are offered to married couples, over non-married couples. I can’t stand the “50-50 rule” of divorce and think it’s beyond outdated. I believe that human imperfection can sometimes lead two people to stop loving each other as well as they should, before death does them part. And, I’m pretty sure that having one sexual partner for decades at a time is a societal norm that is becoming less desirable and relevant with each generation.

But at the end of the day, avoiding the paperwork doesn’t give it less power. In many ways, it gives it more.

Pretending my relationship doesn’t have the qualities of a marriage, when it does, isn’t fair. Not giving my loved ones the opportunity to give us our blessing would be robbing them of something. Not to mention, making Hunny feel that he’s not worthy of being my husband, or I his wife, is a bit of a slap in the face.

Because the reality is, those terms are special and the union they represent is meaningful. Our society is a long, long way from rendering legal marriage useless. So just like accepting the bad and the good in people, I accept the bad and the good of the institution. After all, nothing’s perfect.

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Comments (12)

12 Responses to “Five Big Opinions About Marriage”

  • parisianfeline Says:
    June 29th, 2011 at 8:47 am

    I think this post is really interesting, but also is indicative of heterosexual privilege. I bring this up because straight men and woman have the opportunity to be for or against wedding and marriages, whereas gays and lesbians are barely recognized are couples, much less have the chance to be with the person they love legally.

    So I think it's important to look at the people who are even allowed to be married and how that can influence the discussion of marriage and weddings. And I think examining personal privilege (white, heterosexual, middle class, etc) is important when crafting opinions about a subject where not everyone can be a full participant (ie: marriage).

    Not to say your post was openly discriminatory, especially since it dealt with more-so interpersonal relationships (which can be applied to everyone), but during the whole time I was reading it, I thought about straight privilege and felt that I should point it out.

  • Ashley Says:
    June 29th, 2011 at 9:02 am

    Thanks so much for this post. I've been thinking a lot about the effects of witnessing divorce at a young age. This line stuck with me especially, "Fearing divorce doesn’t prevent it from happening."

    And I disagree with the commenter above. Perhaps the perspective of this post is limited to heterosexual relationships (though it has relevance to all relationships), but I take it that IS your perspective. There's nothing discriminatory about it. It would be far worse and less effective to try to speak for everyone.

  • parisianfeline Says:
    June 29th, 2011 at 10:12 am

    That's cool. But privilege doesn't start and stop depending on where you live. Privilege is about the fact that you're not punished or oppressed for being straight. Straight people are not beaten in the street for being straight, they're not denied specific rights because they're straight. They don't have people condemning their relationships because of their straightness. Part of privilege – if not privilege – itself means being aware that you're considered the "norm" and that you don't have to know what it means to be considered less than because of race, color, gender, sexual orientation, able-bodied, religious belief systems and so on.

    I think it's great the Canadian GLBT are allowed to marry – but that doesn't negate the existence of straight privilege.

  • Five Big Opinions About Marriage | Stratejoy | Conquer Your … | yriracilu Says:
    June 29th, 2011 at 11:06 am

    [...] Source: http://www.stratejoy.com/2011/06/five-big-opinions-about-marriage/ [...]

  • Big L Says:
    June 29th, 2011 at 11:44 am

    Interesting perspective, thanks so much for taking the time to comment.

    I would say that in looking at North America's **general tendency** for wedding obsession, high divorce rates, slow-to-change legal systems, and associations of marriage with "effort", I still really stand by my opinions. They're simply observations I've made based on my own experiences. And I think, both the most wonderful and most limiting thing about blogging is that its only one person's perspective.

    The above post – and all of my posts here on Stratejoy – are written from the perspective of a 28-year-old, heterosexual, Caucasian, middle class, Canadian, urban-dwelling, able-bodied, woman. That's who I am. And yes, most of things are considered "norms"….I would never pretend otherwise.

    If any of my posts come across as a projection of my opinion onto others' situations, that's certainly not what I intend. I especially never intend to lack compassion.

    Thanks again for weighing in. That's what this site is for!

  • Big L Says:
    June 29th, 2011 at 11:46 am

    Thanks Ashley. I'm glad you found the post worth the read. Marriage is a juicy, juicy topic that can ignite some really interesting dialogue…that's why I felt so compelled to write about it! And I agree, it would be tricky territory to try to speak for anyone but myself! ;-)

  • Big L Says:
    June 29th, 2011 at 11:47 am

    Thanks for your support, love < 3

  • Big L Says:
    June 29th, 2011 at 11:47 am

    Haha, OK, I'll take that as a response :-)

  • Julie Says:
    June 30th, 2011 at 5:40 am

    Thanks Laura for sharing this!
    It's SO TRUE!
    My wedding is in less than 4 weeks and while we're at the heart of the kind of superficial details (flowers, music, food, hairstyle and so on), to me it's very important to stay connected to the REAL and MEANINGFUL part of the event. Most vendors say we are ûberrelaxed compared to other brides and grooms to be and I just don't see why we'd be freaking out instead of living the moment and enjoy this once-in-a-lifetime project.

    I especially love this quote : in waiting until my heart desired a marriage, my ego no longer needed a wedding.
    In French, the same word is used for marriage and wedding and too many people think it's one and only thing. That's sad.

    Sure, planning the event is a lot of fun! Especially when you love aesthetics and planning like me. It's a real treat. But the more the fantasy is coming true, the less important it feels to me. Weird, hey? People talk about everything being perfect, but all I want is for everything to be real, authentic, memorable and meaningful.

    Our wedding will be personal and intimate and creative and amazing, yes.
    But starting over again, we might as well chose to celebrate our love and relationship with fewer people and splurge on fancier food. So your statement really did resonate with me. It's true that the party is often an ego thing. And sadly, this fantasy does bring people to get married for the wrong reasons.

    Bur for us, celebrating the fact that our love is special and precious to us is all that counts, really. What I love about the party is that we get to also celebrate the life we are creating together with all of the people that is a part of it.

    Oh, and I too am in peace with the institution as it is. 'cause just like Elizabeth Gilbert said, the institution was built around the couples and the human nature of building a family. And not the other way around. This was a very powerful statement and it is mostly what I remember about the book.

    In the end, love always win.
    Happy wedding prepping to you!

  • Five Big Opinions About Marriage | Stratejoy | Conquer Your … | rykifaral Says:
    July 2nd, 2011 at 4:27 am

    [...] Source: http://www.stratejoy.com/2011/06/five-big-opinions-about-marriage/ [...]

  • Big L Says:
    July 6th, 2011 at 4:04 pm

    I adore this comment and that you always take the time to chime in thoughtfully! Once again, we're of very similar minds! You're right, planning is fun – and I know you're in the final moments right now! – but you're right, the authenticity and meaning is the most important thing ;) All the best to you as your special day fast approaches! xxoo

  • Nancy Jane Says:
    July 7th, 2011 at 9:59 am

    I am a little late for this blog post–and a little late to the marriage game–2 weeks ago at the age of 38 I just got married for the first time.

    I loved this post! I was one of those women–totally against divorce–I actually had to propose to my now husband because I had said I wasn't getting married so many times he gave up on the concept! I was fully committed to him and knew I was in it for the long haul but didn't want to go throw the 'hoops' didn't want to be 'just like everyone else', 'another statistic'.

    I surprised myself by loving the planning and and we had the most awesome wedding–just like we wanted, intimate, personal with sno-Kones, smores, swimming and dancing–and lots of laughter and tears! It was an amazing day–amazing as you said to share our relationship and love with a group of people that have helped us get here! But honestly, more amazing was the next day waking up and realizing that for the rest of our lives we were committed. There was something different about it–something special and magical. I keep waiting for the post-wedding depression to hit (as I have read on countless wedding sites) but so far I am just so thrilled to be sharing my day to day life with such an amazing man (same as we did 2 weeks before, really) !!

    And I know just as our wedding was unique and personal so too will our marriage be. Thanks again for opening up the discussion.

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