Technically, as the woman in a traditional Jewish ceremony, I didn’t have any speaking lines at all, and certainly made no vows, although I did have to actively accept my ring and ketuba (Jewish marriage contract). Mr. GilaB’s one speaking line (which translates to something like ‘Behold, you are sanctified to me with this ring according to the laws of Moses and Israel’) didn’t involve any vows, either. He made a bunch of commitments to me in the ketuba, most notably to feed, clothe, and house me, and to have sex with me on a regular basis. (This is phrased as ‘giving me my time,’ but it’s well understood to be a euphemism.) By accepting the ring and the ketuba, I showed that I wanted to be married to him, with all of the rights and obligations that implies. I’m not sure what traditions involve vows outside of Christian ones, but my guess is that the American civil ceremony involves vows because it’s a secularized version of a Protestant wedding ceremony.
Mind you, we planned (and still do) to stay in it for the long haul! While I certainly know some divorced Orthodox Jews, I don’t think that the lack of vows means that we’re less committed to staying married than those who vow 'til death do them part.
“I vow to stay with you for as long as I feel like, probably until you become saggy, fat and bitter, at which point I will pawn your valuables and binge on hookers and blow.”
Personally, I’d say a successful marriage is one that does not ruin the relationship. One where the partners divorce but remain on good terms would be more successful than one where they stay married but hate each other.
Just like I don’t think all relationships that don’t end in marriage are “a waste of time”, I don’t think all marriages that end in separation or divorce are definitively unsuccessful. Time spent together in a loving and joyful marriage is successful no matter what, and that time can’t be canceled out by anything that happens later.
People can and do change significantly over the course of their lives, and I don’t think it’s fair or reasonable to expect that they will stay in a relationship that no longer makes sense. I agree with Grumman about that. I think it’s much more adult and honest to acknowledge that possibility, rather than pretend that YOU and YOUR MARRIAGE are different than everyone else’s because you KNOW that it will never happen to you.
Obviously divorce should never be the first option, and not what you expect or hope will happen when you marry someone, but there’s a reason it’s an ancient part of the marriage institution. I applaud the couple whose wedding DianaG attended for being mature enough to admit that. When I marry my fiance in a Jewish ceremony next spring, our brit ahuvim (marriage contract) will include the stipulation that if one partner asks for a divorce, the other must grant it. No-fault divorce is a tradition that has been in place for thousands of years. Nobody can know the future, and I think it’s silly and dishonest to pretend that you can. Better to admit the possibilities and work with them in mind.
I’m not talking about *pretending *that your relationship is different and special and will last forever, I’m talking about ***believing ***it. If you don’t, why get married?
Because once again, I’m not saying that anyone should stay in an unhappy marriage. What I’m saying is that one should not enter into marriage with a “for now” attitude.
I agree with Grumman. Because there is a flip-side to this question… just because a marriage ends in death to one partner, does that make it successful? Not necessarily.
Heh. So if I am of the opinion that all marriages should expire automatically, say, after 10 years, with a SUPER-DUPER EASY METHOD to re-up, what does that make me?
I think it’s naive and idealistic to believe that every marriage has a potential of making it 30-50 years these days. We live a long time, and often get married very young.
So no, I don’t believe that only the marriages that end in death are successful. If I spend 10+ years with someone and come out of it a more mature, if sadder person, if I have learned about myself and my relationship and so has he, if we then bring these things to other people, I don’t think that’s a ‘failure’, necessarily.
I’m with DianaG and Dio on this. “Lifelong” is an essential component of a successful marriage. Getting married “for now” or “as long as it works out” is pretty meaningless.
Also, I’ve never heard self-written vows that were not cringe-worthy. My brother was married in a civil ceremony by a JotP and the vows were prefectly fine; it doesn’t have to be liturgical (although personally I love liturgical weddings; YMMV).
I guess I’m uncomfortable with the idea that I get “credit” for a successful marriage because I married someone with bad genes who kicked off early. Lots of marriages make it to 11 years. Lots of marriages look at least as happy as mine at 11 years that disintegrate at 15 or 20 or 32 as in my friend-of-a-friend scenario.
This is what makes it a tricky question to answer. If a couple does make vows that include something about as long as we both live, or 'til death us do part and elect not to stay together then by the terms they agreed to I think we do call that a failed marriage.
If the vows don’t include anything about the duration of the relationship and both parties arrive at a place where “hey, I think I’ve gotten all I can from this relationship. Let’s split up.” and they part as friends, I wouldn’t argue with calling that a successful marriage. I think the key is balance. Most breakups of which I’ve known the details, are instigated by one half of the couple, with the other person either completely blindsided, or aware there were problems but didn’t feel they were insurmountable. Any configuration that lets both people (or however many people are in a particular marriage) consistently feel fairly treated is probably the closest I can come to the definition of a successful marriage.
I know people who’ve stayed married 'til death they did part but were miserable for every moment of the last 35 years of it. I have a hard time calling that a success.
Just for the record, I think that a marriage has failed whether the couple splits OR stays together unhappily, and that it’s better to split.
I wouldn’t call any marriage that ends in divorce ultimately “successful”, but neither would I necessarily call it a failure, there’s middle ground there.
The only thing I object to is the idea of getting married without believing it will be forever. I think that sucks.
That was one of the reasons a friend of mine gave for not wanting to get married - he argued that life is sufficiently complex that it’s daft to assume a promise made at 24 yrs old will still be valid 30-40 yrs later.
I think you can get married with the hope and intention that it will last forever, while still being aware that human lives are messy and that circumstances change.
A friendship can be succesful without being for life, as can a business arrangement. My job doesn’t have an end-point on it, and I’d be quite happy to work the rest of my career (30yrs) here, but if I move to another role it doesn’t mean this job was a “failure”.
Maybe putting the “till death us do part” bit in the marriage vows is simply pandering to relatively modern concepts of romance, and doesn’t reflect the human condition?
You don’t get credit. 1) If your marriage doesn’t last until one of you dies, then it was not successful. 2) Stating that the only marriages that are successful are the ones that end in death is different from stating that all marriages that end in death are successful.
Yes, but you don’t expect the government to recognize your friendships, or your friends and family to shower you with gifts when you make business arrangements.
I recognize that things change. I am not married precisely because I’ve never met anyone about whom I could say “Yup, this is the forever guy.” “Til death do us part” is hardly a modern addition to the concept of marriage, and frankly I find the notion that we should give up on the concept a much more egregious instance of pandering.
It lasted until one of us died and it was a happy marriage. But other marriages would have been successful if one of the participants had died early, too, when the marriage went on to divorce. That’s what doesn’t make sense to me.
Basically, if you get widowed early, chances are people will say you had a successful marriage.
And why is that bad? What exactly are you getting that you feel is unearned? It’s not like they’re offering cash prizes or something.
Sure, you don’t know that your marriage would have been successful if your husband hadn’t died. You don’t know that it wouldn’t have been, either. And ultimately, who cares what anyone else thinks? If you think your marriage was successful, it was.