Love Stories: Is Marriage Necessary?
February 8, 2010 by admin
Filed under Love and Marriage
One of our favorite writers and fellow stepmom, author of Stepmonster, Wednesday Martin, wrote an insightful article on Psychology Today about the necessity of marriage. This article provoked some stimulating conversation between my husband and I and we’d love to hear what you think regarding the question - Is Marriage Necessary? Check out the article below and let us know what you think.
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, some recent, highly-publicized non-fiction debuts are sure to get you in the mood for romance. Staying True, by Jenny Sanford, chronicles the very public breakdown of her marriage to South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, who wasn’t hiking on the Appalachian Trail after all. Marry Him by Lori Gottlieb (the subtitle of which–the Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough, says it all) accuses you of being too picky and urges you to snap up that guy who’s an 8 rather than waiting for the 10. And The Politician, Andrew Young’s new, explosive tell-all about John Edwards, details his infidelity and exposes, for our lurid delectation, the operatic fights and the second family he started while his wife was struggling with cancer.
Granted, these books don’t describe the experiences of most of us. Hopefully our relationships are not all colored by messianic narcissism, bigamy, and profound cynicism about pairing off “before it’s too late.”Bottom of Form
But in their own dramatic and overblown ways, these books speak a quieter, less dramatic truth: marriage isn’t what we think it is, and it isn’t easy. Plenty of marriages aren’t doing well. While divorce rates for first marriages have settled from a high in the 1980s of around 50% to 43% according to the most recent Census, 43% is no cause for dancing in the streets. Especially when you consider that in remarriages with children, divorce rates divorce rates may be as high as 72%, according to E. Mavis Hetherington, the respected psychologist, family researcher, and author of the lauded 30-year Virginia Longitudinal Study.
Why? Much ink has been spilled and much breath has been spent and many workshop fees have been forked over in the interest of what’s wrong with marriages, and how to improve them, to make them more satisfying, equitable, sexually exciting, emotionally healthy, nurturing, and harmonious. Saving marriages is a multi-million dollar industry, and we know from first-hand experience, many of us, that it can work. Marriages, some of them, can be saved.
But Marriage probably cannot.
While marital and couples therapists tell us how to save our marriages, sociology, anthropology, and human behavioral ecology suggest that it isn’t so much married couples as Marriage itself, the institution, that’s in trouble. The problem with marriages is really the fundamental problem with Marriage: marriages are falling apart in large part because Marriage is no longer necessary. At least, not in the way it once was.
Sociologists and historians of marriage tell us that marriage was originally a business transaction of sorts, rather than an undertaking hinging on the attraction and love between two individuals. Historically in western culture, people from wealthy families were directed to marry in order to create bonds, alliances, and mutual obligations with other powerful families-or even between nations, in the case of royals. For the lower classes, marriage was a question of creating a labor force to run a farm or small business. Households were production-centered economies in which men’s and women’s labor were complementary, and kids they had together or brought together from previous unions (maternal mortality rates were high until the late 19th century) pitched in. Marriage was necessary. And remarriage with children after the death of a spouse-a common occurrence until relatively recently-was considered the most civic-minded thing a man or woman could do. The household and by extension all of society depended on it, after all.
But by the early 20th century, marriage historian Stephanie Coontz points out, with the notions of the individual, liberty, and equality well-established by the Enlightenment and French and American revolutions, and the subsequent rise of the love match, marriage had become a different animal entirely. Marriage morphed from institutional, in the famous formulation of sociologist Ernest Burgess, to companionate and now, something more individualistic. Marriage is now expected to nurture, satisfy and support the members of the couple in a dizzyingly comprehensive variety of ways-emotionally, sexually, psychologically.
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“Children live what they learn.” ~Diane Greene
I can explain the breakdown of the institution of marriage in one word. SELFISHNESS! It creeps into my marriage ever now and then but I know to make it work, I have to put my wife first and she puts me first. That’s the only way it works. My wife and I would tell you all that we would not be married today if it were not for our relationship with Jesus Christ. And our relationship with each other reflects how much time individually we spend with God and with other married couples who share the same views we do. When I have trouble in my marriage I don’t call my single friend Tyrone for advice!!!!
Ephesians 5:25-27 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her; 26 that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she should be holy and blameless.
In other words, I need to die to my selfish needs everyday and lovingly serve my wife so that she feels love in every sense of the word. And when she feels love, I see the person on the inside that God blessed me with.
I loved this post! In my opinion, another problem with the institute of marriage in today’s society is the mindset that a lot of individuals have going into the marriage from the start that “divorce” is such an easy option so as long as things are good, then our marriage is good, but when it gets bad, I can always get a divorce. As Phillip says above, that “selfish” attitude is a huge problem. I also agree with Phillip that emotionally “feeling” love from your partner is so much bigger than just hearing the words. Thank you Dr. Martin for such a thought provoking piece. I always enjoy your writing.
Di
Diane and Phil, you both make some excellent points. I too believe that what needs to change is our perception of marriage. I don’t like what it was in the past as far as marrying out of necessity and I don’t like what it is now! Approaching marriage by looking for a reason or necessity to marry is the wrong attitude. No, we don’t live in a time period when a woman’s goal in life is to find a man to take care of her, or a man’s goal is to find a mother for his children. But, those aren’t reasons to marry in the first place. As Phillip said, those are selfish reasons. And, those marriages didn’t last because both parties were happy. They lasted because one or both parties felt as if there were no other options.
My question is - why does it have to be necessary to marry? I married my husband simply because I love him, we have so much in common, common goals, similar parenting styles, we make each other laugh and more importantly, we’re friends. There was no necessity involved and because we married for the right reasons, there was also no immediate “way out” clause. So again, a follow-up question is - does it have to be necessary to marry?
*kela*
Kela,
To answer your question, in my opinion, I would say an argument could be made on both sides of the fence on the issue of “to marry or not to marry.” I would say that a huge deciding factor on the subject might be an individual’s personal spiritual/relgious beliefs which definitely plays a role for me, but I would also say that I married my husband because he and I have a connection that I have never had with anyone else in my life. Yes, I have even been deeply in love before he came into my life, but I didn’t experience the emotional connection that I now share with my husband.
Now, would it have been completely necessary for me to marry him just to have a license to share this commitment? No, but marriage to me is more than just a contract or license, it is deeply personal. Like you, I found a person who makes me feel like I am the only woman in the world, who makes me feel safe and secure in his arms, one who makes me laugh until my sides hurt. I married him because by doing so, it created our kinship, it strengthened our intimacy and a united our union together.
I understand however that the same argument can be made for non-marriage. Yes, and I could have all those things without my marriage certificate but for me, my commitment has brought out the best in me and in my husband. Our marriage is a “fortress.” It hasn’t been easy all the time, and I am sure there are more challenging times ahead that we will trudge through, but it has been the best relationship of my life.
Di