During the wedding and reception, people talked about how lovely the bride looked, how handsome the groom looked, and how they just seemed right for each other. Since they had been dating for seven years, they pretty much had time to work out whether in fact they were right for each other. They also have a very large and supportive network of friends and family, which is invaluable to a young couple. I'm not in the least worried about my niece and her young man.
And it got me to thinking about marriage in general. One area in which my more conservative relatives (which would be pretty much all of them -- I'm the liberal black sheep of the family) and I disagree -- strongly -- is same sex marriage. I have trouble seeing where allowing long-term committed couples to be able to formally recognize that relationship endangers or trivializes marriage. (That my family and I are able to get along as well as we do having such disparate political views -- they love me in spite of much of what I believe -- gives me hope for the rest of the nation.)
I also remembered an exchange I had had with a woman in another online forum several months back. The context was a discussion of, I believe, the war. This woman was making nonsensical and bating comments. Another commenter, who I know pretty well through online interactions and through mutual friends, replied with a comment full of passion and eloquence, which included quoting Wilfred Owen. It was magnificent. I jokingly said "I know it would never work out -- as we're both married -- but marry me?" It was a stupid reply, I know, mainly because such eloquence deserved something better.
The first commenter went after me, saying "Since the concept of "marriage" doesn't mean much to most including the author (apparently) need I say more. Yeah, right, asking someone to marry one in an anonymous forum... how trivializing of the state of matrimony is THAT!!??? (Oh yeah... Just a joke. Hehehe.) "
For a great many reasons, most of them having to do with my personal history, that hit very close to home. I swear, if I had been in the same room with this woman, I might have become physically violent.
I managed to calm down enough to write a simple answer, along the lines of "I've been married long enough -- 22 years -- to have earned the right to joke about it....", but it was still quite an unpleasant experience.
And I also got to thinking about what does endanger marriage:
It's Renee and Kenny.
It's a nation that actually cares whether Brad is with Angelina or with Jen.
It's people -- Rob and Amber, Jessica and Nick, to name just a few -- who let the most intimate relationship of their lives become fodder for cheap entertainment.
It's a nation where couples, on average, spend enough on twelve hours of their lives to feed a family of four for a year.
It's every bride who has not asked her friend to be a bridesmaid because she was too fat or not pretty enough.
It's every groom who checked out and refused to have anything to do with the wedding or preparing for life together.
It's every bride -- or groom -- who went down the aisle and made sacred vows because "everything's been paid for and it would be a big problem to call things off at the last minute."
It's every planner who left people off the guest list that would have otherwise been invited so that the couple could have a fancier dinner.
It's every person who used wedding invitations for business purposes.
It's people who go down the aisle thinking that there are always "do-overs."*
It's every mother-in-law who insists she be more important in her son's life than her daughter-in-law.
It's every father-in-law who refuses to see his grown married daughter as anything other than "Daddy's little girl," and treats her husband accordingly.
It's every friend who said** "You know, your life would be so much simpler if you'd just leave him."
It's every coworker who says "I can't believe you let your wife get away with that!"
It's the Southern Baptist Conference, and every religious organization that insists that wives are to be submissive to their husbands.
It's every preacher who speaks of "wedded bliss", as if the two words implied each other.
It's every romance novel and fairy tale that portrays marriage as easy, or smooth, or forever romantic.
It's every movie where couples never go to counseling before splitting up.
It's every husband who sexually, physically, emotionally or verbally abuses his wife.
It's every wife who sexually, physically, emotionally or verbally abuses her husband.
It's every person in the world who think they know more and are more qualified to make decisions about what is going on in a given marriage than the two people who are in it, and who are willing to tell them about it.
A simple joke? No. Same sex marriage? No, not that either.
* I'm not saying that people should not get divorced, just that if you are thinking about how to get out of your marriage on your wedding day -- and there are people like that -- maybe you shouldn't be getting married. Linda Ellerbee once said that we had it all backwards, that we should make it hard to get married and easy to get divorced. I think she may be right.
** unless abuse is present. If one or the other parties is being abused, then friends should be urging them to leave.
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