posted
kat, I am reading it descriptively. You are describing (somewhat sympathetically) a way of looking at being married vs being unmarried that I find wrong, mean, smug, and hurtful.
I didn't say that you are these things. I said that that way of thinking was.
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Think of it as a description of the rhetorical weight the word "marriage" carries and how it is therefore useful as a shorthand for other things which are often harder to articulate. That's all it is.
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It might be handy, but it is wrong...hurtful. Unless what you (or whoever is using that shorthand) want to equate being married with being loved, belonging, and having a place in society. In which case, it's just hurtful.
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The word having that rhetorical weight does not eliminate other ways of being and doing the same.
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Marriage itself is so emotionally loaded, it's really no wonder so many in the US fail. The idea that teens or early 20s NEED to be married by a certain time, and have to start making fall-back plans a decade or more before then is a good example. All the hubub over same-sex marriage is another. In reality, being married and being in a long-term, committed relationship can be nearly identical, but the wording trips everyone up.
I think marriage pacts are bad, because they reinforce the societal weight on the term marriage, and help make it somewhat pathological. Marriage pacts encourage young people to see marriage as some mythical event, which must come to pass by a certain time.
They also make an easy excuse to avoid intimacy and emotional growth, to avoid taking risks, meeting new people, trying to find love, because you have that imaginary pact to fall back on.
Rather than make a marriage pact, people would be much better off either asking the other person out now, thinking about why they don't feel like they can ask that person out, or just dating other people.
I'm not saying anyone is a bad person for making a marriage pact, but I do think they serve no good purpose, and can actually be to a person's disadvantage in the long run.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: The word having that rhetorical weight does not eliminate other ways of being and doing the same.
Do you think that married=loved, belonging does not also imply unmarried=unloved, not belonging?
That is the trouble with using "shorthand". If it can carry implications that we like, it might also carry implications that we don't.
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kmb, I have no idea why you're reading kat's statements this way.
When someone is married, part of what they get out of the deal is long-term reassurance that they are loved and accepted. That doesn't mean that people who are not married are unloved and rejected. Giving a compliment to one person does not imply an insult to everyone else in the world.
What kat was saying is, if I tell my friend, "I would marry you," I'm telling them that I find them lovable and acceptable and a host of other awesome things, and that makes them feel good. In that sense, "marriage" is a shorthand for a bunch of nice stuff.
If I tell my friend, "I would marry you," one thing I am definitely NOT saying is, "Unmarried people are unlovable, worthless human beings." That just doesn't even make sense. Someone would have to be pretty hypersensitive to take it that way in context, wouldn't you agree?
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Puppy, I am not particularly offended by kat. Nobody has said anything about being a worthless human being, so I can't speak to being over sensitive. I am bothered by a mindset that seems to need a backup marriage plan as a comfort against a bleak future. That carries a certain rhetorical weight as well.
And what you say to someone you would marry is something between the two of you. For someone else it could mean, "you are better than dying alone" or "I think you will make a lot of money and provide a lifestyle that I want" - or any number of things.
My problem is with a society that sees being married as a passport to being included, certification that one is an adult, proof that one is loved.
I mean seriously, if I understand it correctly, LDS doctrine (to en extent) insists on marriage in order to achieve a certain level of something.
Again, I am not blaming kat for this mindset. I think she just tapped into a stereoptype that, to me at least, is an obnoxious one.
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I don't think it's a bad thing to hold up marriage as an important life goal. If people altogether stop aspiring to get married and start stable families as an important part of their adult lives, then we're going to run into a serious shortage of those families when it comes time to raise the next generation.
I agree that we should take care, generally, to avoid turning public aspirations into absolute requirements that make people feel rejected if they "fall short" or simply go another way.
But at the same time, we shouldn't be so reactionary that we start ripping out important parts of our culture for fear that someone's feelings might be hurt if we insinuate that something they haven't done might be important and worth doing.
I don't know if you're necessarily doing the thing that I'm arguing against, but either way, I think it's worth saying. We can't eliminate disappointment from life. And we'd be especially foolish to try, if in the process, we also lost some of our positive aspirations.
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I think marriage can be an important life goal for some people . Not for everyone. Nor should it be. I think for a long time it has been the only life goal for many women. The tendency to still think this way is a problem.
Thinking that something is important and worth doing for you, doesn't make it a goal for society.
Women who don't get married are not necessarily "disappointed".
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The ones who aren't disappointed don't need your advocacy. I'm assuming that you're reaching out to protect the ones who do believe they need to get married, and are disappointed, or feel judged, when their life doesn't go that way.
Either way, I think that if we diminish the value of marriage by saying that it's "only important for some people", we run the risk of losing an important piece of the substructure of our society, which promotes successful and stable child-rearing environments.
It's a balancing act, but I do think it's possible to simultaneously promote a public ideal without unfairly judging those who sidestep it.
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Marriage is only important to those who find it important. It promotes one way to achieve a succesful child-rearing environmnet, it is not the only way. And I think it needs to be pointed out that marriages are not inherently conducive to raising children.
The stability looked for in parenting comes from the parent(s), not the marriage. Good parents will be good parents, married or not, and vice versa.
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Despite my utterly liberal leanings, I am inclined to completely disagree with you, Avatar.
Marriage is an important factor to _everyone_ in our society, especially in concern to child-rearing. I'm going to class, but I'll elaborate further tonite. My main point goes along with a post I wrote years ago concerning sex in high school.
The biggest issue is that marriage, like it or not, is one of the only social structures we have in our society and environment that secure family units and hold people accountable for taking care of one another, regardless of their mood.
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quote: What kat was saying is, if I tell my friend, "I would marry you," I'm telling them that I find them lovable and acceptable and a host of other awesome things, and that makes them feel good.
Why would you ever tell them that and NOT date them?
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Puppy, I'd be careful with that wording. I think it's possible for people to be called (either on a spiritual or non-spiritual level) to lead a single life. So in principle, marriage is not important to them. (this could also apply to couples who do not wish to have children).
Now saying that marriage is not necessary to those who are called to be in a relationship and raise children, that could be a more valid argument to have.
as for the importance or lack thereof to successful families and/or child rearing: I certainly agree that marriage is in no way a free ticket to being a good parent, though I have a hard time personally imagining that married parents are in some way less effective than non-married parents. it seems to me that some level of official commitment to the relationship (be it religious or not) is always going to be at least as good if not better (most likely) for the stability/functionality of a family. But I'm open to argument on that subject.
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quote:Thinking that something is important and worth doing for you, doesn't make it a goal for society.
I would say it just about opposite: Marriage may not be a goal for you, but I think it should be a goal for society in general, as stable homes and families are the bedrock of a civilization.
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quote:Originally posted by Puppy: I don't think it's a bad thing to hold up marriage as an important life goal.
I do. I think it's a TERRIBLE goal, and the current divorce rate is in part a reflection of the notion that "getting married" is a marvelous, magical thing.
I think that if more people had a goal of creating and maintaining a stable, loving marriage -- rather than expecting to get married and have the rest miraculously take care of itself -- we'd all be a lot better off.
I also agree with those who said that it is perfectly reasonable for people not to have any kind of marriage as a life goal. With the caveat that I believe that it is appropriate (to protect children) for society to expect (but NOT to legislate) that those who plan to have children be married.
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Well, you're entirely right rivka...but I rather think that Puppy was including a good, stable, mutually loving and committed marriage as an obvious part of 'marriage'. He didn't specify, but I'd be surprised if he didn't mean that when he said "marriage".
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It is precisely the fact that too many people think those characteristics are obvious, without necessarily giving much thought to what each partner needs to do both before and during the marriage, that causes the problems I am talking about.
They are not "givens," they are not "obvious" -- they come from a lot of hard work, some of which should by done before the marriage, and probably before the couple even meets.
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I don't see how having unrealistic expectations about marriage is a requirement for having marriage as a goal.
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I agree. I'm not sure if Puppy is guilty of that particular fault or not, but society in general certainly seems to be.
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quote:Originally posted by JennaDean: I would say it just about opposite: Marriage may not be a goal for you, but I think it should be a goal for society in general, as stable homes and families are the bedrock of a civilization.
I don't think that's a truism. Our society sees single-family, 2-opposite-sex parents as a bedrock for civilization. There is no inherent reason that a stable civilization could not be reached with group parenting, extended families, single-parents, same-sex parents, and many other configurations.
In fact, that is the reality the world over, and I don't know of any civilizations which are in the process of falling to ruin because many of the children are raised in these different family situations.
Some people have arbitrarily decided that a married couple is the perfect family group, but I don't think there is any strong evidence to support that. There is also ample evidence that a married couple can be horrible parents and raise damaged children, so I think it's all a bunch of bunk.
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quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: I don't see how having unrealistic expectations about marriage is a requirement for having marriage as a goal.
It's not. But having marriage -- with no qualifiers -- as a goal certainly has a very high correlation with unrealistic expectations of marriage. (IME and IMO, natch.)
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posted
The fact that he didn't write out any qualifiers is no reason to assume that there aren't any.
If I say that I'm hungry and want to eat, it will usually be understood that I mean I want to eat food, even though I didn't explicitly say so.
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The majority of that which is eaten when someone is hungry is food. The vast majority, even. Choosing an edible substance to eat is instinctive and requires little effort.
The majority of marriages are not stable and loving. The patterns and behaviors necessary to maintain good marriages are neither instinctive (they are often counter-instinctive) nor requiring of little effort.
Don't get me wrong. I am sure that Puppy meant good marriages. But I believe that the inherent assumptions so prevalent in our society -- and many posts of this thread -- of marriage somehow being a cure, a fix, a magical source of love, etc. are too dangerous and widespread to encourage. Even inadvertently.
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Dang it. I say, "marriage is a good thing for society" and people jump down my throat, shouting, "Not all marriages are good! Lots of marriages suck! Marriage isn't a magical cure-all, stop being so naive!"
Where did you all get the impression that I thought all marriages were awesome, and that marriage was some magical thing that would cure all the world's ills?
Of course many marriages have serious problems. Even good ones have problems, because people have problems. Anything humans do has the potential to go horribly wrong, and often will.
But seriously, are you folks saying that the danger of encouraging marriage at the risk that some people will enter into bad marriages is worse than the danger inherent to encouraging the abandonment of marriage?
To me, it seems as though the best course is to try and teach young people to value and create good, stable marriages, rather than teaching them to dismiss them altogether.
Or maybe, while we're at it ... There are a lot of corrupt governments in the world, so it's a really bad idea to encourage nations to form governments, right? And there are a lot of really awful books out there, so people really shouldn't bother learning to write, because what's the point? It will probably only lead to bad reviews and humiliation.
Is it possible that maybe you're taking this too far? Do the existence of bad marriages really turn marriage itself into a blight that should not be promoted? Would you be happier in a society where marriage was unheard of?
posted
Marriage itself is not bad. Promoting the idea that people _need_ to get married by a certain age in order to be a productive member of society, or that the only goal of having a relationship with someone is to get married, or that you can't raise a family right if you're not in a Christian marriage: those types of ideas aren't helping anyone.
If you don't want to get married now, or in x number of years, or maybe at all, you shouldn't feel like you've failed at life, or that you're promoting the downfall of society. Those sort of attitudes certainly don't promote healthy marriages, nor do they benefit society.
Bad marriages don't make marriage a blight, but the over-promotion of marriage might be partly responsible for some of the bad ones occurring in the first place.
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That seems like a more reasonable way to make the same point that many above are probably already trying to make
I absolutely think that the promotion of marriage should be inextricably tied to the promotion of successful marriage, with all the realism and strategizing that we can muster, to give people an increasingly good shot at making it actually work.
But I still feel that what we need to do is improve the way we promote marriage in our culture not stop promoting it altogether. Aspiring to marriage and successful family life, having those kinds of deeply-ingrained positive ideals, is a far more effective influence on tomorrow's parents than sex-ed scare stories about the horrors of single parenthood.
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Puppy, of course good marriages are a good, perhaps even necessary thing for society. So are all sorts of things. Governments, as you said and writers. Doctors and police. But we don't seem to have this generalized anxiety among women about going through life without passing a law or writing a book. Specific women will worry about such things, women who have specifically chosen such things for themselves, but there isn't an expectation, but there isn't the widespread sense among women that they must do this or face some bleak uncertain future.
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kmboots, I am not hoodwinked or trapped into anything, and I'm a little offended that you are fine with judging that I am.
I think that people, in general, want to be loved and accepted and to belong. Not only do I not see anything wrong with that, I think it's foolish to deny it and downplay it. It isn't limited to women, either - I think it's been shown (sorry about the lame citation - too lazy to look it up) that single women are on the whole happier than single men, and, as a population, happier than married women as a whole.
I also think that being in bad marriage is among the worst things that can happen in one's life. Not only does life suck, but you're not free to find a life that doesn't suck. I think there is NOTHING so lonely as being trapped in an unhappy relationship.
What I have found to be most annoying is the condescending pity I occasionally get from people who have been married for my single state - I don't know for sure, but I always want to ask them how happy their own marriages are. I mean, if someone is married and unhappy in it, I can see it being unbearable to see someone who is single and happy about it. Of course, someone who is happy and thoughtless could do the same thing, mistaking their condescension for sympathy, so I guess I can't say.
Do I have to say it? All relationships are not equal, and marriage in general is no panacea. OF COURSE I believe this - I can't imagine that anyone looking at my life would think for a second I believe differently.
This is a simplified rundown for individuals as I see it (the ">" is a "greater than" sign and not an arrow) (and this is over a lifetime and not for any given moment in a life): Happily married > happily single > unhappily single > unhappily married
posted
I don't know that it is a greater source of anxiety with women than men. In my family, there is my dad, my three brothers, and me. Between my dad and my brothers, I think they have they spent three years after being 21 being single. My dad remarried very quickly after my mother died because he hated being single so much. Not only am I an anomaly for not getting married before my 24th birthday, I am an inexplicable enigma that they sit around the kitchen table and try to come up with theories to explain.
Maybe it is just more okay for women to verbalize their anxiety.
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quote:Aspiring to marriage and successful family life, having those kinds of deeply-ingrained positive ideals, is a far more effective influence on tomorrow's parents than sex-ed scare stories about the horrors of single parenthood.
I know many people who are also choosing to opt out of parenthood. Perhaps we should encourage marriage as a prerequisite to parenthood, while recognizing that a life without children or partner is equally valuable?
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: kmboots, I am not hoodwinked or trapped into anything, and I'm a little offended that you are fine with judging that I am.
I think that people, in general, want to be loved and accepted and to belong. Not only do I not see anything wrong with that, I think it's foolish to deny it and downplay it. It isn't limited to women, either - I think it's been shown (sorry about the lame citation - too lazy to look it up) that single women are on the whole happier than single men, and, as a population, happier than married women as a whole.
I also think that being in bad marriage is among the worst things that can happen in one's life. Not only does life suck, but you're not free to find a life that doesn't suck. I think there is NOTHING so lonely as being trapped in an unhappy relationship.
What I have found to be most annoying is the condescending pity I occasionally get from people who have been married for my single state - I don't know for sure, but I always want to ask them how happy their own marriages are. I mean, if someone is married and unhappy in it, I can see it being unbearable to see someone who is single and happy about it. Of course, someone who is happy and thoughtless could do the same thing, mistaking their condescension for sympathy, so I guess I can't say.
Do I have to say it? All relationships are not equal, and marriage in general is no panacea. OF COURSE I believe this - I can't imagine that anyone looking at my life would think for a second I believe differently.
This is a simplified rundown for individuals as I see it (the ">" is a "greater than" sign and not an arrow) (and this is over a lifetime and not for any given moment in a life): Happily married > happily single > unhappily single > unhappily married
kat, honey, where have I said that I thought you were either hoodwinked or trapped! As you have said and I agreed you are describing a cultural phenomenon. I don't think you are promoting it. It would be a good thing if the condescention that annoys both of us didn't exist. One of the reasons for that condescention and pity is this idea that women should be married. This is also, in my opinion, the reason why AofD finds the prospect of being single at 30 daunting enough to want a safety net. You seemed to sympathize with that, which is fine. I think it may have been more helpful to reinforce the idea that there can be lots of ways to fill that landscape, but that's just me. I think you were trying to empathize rather than correct.
It is the phenomenon that I am railing against. Not you.
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I think telling Alt that being married doesn't matter and isn't important is...missing her point of what she's trying to accomplish - a happy marriage. It's like going to Sephora and asking for a mascara that won't run and someone starting trying to sell you fabulous lipstick that draws attention from the eyes. Very nice lipstick, but it isn't addressing her central concern.
I don't think she's saying that if she's not married at 30, her life will be worthless. I think she's saying that she wants to be married, but she wants to make sure it's right and that they'll be happy, and so to quell the anxiety that might push her to do something stupid (like...I just about did, and like I've known others to do), she's making plans with a friend. It seems to me that telling her not to want to be married is very unhelpful - she already does.
I can address her and her concerns, or I can tell her to have different concerns. Rather than push my view on her, I prefer to do the first. I actually have complete confidence in Alt that she will make her decisions about her future carefully and that when she does get married, she'll do it thoughtfully. No promises beyond that, but none of us get those.
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It reminds me of a conversation I had with my dad about who I was dating. My dad was trying very hard to be helpful, but it wasn't working: "Katie, what do you consider to be most important in someone that you want to date?" "That he is smart." "No, it is that he has the same values."
End of conversation. Thanks for telling me what is important to me, dad! Now, the same-values thing IS very important, and after a little bit of trial and error I've discovered it is also a sine qua non, but unless he's smart and articulate and thoughtful, I don't want to waste five seconds thinking about it and no amount of telling me to do otherwise is going to change that. Any conversation that starts out telling me to change how I feel is addressed to someone else.
quote:I think you were trying to empathize rather than correct.
Her desires for her life are not mine to correct.
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posted
Well...that's great. So what"s with the just-in-case pact and the scary landscape where one needs an oasis?
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Hmm. This is obviously a very delicate question around these parts, but I'll take a crack at it anyway. If you could have the ideal of either two situations, kmbboots: an ideal married life, or an ideal unmarried life, which would you prefer?
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I really, really don't like it. It says that if I never get married, I will never be as happy in my life as I could have been had I gotten married to someone I would be happily married to. I just don't believe that's the case. At least not for everyone. I believe that getting married can bring you great joy, but not necessarily more than a ton of other things also can.
I read a review of a book, I can't remember the title or author, that was about happiness. The thesis, according to the review, is that most people are going to be about as happy regardless of what happens in their life. That if your leg has to be amputated or you win the lottery, once the initial shock/sadness/euphoria wears off you'll revert to being about as happy as you were before. That your happiness has more to do with you than with what life throws at you.
Like I said, I didn't read the book, so I don't know how well it was researched or anything. But just from my own life, I lean towards agreeing with it.
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quote:I really, really don't like it. It says that if I never get married, I will never be as happy in my life as I could have been had I gotten married to someone I would be happily married to. I just don't believe that's the case. At least not for everyone. I believe that getting married can bring you great joy, but not necessarily more than a ton of other things also can.
Hm. That's a pretty different mindset from mine, which leads me to believe that life is better* shared, and the more sharing, the better that better is. I had thought, almost, that this idea approached the level of a given--again, granting the possibility of the ideal status here.
I am curious, though: what other things do you think would bring you equal joy as marrying your ideal partner? I'm asking this as someone who isn't married and has no plans to be in the forseeable future.
quote:The thesis, according to the review, is that most people are going to be about as happy regardless of what happens in their life.
That's a completely unknowable thing though, isn't it? I cannot know what would have happened. I can certainly guess, but that's about it. Granted, whether you are just plain happy or not can often have a lot more to do with you than with what happens to you...and people can choose to be happy even in bad circumstances.
*bear in mind this is a comparative word.
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quote:It says that if I never get married, I will never be as happy in my life as I could have been had I gotten married to someone I would be happily married to. I just don't believe that's the case.
Why not? Honestly, the truth of that seems almost self-evident to me.
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Tom first, 'cause the answer's shorter. Well, it might be.
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:It says that if I never get married, I will never be as happy in my life as I could have been had I gotten married to someone I would be happily married to. I just don't believe that's the case.
Why not? Honestly, the truth of that seems almost self-evident to me.
Why does that seem self-evident to you? It doesn't to me. I don't want to have kids, which takes away the major reason for getting married, as far as I'm concerned. It's not that I actively don't want to get married, but I don't actively want to get married, either. Never particularly have. When I think about it, the only advantage I can see besides the financial ones is as a hedge against loneliness in your old age. Which would be a pretty silly reason to want to get married.
I'm not saying I won't get married if I end up in a position where I'm sure I want to spend the rest of my life with someone, and they feel the same. But I don't see why that situation would end up with net more happiness in my life than if it doesn't happen.
I don't feel that I will be incomplete as a person if I never promise to have and to hold 'til death do us part. And the idea that someone thinks you can't live out your life just as happily staying single as you could if you got married absolutely baffles me.
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