How much value is a bit of paper? (Marriage - Is it outdated?)

Member Name: Daisybelle

Product:	Marriage - Is it outdated?
Date:	25/07/01 (245 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Oo, er - a peaceful life

Disadvantages: expensive

Great subject matter this one, bound to make for some juicy reading I thought after stumbling over the category, but first I’ll fire off my own twopennorth before scanning the other ops so I’m not influenced by anyone else’s pearls of wisdom. Or otherwise.

So, marriage, what’s it all about? Well for me it’s a ritual that’s a bit dated and unnecessary to be truthful. Not to mention expensive, loaded with tensions and pretensions, and generally of no real benefit. Maybe that’s a bit unfair, as some people just want to do something traditional, others may want to pin down a partner who seems slightly elusive, for the children is another one you hear, and then there’s the poor old genuine Christians, who sometimes still have to get married so they can have proper relations (That’s shag, to the rest of you).

Well I must be sounding a bit anti by now, so I should throw in that I’ve been married for nearly 4 years. Anyone with an ounce of curiosity’ll be wondering why I bothered by now, so here’s a quick justification. My partner is kinda religious, and although accepting that for me living together was 100% commitment (I’m a bit of a lone bird, so co-habiting was the biggie), needed something more.

As I’m offended by religious pomp, we got married in a registry office to an American Indian ceremony with “I do” by Abba playing. Very Muriel’s Wedding, but hey, what’s wrong with mixing corn and cosmopolitan. Has it made any difference to our lives though? Well, no, is definitely the answer for me. To start with, my heart is worth more than any piece of paper. Apart from having to fork out a few grand of our savings to pay for it, and suffering the trauma of the build up, I have nothing to show for it except a partner who is a lot happier – which is well worth it I guess. In fact I’m starting to feel like a bit of a martyr now.
St Daisybelle the unbeliever has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

Enough of the frivolity though. What sort of meaning does marriage have in our modern secular society? Currently over 30% of children are born out of wedlock in the UK, a number that is growing by the year. No-one seems offended by the idea anymore – you don’t send your pregnant, unwed daughter off to visit an aunt in the country nowadays, do you? Yet a mere 40 years ago that was a common occurrence. Attitudes are changing, with flexible lifestyles and shifts in equalities making the place of marriage in our country even more tenuous by the year. The financial incentives have been removed by Tony Blair, so all that remains as carrots are the perceived security, parental/church approval, and fulfilment of a romantic notion.

Let’s look at those then. Perceived security. With the number of marriages ending in divorce steadily increasing, this as a carrot is on its way out. That many people are having successful long-term relationships without marriage is also a disincentive, and yet others see marriage as unfair because of the disenfranchisement of Gay and Lesbian couples. The fact is there’s no security in being married. A long-term relationship offers just as much in this respect.

Parental/Church approval. Parental approval is still a genuine juicy carrot, but will those currently getting married expect the same of their own children? I somehow doubt this incentive is doing anything apart from becoming more diluted with each generation. Likewise the Church. Religion is in decline, and substantial numbers of churchgoers are cohabiting nowadays anyway, so I predict these influences are on a wane from which they won’t recover during this century. Barring of course a second coming.

The romantic notion. This one’ll be around for a while yet. I expect it’ll come and go, as do most fads, with bursts of marriage being
heralded by the latest bellwethers of the screen, holocube or other source of entertainment of the future. The script of whatever Friends-like program is on in 50 years time will have more influence on the numbers of people getting married than anything. Remember, you heard it here first.

So what’s in it for men in the 21st Century? It used to be a way of getting a replacement for Mum who’d also have sex with you. Someone who’d cook, clean, bear children, put up with you going to the pub, sleeping round and generally letting you live the life of Riley as long as the cash came in. Those days are long gone though. In many cases the boot is firmly on the other foot, apart from the childbearing bit, and you still have to help raise them. Yes, for blokes nowadays marriage really can be a ball and chain, except that it’s easier to get out of. Oh, but that’s ignoring the dreaded CSA, isn’t it. Actually, for blokes getting married is a less attractive option than it’s ever been.

And what about the girls? Well, back when you couldn’t earn a decent wage, have regular sex, live on your own or have kids by yourself, it must have been a very enticing idea – in fact, almost a must unless your ambitions lay in the convent. Now that you can earn good money, live with whoever you want, sleep with whoever you want and basically DO whatever you want – who the bloody hell needs marriage?

And so on to the children. Well I haven’t been a child for a while, but you rarely hear of kids being bullied because they only have one parent, or their parents are unmarried, do you? The real problem for children is the fluidity of their parental relationships. It doesn’t so much matter who or how many look after them, rather than that their guardians remain fairly constant. I was raised by married people and liked it, so give it a plus point for this. I hope when we have children they like being r
aised by us, and don’t mind if they laugh cos we’re old fashioned and got married.

At the end of the day this is just a fun topic. No-ones opinion is right or wrong regarding marriage as far as I’m concerned. I stick by my prediction that it’s on its way out, but the only real big problem is when the two of you can’t agree how you want to play it. Here’s a tip guys. Give in.

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