Well, this has been a long time coming. The problem with this blog is that it is such a polarized subject, and well, I try to make it so my blogs let someone think and make a decison on their own. I'm not trying to "spoon feed" anyone or lead them anywhere. I just want people to read it and think to themselves "hmm, never thought of it that way", but "gay" marriage is one of those subjects that almost everyone has their opinion. Trying to present it so that people sit and think about it in a different way, from some other point of view, is at best difficult and in some cases, downright impossible. So how to present a concept that many people already have a staunch opinion?
So, this blog isn't going to be about "gay" marriage. Instead, it's about marriage, just marriage. Marriage is a novel concept. Today we think it means "love" and proof of that enduring commitment to love someone, for better, for worse, in sickness and in health. The guarantee that we will stand by our spouse through the best of times and through the worst of times. We will share the good, the bad, the ugly and we agree we shall triumph or fail as a pair. Most women dream of being the bride, walking down the aisle, dressed in a white gown, escorted by their father, and handed off to their version of Prince Charming. Most men wait for that one that they want nothing else than to make her happy and want to spend the rest of their lives with. It's really something that society has drilled into us from a young age. Marriage represents love today, but it wasn't always that way.
Only 100 years ago, women couldn't own property unless given to them. Most commonly, women received land from a family member's will or as part of a dowery when they married. As a married woman, technically, the dowery land would actually belong to her husband. This was a time where women couldn't vote and even earlier that only land owners could vote. So allowing a husband the rights to her land, especially if he had none of his own, was a requirement to guarantee to be part of the democratic process of our great country. It sounds so ridiculous now, but it was simply how the world was then. Women who came from financially sound families were placed on allowances and lived in their parents' home until they found a suitable husband. Women were in effect property. A man could beat his wife, rape her if she refused his advances, and often could be institutionalized if her husband chose to do so, regardless of whether her mental health justified it. My great aunt Gertrude was institutionalized by my great grandfather because she refused to wear dresses once she came "of age". She preferred slacks. Aunt Gertrude was 14 when she was institutionalized in the nineteen-teens. She was extremely well read, very articulate and yet, she spent all of her life in a mental health facility. In the 1950s, the doctors thought she had been wrongfully placed and released her. She had already spent 30 years in the institution and could not adjust to life in the "real" world. She actually begged to go back. This was the fate of women that refused to tow the line, follow the rules as written for them by their fathers and husbands, and/or behave as women were expected to behave. The "Fried Green Tomatoes" version where the little girl was witness to her favorite older brother's death and her antics as a tomboy well into her adulthood were not only a rarity, but just generally impossible. Family was encouraged to put them into institutions immediately, not just for their own "safety" but for the "good" of society. Towing the line wasn't just a means to an end, but the only means of survival. A husband wasn't an option; it was a requirement. Those that refused to fit the bill, well, life was far more unfair than it is today.
Marriage well into the 1960s was a bit of a gamble. There was sex before marriage, but in general, it was frowned upon and only considered even remotely appropriate if a couple were going to marry. No one "lived" together before getting married, so if the wife or husband turned out to be a total lazy slob or an abusive jerk, it was technically too late to back peddle. Divorce was truly unheard of. My Grams told me once, "We didn't go to all the trouble of earning the vote, proving we could be more than school teachers, nurses, and housewives, so that you girls could suffer our fates. ...When we got married, we got what we got. You girls can live with them, determine what they are really like, before you make a lifelong commitment." If a woman was unhappy in her marriage, her options were extremely limited. She couldn't work in most cases. Divorcees were not kept as school teachers because of the negative social status of a divorce. It was better to be a spinster than a divorcee. There were no court orders of child support. Women that wanted to leave abusive husbands were told that their children would become wards of the state. Marriage was a financial commitment that a man made to a woman and the offspring she produced for him. Not very romantic when we think about it. While some marriages were made of love and continued to produce "love", there is the old saying that a woman marries her father and a man marries his mother. Well, if this is the case, the divorce rate in the 1980s says a lot about those marriages the Baby Boomers grew up in. They definately were not all "Ozzie and Harriet".
Divorce became a very common word in the 1970s and 80s. With many, even one of my aunts, marriage became a joke, a cycle of 4 or 5 years, divorce, find someone new, marry, 4 or 5 years--give or take, divorce, repeat. There was almost a total disregard for what marriage actually was supposed to be about--with a divorce rate in the early 80s that topped 62%. The current percentage is still more than 45%. This is not very promising when we consider it. The half that stay married must be doing OK though since the actual average length of a marriage currently is 32 years. Of course, there have been a lot of changes in the make up of marriage too. Women are the "bread winners" in 53% of marriages in the United States. The average age of getting married has increased by 3.5 years overall since the early 80s. The average divorce age in 1983 was 35; in 2013, the average age is 43. In 1980, approximately 60% of the adult population were married. Today it's less than 50%. In 1980, 20% of the adult population had never been married. In 2010, 28% of the adult population had never been married. Marriage isn't as popular as it used to be. It's tedious to get out of, and it's no longer a requirement to sustain oneself financially. Divorce is very often regarded now as justifiable especially in cases of child and/or spousal abuse, adultery, and even irreconcilable differences. The sanctity of marriage has been marred by the fact that it was until only half a century ago a financial institution first, a religious institution second, and an emotional institution third (or not at all for some).
So, if as we've evolved as a society, the financial institution of marriage has become unnecessary, and the religious institution should be completely based on the individuals marrying, then what about that emotional institution? The one where we promise to love and cherish, in sickness and in health, for better or for worse, where we dedicate a part of ourselves--love, trust, care, mutual respect, etc., what happens to that as we've evolved? In my humble opinion, it's all we have left. That is what marriage is now. It is no longer a means to an end to guarantee a roof over one's head. It's no longer the only way one can interact in society. It's no longer just about the sanctity under a religious umbrella. It's about love, caring, sharing, intimacy, lifelong partnership, making our lives more complete by sharing our days and nights, our hopes and our fears, with someone that makes our days more bearable, who sees in us the light and vice versa and who has promised to be there through the darkest hours as well as the brightest days. Marriage is a commitment to never leave that person alone to the wolves, to be there for support, for advice, for confidence, for comfort, and for love.
When we eliminate the things that vary individually, like religion, and the need or requirements for financial stability, we're left with two people that either love each other and will make a commitment to each other based on that love and mutual respect or not. If love is the real reason that people get married now, then why should someone be barred from it simply because of our religious beliefs differing from theirs? If our religious beliefs are that they should not marry because it goes against our religious beliefs, is that truly an acceptable view on marriage? Who is to make those decisions? Catholics, Methodists, Muslims? Perhaps, if the individuals follow those religions. But if they don't, if you don't, do you want them choosing for you? Do you want someone telling you who you can or cannot love? If not, why would any of us assume it would be OK for us to tell anyone else who they can or cannot marry? It might not suit us, or our beliefs, but love is so slender and fragile in this world statistically. We've made marriage about love. We should consider that before we tell anyone they should not marry--be it our children, our friends, complete strangers, straight, gay, interracial or otherwise.
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