Loved to Death

I've never been married, so maybe I don't really know what I'm talking about here. Do I have to have been married to argue against the institution of marriage? Do I have to have been Catholic to argue against the religion's problematic ideology? I don't think so. So here I go.

I think marriage vows are untenable, the practice is unnecessary, and the outcome potentially harmful. But that's just me.

I've never been married because I could never get passed the vows. I know we can all write our own these days, but there's one line that seems to be a pretty important part of it all: "I promise to love and honour (formerly also 'obey') whomever until death do us part." I really love my guy. And I really wish I could come up with a better term for him. He's not my husband, and he's not a partner in any business venture, and he's too old to be my boyfriend... Anyway, I love him to bits, but I can't promise to love him forever. I don't think anyone else could either. It's just not possible.

Think of it this way: I love ice-cream more than any other food, hands down. I'll probably love it forever, but I can't promise I will. I can promise to eat ice-cream every day; I can force myself to eat it like or not, but why would I?? But I can't make myself love ice-cream. And what if the manufacture of ice-cream changes, and it really starts leaving a bad taste in my mouth? I can shovel it down my gullet, but I can't make myself enjoy it.

We can only promise actions within our will, and loving someone or something is not an action we can force to happen. It's beyond our will, and therefore outside of our realm of intention. I can promise to stay with someone forever, but I can't say I'll like it. It sounds nice to say "I'll love you forever." It can show a sincere hopefulness in the future and register the intensity of what a person is feeling right this minute, but it's really a load, isn't it.

Marriage is no longer a necessity now that women can own property in their own names and have children outside of marriage who are recognized by the state as legitimate. And marriage is no longer necessary to avoid the sin of fornication, not to most progressive thinkers at any rate. I own property, and I'm raising three bastard children who are legal citizens and have not personally experienced any stigma from their unholy births.

When a marriage ends, it's seen as a tragedy rather than just a transition. A century ago, marriages averaged about twenty years due to early deaths from disease and poor sanitation. Today, they still average about twenty years. Considering our current longevity, modern divorce may be a functional substitute for death. Divorce can be a sad experience, a time of grief, but we don't have to look at the divorced family as "broken." That connotation is a social creation that can be deconstructed. However, economic hardship after divorce is the real crisis. Instead of a marriage contract, we should insist on a childbirth contract with economic responsibility clearly spelled out and revised regularly.

My guy and I did have a private ceremony (just us two) and a big party to celebrate being together. There were no vows of commitment, no promises of ever after. It's not for everybody. I like to dwell in the numinous essence of relationships, and accept the chance and change involved, the flux of human nature. Personal ritual also presupposes a certain level of introspection, intelligence and energy on the part of the participants. Many people prefer the ease of using impersonal, traditional ceremonies with vows already prepared for them but will spend months anguishing over decisions about clothes, flowers, hair and cake.

There are other problems with the glorification of love in marriage above all other relationships. Love needs to flourish in our isolated secularized lives within and alternatively to marriage. As society has fallen from the church's control and into the media's, if we could orchestrate a change in popular media, perhaps we could affect a transformation in society. We need sitcoms characters who are not trying desperately to meet someone and tie the knot. Barring that, change will be slow and evolutionary, one person at a time, until secularized marriages can lose the stigma of impending failure as commitments become reasonable enough to be meaningful.

The trappings of marriage can be difficult to reject. It's like joining an exclusive club; now you belong in this world. You get a ring to show off, a trophy that places you at number one in someone's eyes. (The second-place trophy is an apartment nearby.) But then it's the ultimate embarrassment if your love falters or your lover ends up loving someone else better. Like winning the Olympics, then finding out you failed the drug test, being up on that podium was all a sham. You're just a loser like the rest of us. But that's just crap. We already belong in this world. Why need a ring to prove that? Is it an "in" with the in-crowd, a bit of attention for a little while?

My sisters and my dad are dying to "marry me off" to somebody. It's the illusion of security that drives their misguided concern. Marriage will keep me safe and secure until I die. I'll always have company. I'll never be alone again. But that's a crock. First of all, before I met my guy, I wasn't alone. I have other people in my life that I hang out with. It's not an either/or proposition: married or alone. I would never expect one person to shoulder the burden of all my needs and interests. Also I consider my dad's life. Less than a year after my mother died, he remarried because marriage is so important to him. Now he lives far from his children and grandchildren with a woman who won't let him live the life he wants to live. He had to get rid of all his things, his hobbies, his pets. His kids don't visit as often because his new wife is nasty. How is that marriage creating a better life for him? Does he sleep easier knowing he's got someone else legally tied to him until he croaks? Newsflash: there is no such thing as a secure relationship. I can sign a contract to stay with someone until death, then die tomorrow. And this contract has an easy out.

My guy and I have been together five years. I love him today; I think I will for a good long time, but we'll see where life carries us. A previous relationship lasted ten years, then we grew apart and parted ways, without any guilt or sense of obligation or expensive legal fees. We were still in love, but couldn't get around our diverging priorities. I don't believe we can measure the quality of a relationship by its duration. I know many couples who have been together for decades but can't stand one another. They've entered the marathon race, and they'll struggle along to the end until it kills them. I'm with my guy out of enjoyment, not obligation. I'm not about to just wander off at the first fight expecting continuous glee, but I do want more pleasure than pain, more laughter and connected conversations than tears or indifference. So far so good.

It might feel defeatist to expect less than forever from an intensely loving union, but that feeling comes from our "happily ever after" brainwashing. I'm not against life-long relationships, but against the expectation of them. My parents were married almost 50 years until my mother died. They loved each other passionately right to the end. I remember sitting on the couch watching TV between them, and my dad would tell me, "Sit back, I can't see your mother." I want that, and won't settle for anything less. I'd rather be alone than pretend I'm feeling that for someone. It's not fair to anyone to pretend. Right now I have it, and I cherish it (except when he leaves his socks on the kitchen table), but I don't pretend to know the future, and won't nurture any illusions that it will be lifelong. It doesn't have to last forever for it to be good. It's part of the way of nature that things change, are born and die, over and over and over again.

Get used to it.