This has been a post that's been perculating for a while. I've sat and written things. Saved it, left it alone. Come back to it. Written some more. This is my way of doing a bit of sandbagging about the following words.
One of the reasons a post about marriage has taken me a long time to get around to (and hours of thought) is that my opinions about marriage are formed from personal experience and my societal view of things. Meaning, marriages I watched growing up as well as my over-arching views on relationships and society. It's very difficult for me to tease the two apart. Maybe it's foolish to try.
When I say "I don't want to get married", the majority of the people I meet immediately jump to the "personal experience" conclusion. That the marriages that formed my childhood must have poisoned my mind against marriage-on-the-whole, and if I would just get over myself and take a step back my eyes would be suddenly opened to the joy and wonder that is matrimony. So I will be honest with you, dear reader. That is in part true. The poisoned part, not the eye opening part. But I still believe that my over-arching opinions about the institution of marriage as a whole are equally as true and important, regardless or seperate from personal experience.
I may be wrong.
Here's the thing: I love my partner. I have absolutely no qualms against promising him that I'm not planning on going anywhere. Fear of commitment is not an issue here - although it's the most common criticism I hear when people ask "When's the wedding?" and I answer "Never." But I'm also a realist and a pragmatist. I love him now, and I would rather work through any problems than bail and run. But I cannot possibly say that I will love him 20 years from now.
My big picture view of marriage is that it was used as a business transaction. For me, it will always have these Christian overtones that echo dowries, and land transactions, and father-giving-the-bride-away outdated modes. I realize (and the argument has been made towards me multiple times) that marriage is not this anymore. That in our wonderful modern society, it can be what you make it, and does not require a priest or a church or even a white gown. So by that same token, why is it required at all? Under the law, I'm considered common-law. My spouse is covered under my insurance. We're each others emergency contacts. Most of the time I call him hubby and he calls me wife. So why can't that be enough?
But here's the rub, dear reader: I did get married. Quite recently. I started writing this post (and editing and tweaking and deleting) months before marriage came seriously onto the table, and since then I've signed the dreaded marriage document that has somehow earned me the right to be called Mrs. I came back to this post fully expecting to re-read it and decide to scrap the whole fucking lot and start fresh, but honestly my opinion hasn't changed much. I still think marriage is this murky quagmire that fails to separate church and state (hello same-sex marriage debate) and carries icky patriarchal connotations and societal pressures and feminine ideals and yadda yadda yadda. I still would have been content to remain in sinful co-habitation for the next twenty years.
So why did I get married?
It was my price of admission.
Having not grown up in a Catholic household, nor seen many surviving marriages, my view of the whole thing was pragmatic and fairly pessimistic. However my partner had a much different upbringing, and although he shares my pragmatism, for him it became a thorn in his side that we were going to have a child out of wedlock. People take a fairly solid opinion on matters that don't impact them - until they do impact them, and suddenly all bets are off and previously held opinions go flying out the window. My over-arching opinion on marriage hasn't changed, but my stoic refusal to participate? Well, stoic refusals don't give great snuggles, or cook you dinner, or make you laugh. We had an unconventional marriage, done the way we wanted, how we wanted, and we had a fun time with it. It cost us almost nothing. We used the excuse to get all pretty. I sported a 5 and a half month pregger belly. It didn't rain. High five.
I'd read and been told by friends that many relationships underwent dramatic changes post-wedded-bliss. Some took nosedives out of the sky, some found it rekindled previously lacking passion. Honestly, for us, nothing changed. Which made me ecstatically happy. I didn't want anything to change. Why get married, it might mess up with great thing we have going on! It's not broken, don't fuck with it! So far, everything feels exactly as it did before hand, except having to explain that I am not Mrs.Partner, but still Mrs.Me (you think after all this ranting about marriage, I'd change my name? Puh-leaze).
So what's the point of this blog post? I'm not entirely sure. Originally, to explain my refusal to marry - which seems a bit hypocritical now, so scratch that. To rant against the institution of marriage? Well, it's not for me, but neither is skydiving. Doesn't mean you shouldn't be allowed to jump out of a plane if you so choose to. To say that after marrying I had a complete about-face and have since come to embrace the entire bundle as a beautiful celebration of love and commitment? The celebrating part was fun in it's own way, and it's hard to be sad at a wedding so seeing all our nearest and dearest grinning from ear to ear is always a worthwhile experience, but honestly? I still think it's unrealistic to hold people to a lifelong commitment they can't possibly predict they'll be able to keep. And then stigmatize them when it "fails" (explain to me how forming a lasting relationship for two decades and then parting ways constitutes a failure? Sounds like a lot of hard work that deserves credit and recognition).
Hopefully, it's an unrealistic commitment we'll be able to keep, and grow with, and improve as time goes on. I think entering it with eyes wide open to it's realities puts us ahead of the game and gives us a better chance. And should it crumble 20 years down the road? Well, I wouldn't regret a thing, nor call it a failure, nor feel like being divorced made me less adequate of love - I would have, after all, just had 20 years of it. Which is pretty damn good, I think.
