quote:Originally posted by Dead_Horse: One of you is going to be seriously disappointed. I'd feel pretty bad knowing that my spouse married me only because nothing better came along. "I wouldn't marry you *unless* you were the last person on earth", is not a declaration of love.
I wouldn't marry him because I didn't find anything better. It's because we're too young to get married and naturally immature so we want to make sure that we've had time to find the right person.
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quote:Originally posted by Puppy: Oh yeah, and serious marriage pacts are dumb, because there are only three possible outcomes when the promise comes due:
1. Both of you want to get married, at which point, why did you need the pact?
2. ONE of you wants to hold the other to the pact, which is a recipe for a stalker.
3. Neither of you even remembers the pact, at which point, why did you bother?
I think the real cause underlying most marriage pacts is the fact that one of the "friends" involved actually has a giant crush he/she can't own up to, and wants a noncommittal way to discuss marriage with the object of his/her affection.
Puppy did an excellent job of summarizing my reaction, analysis, and [prior, not necessarily pertaining to this thread, of course -- this is not a commentary on those posting here] experiences of seeing this with others (fictional and non-fictional ).
quote:Neither of you even remembers the pact, at which point, why did you bother?
There are reasons to bother! It's like when best girl friends make plans to marry brothers and live right next door to each other and have babies at the same time and take them to the park together and dress them as Raggedy Ann and Andy for Halloween. Practically none of those plans come true, but it is still a very sweet and important thing for friends to do together.
It reinforces to both friends that the future is not an empty and scary place and that they are not shipwrecked sailors on a "whirling, fire-smitten, ice-locked, disease-stricken, space-lost bulb."
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If making a marriage pact now will help someone get more action down the road, I say more power to 'em Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote:Originally posted by ClaudiaTherese: Puppy did an excellent job of summarizing my reaction, analysis, and [prior, not necessarily pertaining to this thread, of course -- this is not a commentary on those posting here] experiences of seeing this with others (fictional and non-fictional ).
He summed up my initial take on the subject pretty well, but what kat said made a lot of sense to me.
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One thing that hasn't been mentioned here is the kind of panic that drives you to marry before a certain set age might drive you to make a bad choice.
I can see a marriage pact working in two ways here:
The first, it formalizes a date-of-no-return and thus increases the chance of the people involved of making a rash decision in order to comply with this abitrary date.
The second, it actually alliviates the stress because you always know you have somebody waiting for you.
I personally think that the first is more likely and would be wary of setting a formal point-of-no-return date. I've known people as young as 24 who are terribly panicked about marriage. It really is a great stress in this society somehow, for many people.
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I think that if someone is smart and self-aware enough to not get into marriage unwisely age 20, they will be the same at 30.
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quote:Originally posted by Altáriël of Dorthonion:
quote:Originally posted by Dead_Horse: One of you is going to be seriously disappointed. I'd feel pretty bad knowing that my spouse married me only because nothing better came along. "I wouldn't marry you *unless* you were the last person on earth", is not a declaration of love.
I wouldn't marry him because I didn't find anything better. It's because we're too young to get married and naturally immature so we want to make sure that we've had time to find the right person.
Then your pact isn't really to get married at 30; your pact is to reevaluate your relationship and consider marriage at 30.
The two are very, very different.
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You can't make an honest pact to do X while at the same time thinking that you haven't yet decided whether you want to do X or not.
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I can see the value in a marriage pact as a placebo effect, with willfully suspended disbelief. I just think that, unfortunately, it's slapping a band-aid on a real problem: anxiety over not being married.
There are a variety of ways to resolve that anxiety, I just think the best way would be to examine one's feelings and decide why they're anxious about not being married, and deal with that, rather than slapping a coat of paint on it.
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It's an agreement with the implied codicils - if it's right, it'll happen.
That's the overt pact. I think the subtext pact is even more real - "I will not forget you, and you do not have to be alone."
ETA: I don't think that being lonely and wanting to belong to someone should be considered a defect in need of being dealt with.
This is in part from experience. I have felt an extreme desire to get married before - at 22. He wanted to badly enough that he married someone else six months after I called it off, and they were divorced within a few years.
Anyway, I think self-awareness a little earlier on the part of either of us would have been a whole lot better than the dramarama that ensued instead. Whatever else you can say, I see no dearth of self-awareness from Alt and her friend. What's wrong with friends and their placebos?
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It seems to me that the effectiveness of known placebos is not compatible with self-awareness.
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No. For the reasons that Puppy said. It's silly to think otherwise.
Do they serve some useful function?
Yes. For the reasons that kat said.
I made a marriage pact with one of my good friends from high school (her idea), and even though we both knew then that we wouldn't actually get married it was a comfort to know that we were marriable. We're almost 30 now (and both single), and I guarantee you neither of us will be making that phone call to say, "Hey, should we start on wedding plans?"
So, if your definition of 'work' is that the pact ended in a marriage, then no, they don't work. But if it's to assure both parties that there's nothing about them that's fundamentally unmarriable, then yes, they work. The affirmation is nice, and I don't know anyone who takes them very seriously.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: I think you're missing the subtext.
The subtext that you've explained in this thread? I don't think I'm missing it -- I just think that it requires a certain amount self-unawareness or self-deception for it to work.
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quote:So, if your definition of 'work' is that the pact ended in a marriage, then no, they don't work. But if it's to assure both parties that there's nothing about them that's fundamentally unmarriable, then yes, they work. The affirmation is nice, and I don't know anyone who takes them very seriously.
MPH, JT explained it very well. That doesn't require self-deception - it requires believing in the spirit of it but not taking it literally. Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
That sure sounds like self-deception to me. Otherwise, why have with untrue literal pact at all?
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Making a promise that you know you don't intend to keep, but making it anyway because it makes you feel better == self-deception.
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quote:'Course, after I'd been there a few weeks they'd just be called the Islands. *waggles eyebrow*
I knew Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris kicked me in the face once. And you, sir, are no Chuck Norris.*
And Kat, I've been fascinated by your theories on this. My initial reaction was basically Puppy's, and it's still the one I'm most in sympathy with, but I can see where you're coming from.
*I don't really know Chuck Norris - this was merely a joke.
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quote:Making a promise that you know you don't intend to keep, but making it anyway because it makes you feel better == self-deception.
Nope. There's no deception there. Especially when you consider the outward words to be the form and the subtext to be the true promise.
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posted
I feel like we are going in circles. Because it is to assure that the other is, in fact, marriagable. Also, because we use the concept of marriage as a shorthand for being loved and not alone. Because marriage can be a rite of passage, and that assurance of being marriagable is an assurance that the other will not be left behind. Basically, marriage is a word and a concept that carries so much with it that it is useful for describing being loved and belonging and being part of society. Subtext!
Do you have a different take if you consider it a metaphor? Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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I agree -- we are going in circles. I'm not sure this is resolvable.
It still seems to me that self-deception (or, I guess, dishonesty) is an inherent part of saying "I promise I will do X" when you don't intend to do so.
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I am not a fan of subtext over actual words in relationships. I generally think it's a recipe for someone getting badly hurt. "Yes" means "yes", "no" means "no", "maybe" or "I'll think about it" means "maybe" or "I'll think about it" and "let's agree to get married" means "let's agree to get married."
I can see saying to a friend, "well if we're both still single at 30 we could always marry each other," having the friend replies "yes, we could" and feeling good about that. Is that what people are refering to as a "pact"? Because to me, "pact" is a much stronger word -- it implies a promise. I can't imagine calling something a pact that neither party had any intention of taking seriously.
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It's been my experience that, as Puppy observes, the vast majority of such "pacts" arise when one of the two people has an enormous -- and usually unrequited -- romantic crush on the other, and doesn't have any other prospects. As such, they're generally a bad idea, but -- like many bad ideas -- they can be a temporary balm.
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I wish I had written the post that dkw just posted, as it communicates very well my thoughts on the subject.
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quote: Basically, marriage is a word and a concept that carries so much with it that it is useful for describing being loved and belonging and being part of society.
BTW, I'm going to use this quote the next time someone asks me why same-sex marriage is so important.
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kat, what happens to the need to feel loved and marriagable when the people hit thirty, both are still single, and one of them is feeling unloved and unlovable, his or her biological clock is ticking, he or she calls in the pact and the other person says "no"?
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*hugs Alt* I think you're darling, Alt, and I wish I had been as self-aware and wise as you are being.
quote:kat, what happens to the need to feel loved and marriagable when the people hit thirty, both are still single, and one of them is feeling unloved and unlovable, his or her biological clock is ticking, he or she calls in the pact and the other person says "no"?
The same things that happen with any other kind of romantic rejection.
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As to the fertility issue - a woman's fertility starts decreasing around 30, with a big drop at 35. Of course, every woman's body is different, but this applies to a great majority. I, for example, will never be able to have children past 30, which is why we're trying for baby #2 so soon (we'd like to maybe have a 3rd one). Additionally, the health risks to both mother and child increase after age 35. There is also increasing evidence that autism is linked to advanced age in both parents.
While plenty of people have healthy children in their 30's and 40's, I can understand not wanting to wait.
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quote:The same things that happen with any other kind of romantic rejection.
Except in most other kinds of romantic rejections, you weren't previously promised that you wouldn't be rejected.
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quote:Except in most other kinds of romantic rejections, you weren't previously promised that you wouldn't be rejected.
What? That's not true. Divorces, breakups of long-term relationships - every time someone has said "I'll love you forever" or "You're safe with me." and then didn't or they weren't.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: Basically, marriage is a word and a concept that carries so much with it that it is useful for describing being loved and belonging and being part of society. Subtext!
And, by the way, how wrong and mean and smug and hurtful is that! Lovely to know that I am unloved and have no place in society. Grand!
quote:Except in most other kinds of romantic rejections, you weren't previously promised that you wouldn't be rejected.
Except that most of these romantic "rejections" are rejections, not betrayals. When you divorce someone, you're not rejecting them; you're breaking a promise to them. Breaking this "pact" does the same thing.
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Kate: Do you really think I meant it like that? Do you really think that I - not married and with no immediate plans to become so - meant that everyone who isn't married is not part of society and is unloved?
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Being not married at your age is different from being not married at my age.
I am not blaming you for this sentiment. I think you are describing a popular misconception - one that leads people to make pacts because the concept of being unmarried at 30 is unthinkable.
If you want to examine and explain what you did mean, that would be great.
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No examination necessary. You read the sentence wrong. I was not expressing my own opinion about the requirements for being part of society.
kate, since you feel fine about yourself, then it wouldn't matter what I thought anyway, even if I did mean what you thought I meant.
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No examination necessary. You read the sentence wrong. I was not expressing my own opinion about the requirements for being part of society.
kate, since you feel fine about yourself, then it wouldn't matter what I thought anyway, even if I did mean what you thought I meant.
I didn't you were expressing your own opinion. I think, though, that you are echoing an opinion (whether you share it or not)that sees unmarried women (not so much men) as traveling through a humungous, scary void with no oasis of love in sight.
And you are right, it doesn't really matter what you think of me. It is annoying to have that particular stereotype encouraged, though.
And I am willing to accept that I read that sentance wrong. How should I have read it?
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When you marry, you promise to live with that person forever. When you ask someone to marry you and they say no, there has never been a promise; they simply didn't return the interest.
When you promise to marry someone at some indeterminate time in the future, you are engaging in an act closer to engagement than to asking someone on a date.
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