Marriage. Seriously, I don't get it.
This came up while in Dublin with my journal colleague. He is younger than me, and married, and has been married for several years, so I asked him why he got married. And this is how that conversation went:
Me: So why did you decide to get married, and so young?
Him: Because we wanted to spend the rest of our lives with each other.
Me: But that doesn't answer my question. You didn't need to get married to each other to do that.
Him: Well, we knew that we were the only person for each other.
Me: That still doesn't have anything to do with marriage.
Him: Well, we wanted to commit to each other.
Me: Still not answering my question.
Him: Because it was just what we wanted to do.
Me: Oh. Ok.
And, there you go. A lot of people give a lot of reasons about why they wanted to get married like they are real reasons that require marriage. And there ARE some real reasons that marriage may be a necessity, I suppose. Like, healthcare, maybe. Or, your partner is not a U.S. citizen, and for them to live here with you, you need to get married. But that covers, like, maybe 1% of marriages (and if you were wondering if I totally pulled that statistic out of my ass, I did!).
Otherwise, when people talk about the benefits of getting married, these are not really the reasons people get married. I mean, gay marriage is important to folks, because gay people should get equal tax benefits, rights to see a partner in the hospital, manage a partner's estate, and be able to live in the same country as their partner (as it stands now, gay folks, if their partner is a foreign national, must decide often between being apart from their loved one or moving abroad to be with them). Yet the problem with the gay marriage argument is it doesn't take on the problem of marriage. Should gay folks have equal rights? Yes! Damn straight we should have equal rights! (Also: maybe single people should get some of these rights, too?) But at some point the queer community went from doing a much needed critique of the institution of marriage to wanting to participate in it, and I don't know why that happened. And I think it's a shame it did, because marriage? It's a pretty problematic institution. And also, I still don't get it.
And let me get two things out of the way right now: First, I do not judge anyone for getting married. Really, I don't. Because, being feminist, getting through the world is really an exercise in line-drawing; it comes down to where you, personally, are comfortable drawing the line. As in: sometimes, when I want to feel sexy, I put on make-up and wear high heels, and thus conform to the patriarchal beauty standard (because I don't know of any other way to be sexy, which is another long post in itself). I haven't ruled out heels or make-up as something beyond my line. Do I recognize that it is problematic? Sure. But I have to live in a patriarchal world, and if I were to reject everything that was non-oppressive and non-feminist, I could never leave my bedroom. Some women draw the line at make-up, or shaving their legs, and they choose not to participate in such silly rituals, and that's fine, too. The thing is, we don't get to decide what is on the menu, so we are left with choosing the best options. We have to negotiate. And marriage involves often negotiating with intimate partners, and so, I mean, I don't think getting married means you are a bad feminist. Or wrong to do so. I think the institution is oppressive and anti-feminist, but not the individual act. This is an important distinction.
And second, I understand that marriage is not always a totally personal decision. Like, ok, if I have a partner? And xe really wants to get married? I would consider it. I am not on a crusade. Especially if my partner is a woman and thus our getting married is kinda a revolutionary act and that's important to her, then I can see where she is coming from, and where she is drawing her line. When I say I don't get marriage, I mean I really just don't get it. When I was little, my two best girl friends and I didn't play House. We played "Apartment." I am not even shitting you. We played Apartment and we all had the job of our dreams (mine was to be a vet!) and we play-acted our jobs and then coming home to the apartment that we all shared together and we'd "cook" together (Readers, those big plastic fold-out kitchens with plastic food are AWESOME) and play-act living as grown, independent ladies and we thought this the best game EVER. We were ridiculous, right, I know. And the two best friends, they were twins, they were coming from a VERY conservative, evangelical Baptist family, so lord knows where we came up with this. But in conclusion: I never imagined getting married. It never occurred to me growing up. I had no fantasies of a white wedding, a one-kneed proposal. I never cared. So, essentially, if my partner really wants to get married, I wouldn't just totally refuse. I'm not the only one implicated. I'd think about it.
But marriage is a problematic instituion. Because traditionally, it is about political or business alliances and exchange of property. And women were part of that property. And even if you ignore the history, marriage has gotten no less problematic. It is about state control, now, and the exclusion of certain groups, and it still, by every statistic out there on heterosexual marriages, kinda screws women. Yet people give the same old reasons for why they get married, like love, and commitment, when these things? Have nothing to do with marriage. What is up with that?
There are a couple more arguments about marriage we can throw right out the window, too. The first is, I know religion and the state got all mixed up in marriage, but marriage is primarily a state-controlled institution. The state decides who can have it, who can't, pushes it as a way to fight poverty, and tells kids they shouldn't be having sex until they have obtained it. So, if you are telling me you are getting married because you want to do this before god, whatever. Isn't god supposed to everywhere? So have the ceremony in your living room. Also, I bet you got that state license to go along with your god-wedding, didn't you?
Second, you may want to have kids, but this has nothing to do with being married. You can have kids just fine without marriage. Marriage is not required here, to manage anything as regards to your children. Being a legal guardian is.
Third, marriage is not about commitment and love. Or, you can have commitment and love, but marriage is not how you show that. Loving and committing to your partner are how you show that. Because, to be overly obvious: domestic abuse. And spousal rape. And marriage is kinda not really the most sacred symbol of devotion anymore, you know? There are high divorce rates, and there are fucking TV shows like The Bachelor or whatever where contestants fall deeply in love with each other as kindred spirits in the span of a half hour and there is a marriage as the big finale. Marriage does not equal commitment or love. You can decide to attach that meaning, but it's not naturally there (and for the great majority of human history, and in some cultures still today, it never has been).
The thing is, no one ever admits the reasons they are really getting married, which I feel like are closer to: "Yeah, ok, I am using this patriarchal, state-sponsored, oppressive institution to declare my commitment to my (probably opposite sex) partner because it is one society values and recognizes and means will take my relationship seriously and because I just want to, ok? Because THIS IS WHAT EVERYONE DOES, AND THUS I AM DOING IT."
And if people told me that, I would say, "Oh, ok, word." Because at least that would be honest and make sense.
I have been in long-term relationships before, and ones where I have been able to imagine spending my life with that person. But marriage? Never was really on the table. Never seemed like a necessity (and in some cases, would not have even been legally possible). Like, do people need to put rings on each other to show ownership? Is this about possession? Is it about just doing what society tells you is the next step in Being a Grownup? Do folks just want a really fun fucking party that is All About Them? And what the FUCK is up with Bridezillas? That is a TV show, right? (Readers, I don't have a TV, I get TV culture incidentally).
I have lots of questions, but as a feminist and a lady who just happens to be my self, I just don't really get marriage. So I'll just continue to probably annoy the fuck out of my married friends with questions. But, please, stop telling me you did it for love. That? Is just silly.
ok, I'm only half-way through and MUST comment on play as kids:
ReplyDeleteI was, among many things that were completely non-gender specific, frequently a way-more-awesome "Mrs. Garrett," with a doll bed full of dolls and a play kitchen. I tended to yound women with totally different dispositions who had been orphaned and I listened and took care of them and settled conflicts and encouraged each girl to pursue her awesomeness: athleticism, academic achievement, being socially gregarious (and ultra-femme and then buffering the other girls' feeling of hurt by bolstering their talents since "Kimberly" was sadly "just pretty" though I never said that as "Mom.")
2) with my best friend in middle school, we were women who tended to families on the frontier but found our only intimacy with each other in preparing meals and finding innovative strategies to cope with impending difficulty-of-the-week.
3) the friend in #2 and I also played "travel agent" as '80s career women and best buds who never found fulfillment in our dating lives.
So, for me, marriage has to do with scripting. And I thnk that you are on to something there...
Yeah, ok, I am using this patriarchal, state-sponsored, oppressive institution to declare my commitment to my (probably opposite sex) partner because it is one society values and recognizes and means will take my relationship seriously and because I just want to, ok?
ReplyDeleteThat about sums it up. Also, the part about having a fun fucking party that is all about you.
Honestly, I think there's something else going on, too. I think it's about..dum dum dum.. a common theme on this blog: NARRATIVES! Yes, the narratives, they are everywhere.
So, like, you meet a person and you start loving them and then you start loving them A LOT and you feel like wow, holy shit, I love this person SO MUCH that actually? I would like to spend a serious chunk of my life, if not the whole rest of it, being with this person, because I like them just that much.
So what do you do? Well, you spend a lot of time with the person and you take trips together and you move in together and et cetera et cetera. But one of the things that the narrative of love tells you you do when you find a person that you love so much that you think you want to just keep being with them is, you get married. It's like you want to go all the way, but, if you're a modern person, you've already had sex with the person, and it's like you want to go all-the-way-all-the-way. And the narrative tells you that marriage is, like, the highest thing that you can do, the final frontier, of loving.
So you do it, because your love is really intense, and you want to show it to your beloved and the rest of the world, and shit, most people can't think of anything else.
I don't know if that makes sense. But it's hard to make your own way. It's a lot easier to take the way of the narrative.
And I say this all, for other commenters who don't know me, as someone who's getting married in two months.
I wrote about why I decided to get married a while back, and I think it mostly still holds up as "because I want to."
Which, like you say, is a fine reason. But it's the real reason people do it.
I don't get it either. I would only consider it if was really important to my partner. The only other circumstances I could imagine would be immigration-related, although Canada does recognize common-law relationships (gay and straight).
ReplyDeleteOh man, I was so going to write a post about marriage... like, tomorrow!! You beat me on it. My mother's cousin is staying with us for the week. She asked me if I have a bf, I said 'no.' She told me that she will pray for me because I can't continue to 'live in solitude.' And that I (and my mother who is single) should married.
ReplyDeleteI didn't knew I gave off such vibes of extreme desperation. :(
I also share your views on marriage. It completely baffles me and the idea of me getting married is completely alien to me, and to be honest, freaks me out.
I am against marriage, at least until they recognize the gays' right to marry in Croatia, because until that happens, marriage is just one more way of displaying social and institutional discrimination against a part of the population that is deemed not deserving of all human rights, and I am not sure I would want to participate in that even if I was very in love with someone.
ReplyDeleteBut even if the law changes, I will still not like marriage - because I see it as reinforcing the idea that a relationship between two people will not be recognized by society as significant or important, until they go through that process of social validation of their relationship through the act of getting married. That is the very real impression I get from talking to people and from the general social attitude towards married and unmarried couples. My friend and I were discussing once the absurdity of the fact that some of our friends no longer celebrate the anniversary of when they got together, instead they celebrate their wedding day anniversary. It's like all those years they spent together don't count properly because they weren't married, and their relationship only really begun on their wedding day. That, to me, makes no sense. But that's how society, mostly, (at least in Croatia) sees couples - they're not really serious until they are married. Marriage is still seen as the way you're supposed to declare commitment.
I will add, though, that marriage really can't be discussed without reference to class distinctions. Maybe it's different in the US, but I think there is here a certain prejudice against lower/working class people who live and have children together but are not married. If you're middle or upper class, you can much more easily discard this idea that your relationship with someone needs to be validated socially and legally through marriage, than if you are lower class. That's also true of single women, for example, or single parents. That's not to say none of them face (either explicit or tacit) prejudice or stigma if they're middle/upper class, but I think they do so to a significantly lesser degree.
ReplyDeleteYes! I know! The idea of marriage turns me into this irrepressible two year old: "yeah but why? Okay, you love him, but why marriage? Commitment, love, rest-of-your-life, YOU ARE NOT MAKING SENSE, yeah but WHY?"
ReplyDeleteWhich is probably not the best response to "Guess what? I'm engaged!", but whatever.
Oh my god, you guys, there are a lot of comments to respond to.
ReplyDelete@Vertigo- you don't give off vibes of extreme desperation. It's that people assume there is a certain NARRATIVE of how things are supposed to go, and if you don't fit that, you MUST be unhappy. Like, how many older folks tell me, "Oh, you'll find the right one," when I tell them I am not married, as if to console me for the desperate unhappiness and loneliness I DON'T ACTUALLY HAVE.
@Silvana - FUCK ME, I forgot to write that paragraph in about narratives! Damnit. I am blaming the jetlag. But yeah, I kinda mentioned it in the "this is what people do," part of the justification; like, you really love someone, and the narrative is that the final step is to marry them. And I think that works for both the people getting married ("This is how much I love you, that I am willing to marry you!") and it works as a signal for everyone else in society, to take your relationship seriously. Obviously, if I were to introduce someone as my "husband," that would have a much different, more loaded meaning than, "boyfriend."
I ALSO THINK THIS WORKS FOR HAVING KIDS. But that is a whole other post.
@Hannah - I once seriously responded to a friend telling me he was engaged with, "Really? Why?" That didn't go over well, but I was genuinely confused.
Well, I am not sure I can fully articulate my thinking in an effective way, but I feel like I want to say something. I'm 43. I spent decades living mostly a totally single, independent and utterly fabulous life. It was a happy, imperfect, ocassionally lonely, incredibly free, low-stress, liberated, successful, world travelling, pet owning, new hobby exploring, huge network of interesting friends, favorite aunt, best travel buddy, always having a new terrific cocktail party story, kind of life.
ReplyDeleteThen I met someone, who I love dearly and who loves me deeply and fully in return. We share common values, many common interests, common goals, desires, needs, etc... And 7 months ago, after 2 years of dating we got married.
Married life has been a revelation. No matter what I thought I knew about myself or my expectations of marriage, or what I thought in terms of feminist issues, societal constructs, etc... there have been surprises and discoveries galore. I think it's true that people get married for all the reasons you have all so eloquently stated, and mostly "just cuz they want to". But I also think that the act of marriage, the ongoing work of marriage, the change in thinking that occurs because of and resulting from the decision to make a legal and public commitment to another person, and especially the internal shift in thinking that happened for me when I went from being "single" to "married", add up to something greater than can be fully understood until one is experiencing it. (Apologies for my horrific tendencies to Faulkner-esque run-ons. It's been a lifelong problem!)
Marriage is changing me (and him). The act of deciding to marry, doing the work that comes w/ fully and legally combining your life with someone else, and then living with the new construct you have created (and continue to create) changes the individuals and creates something new. It is deeper and more profound than I expected. Could all of these same things be experienced without a legal act? Maybe. But I am not convinced that the internal change, and resulting dynamics and evolution of my self, his self, and who we are together, would really be as significant.
Did I know all of this a year ago? Of course not. I would have given the same limited answers about love, and commitment, and "because we want to", as most folks do. But now, on the other side of it, I am starting to see something much more profound, and harder to articulate. But it is big, and life changing, and potentially quite wonderful. So I can see myself being an advocate for marriage - just like so many others - and perpetuating all the social constructs. Will I always talk about the deep and profound reasons why I think it can be so significant? No. Who could stand me if I did! :-) But, will I contribute to all the societal norms being perpetuated? Clearly I will, and I think now that I am merely doing what millions of others who espouse (bah dum bum) the benefits of marriage have done. It is very hard to articulate the power of the commitment. It isn't fully an intellectual thing, but that doesn't mean it isn't deeply powerful, transformative, and fabulous.
It also doesn't mean there aren't days when I remember the ease and freedom of my single days fondly. I guess I just wanted to say a word in favor of the institution, and in support of there potentially being much more to it than can perhaps be seen before experiencing it.
Elizabeth
Elizabeth! I am super glad that has been your experience! How wonderful!
ReplyDeleteBut to support an institution based on your wonderful experience is kinda silly. I mean, you know, there is domestic violence. There are abusive marriages. There are really fucked up ways in which men can control their wives, through a validation of their ownership via marriage (have you read about the laws regarding mail-order brides? They are REALLY SCARY for women).
I am not arguing that beautiful things can't come out of marriage. But the reason you got such a benefit is the way you and your partner decided to frame your marriage, and how marriage came to have a meaning attached to it for both of you. For some people, marriage is not necessary to get that sort of transformative, powerful result. And for some people, marriage will never mean that.
Which is why I am not anti-marriage. Yay for people who want to do it. I am arguing against it as an institution, not on an individual case-by-case basis. I am so happy your marriage turned out like that, really! I hope I experience such things in my future relationship. But to assume your personal experience speaks to every instance of marriage doesn't make sense. And totally erases the disturbing history, the state control and use of marriage, and the continuing problems of marriage. Especially considering, you can be pro-marriage all you want, but I can't legally get married to my partner, if my partner is a woman, right now in the state I live.
So I was like you too when I was a kid. No concept of marriage or why people would do it. it never really entered my psyche until recently. I've been with a bloke for nearly four years and suddenly my relationship is everybodies bloody business. they're asking me why i'm not engaged, blabla bla. It's tiresome because its not their business and suddenly there's this pressure. I'm a commitment phobe at the best of times so being with someone for 4 years is a huge deal, and we've even agreed to move in together, which is also a huge deal. But for me, thats as far as I can see ahead, seeing any further scares the shit out of me. He's quite ok with the idea, but i feel like i have to be as well, like i'll grow out of this phobia.
ReplyDeleteBut i agree with you, its the INSTITUTION of marriage. that he "has" to ask..which i recently spoke to my friend about by saying well, maybe I'll ask him when i'm ready. She sort of gasped and said but what if he wanted to ask me? to feel like a man?.....errrr, but what if i want to ask him one day? why CAN'T i ask him? also the idea of my father "giving me away" upsets me. i'd much rather he didn't as i'm a fully grown woman...or that my mum gives me away b/c she has been a much larger part of my life. or that they both do. but why my father? This is an old patriarchal tradition of "giving me away", what am i, a hand me down? (sorry i don't know much about other forms of marriage ceremony, just the christian one as that is what i'm most familiar with)
sorry, mild rant over. but yet, i get what your saying.
I think there are two sides of a coin with marriage:
ReplyDeleteThere's the public recognition aspect/ public spiritual announcement, which I think has potential to profoundly change a relationship.
My best friend always maintained that a wedding is a party for *others,* not the bride herself: to celebrate and form a familial bond with her life partner and his family. However, few brides/grooms are so enlightened and selfless!
The institution itself though, can be problematic because of the legal ramifications and how it is used as a social scourge.
God I would like to get married some day. It's on my bucket list.
ReplyDeleteAdmittedly, so is divorce. Both have a question mark.
For me, it's just the fact that it's a formal way of saying "no one but you, for the rest of my life." Unrealistic, maybe but also romantic. I recently read a book of wartime letters that inspired strong relationships between people who gained emotional intimacy through writing. Some of those people spent their entire lives together after the war, united by what they had shared from such a distance apart. I'd like to have someone I cared that strongly about.
That and, yes, everyone else is doing it. I have been a non-conformist long enough to want the stability, there is a lot to be said for a little comfortable conformity. On a practical level of course, not an ideological one. Marriage would make me feel safer about being gay around certain people.
"Ahhh, gays! Wait, they're married. It's ok everyone, they won't be spreading it around and trying to hit on us."
"Oh thank God!"
I feel a lot like Elizabeth above (with whom I coincidentally share a name, a happy single life and a late marriage). My marriage isn't recognized legally because it was a marriage with a Progressive/Reform Rabbi in Israel. So marriage for me was not about pragmatic concerns or governmental dominance. Arguably it was in spite of it. However, my marriage is very much a social and communal reality among our friends and very much an emotional reality between myself, my husband, and what I understand as God/Goddess as well.
ReplyDeleteMarriage is a moment in time that symbolizes a relationship and transition that began well before the moment of marriage and continues well after.
I am well aware that not all marriages are successful. A ritual symbolizes what reality is so far and one day can be. The actual realization of what reality can be depends on the people involved.
Sometimes the very act of marriage can even flip a formerly loving partner into someone who profoundly disregards the needs and concerns of another. But I object to calling this a failure of the ritual event of marriage because blaming a ritual event takes the moral burden off the person who made the choice to hurt and the society that rationalizes or justifies the choice to hurt. Also it is important to remember that domestic violence can happen with or without a communally or legally recognized relationship.
Among my gay friends (mostly Reform and Reconstructionist Jews but also a few Christians), most were far less interested in the legal or practical dimensions than with religious/communal recognition of their shared commitment and also that need for a tangible and communally sharable celebratory moment in time.
Oh, my lord, way to miss the point.
ReplyDeleteI am talking about marriage as an institution. If you talk about a ritualized symbol, you are already not talking about my post. You are talking about the meaning you have decided to give it.
Also, we are post-structuralist here. "Marriage" does not necessarily mean what you think it means for anyone else. Also, mail-order brides, maybe? There is no relationship, no transition. What's that mean, symbolically, and ritualistically? Have you read the laws under-girding those? Yeesh.
And as a STATE INSTITUTION, it is problematic.
As I said again, I am not against anyone deciding to get married on their own terms. I am talking about the larger power dynamics at play. Which are easy to ignore when you just talk about yourself and your friends.
If you are going to ask the question "why marriage", especially in a post structural vein, does it not make sense to deconstruct the notion of marriage a bit? Why limit yourself to the poles of "state institution" and "private affair"? Is that really discussing marriage or just two particular state and culture bound manifestations of it?
ReplyDeleteIf marriage has a social component, why is the state the only context in which that social component is relevant? Is ritual merely a "myself and my friends" issue? Rituals typically have a private, friends and family, communal, ethnic, and even state component. Marriage has no meaning in all of these contexts? Who exactly here is limiting marriage to one personal definition?
Appearing before a judge in a civil wedding is a ritual. A traditional religious wedding is a ritual. A wedding in a field written by the participants is a ritual. They vary in the way they integrate the personal and the social and yet they all create social reality and mark a transition into a state that is acknowledged in at least one social context and sometimes many more.
Mail order brides: Maybe marriage means something different to her than you or I, but even if the marriage involves nothing more than getting a document stamped by a public notary, it will still change her life in many ways, some subjective and some objective. When you insist that is not a transformative ritual for her - whose definitions are we using? Hers or ours? Objective or subjective? What social contexts are we referring to? Hers or ours? If we are post structuralist these are all relevant questions.
Laws? If you want to argue that VAWA isn't doing enough to protect her – well, I'd agree. But to say that wasn't a real relationship or transition for her? To say that she feels less betrayed if her husband violates his promise to cherish her? No, I don't think either of us can answer that. Only she can.
I have plenty of criticisms of marriage as a state institution, especially living in Israel. Unlike you I don't have the option of a ritual of my choice unless I am willing to forgo state recognition of my marriage or get married in a foreign country. There is no civil marriage in Israel and Jewish marriages are controlled by rabbis who would under no circumstances endorse an egalitarian marriage contract or ritual.
However, even if I forgo state recognition, that doesn't make my marriage merely a private affair. I live in an allegedly Jewish state that refuses to recognize a marriage that the vast majority of Jews world over recognize. That contradiction points to a deep tension between ethno-religious and state-based social contexts.
I hardly consider that a matter of "just talking about myself and my friends". I do consider it very much connected to larger power dynamics and something that makes dialog about what social contexts define marriage extremely important.
I already said marriage has a lot of meanings, and we put a lot on it. But I wasn't talking about your marriage or anyone else's personal marriage. I was talking about the institution of it. And we're having a problem if I'm talking on a larger level about paradigms and hegemonic systems, and you are mad I am not acknowledging what individuals can do with marriage. I didn't say marriage is limited to only one definition. I AM JUST ONLY TALKING ABOUT THAT ONE DEFINITION IN THIS POST. And just because I am only engaging in that one definition does not mean I said the others were not valid, or important, or whatever. Did you notice how I said I was not anti-individuals getting married? Because, like I said, whatever, they do their thing, and put their meanings on it, and that's fine.
ReplyDeleteSo, AGAIN, I don't give a fuck what individuals do in or with their own marriages. But also, to use the word "ritual?" Already gives it a meaning that is very Western, and modern. And marriage hasn't always been a ritual, from a larger, longer perspective.
And also, the "Unlike you I don't have the option of a ritual of my choice . . . " thing? Fuck you, dude. Seriously, have you not noticed me saying I can't marry a woman as a queer person? Try READING.
Conversation over.