The minister who conducted our marriage service interviewed us both soon after we booked the wedding date, he also insisted that we attend a couple of informal meetings with a trusted and mature married couple from his congregation (there wasn’t any ‘religious’ aspect to this) - he wasn’t trying to browbeat us into believing or accepting anything, but it was just to find out if we had fully grasped the reality of what we were entering into and to give us the chance to ask questions too.
A few of my workmates who I told about this saw it as a totally unreasonable intrusion into my rights and privacy etc, but personally, I applaud it; the minister was simply taking his job seriously, I belive that if we’d said to him “If it doesn’t work out there’s always divorce”, he would have refused to marry us and I think this is right; if you enter into something(anything) serious with the thought of an escape route on your mind, then failure is much more likely.
Marriage that provides ‘get out’ clauses is something other than marriage.
The serious commitment required of individuals who wish to be married cannot be trifled with. The rabbi at my brother’s wedding said that there are 3 important days in your life: the day you are born, the day you die, and the day you marry. You don’t have a choice in the first two, but you do in the 3rd. Choose wisely.
I think many people are simply incapable of the required constitution and will for a true marriage. What people ought to enter into instead is more of a business merger, to be dissolved at such time the parties wish it. With this sub-class of unions, there could be no religious component, nor gender requirements to be recognized. Any two (or three, or any number) could easily enter and leave this domesticate union with all the benefits and little recourse of a marriage.
I wish more ministers took their job as seriously as Mangetout’s.
Or they could treat adults like… well… adults. Trust them to make the right decision and accept the fact that about half will not. I’d like to see figures that show whether the little pep ralley on marriage (often encouraged by clergy for the benefit of the couple to be wed) is actually helpful in the long run.
Mangetout wrote:
So in your opinion “Until death do us part” is the real clincher for the deal? Kind of the Pricess Bride thing - “If you didn’t say it, you didn’t do it!”
I’m not familiar with wording in non christian ceremonies but I suspect at least some of them don’t mention a contract binding until death. Furthermore, I don’t believe they take marriage any more or less seriously than say North Americans or Europeans. But I stand ready to be correct and educated on the matter.
Strictly speaking, I’m not against that sort of thing. I’m just adamantly opposed to it for myself. Then again, I had the good fortune to get very good marriage advice from my parents who’ve been very happily married for almost 40 years now. Mrs.QS’s parents have been married just as long and were equally helpful role models.
What about the idea of fixed-term ‘marriages’ - renewable (or not) at the end of the term. My memory is hazy, but I believe Heinlein (at least) posited this. For those who want to bet the farm (and I include myself here) they’re not the answer, but for others?
I suspect they probably wouldn’t work, but I remember being interested in their portrayal.
On a more serious note I’ve been very happily married for nearly 6 years. I don’t believe - though I used to - in any kind of afterlife, and the thought that my better half and I will ever be separated often makes me very, very sad. That said, it also fuels my carpae diem outlook.
Well, OK, but maybe one day we’ll find something that we can’t treat as a consumer commodity; maybe the customer isn’t always right.
me too.
[anecdotal]certainly was helpful in my case, more so than I would have imagined at first, and not beacuse I’m someone who has to be spoon-fed opinions.[/anecdotal]
I’m not familiar with the Princess Bride, and I wouldn’t point to any particular part of the wedding vows as ‘the clincher’, but surely it’s better for someone to say that they just don’t want marriage, rather than try to whittle it down to a size they can cope with.
I’m not against the idea of some sort of legal/social recognition for couples that want to cohabit etc for as long as it’s mutually convenient (In fact this already exists here in the UK), but to call that marriage would (in my mind) devalue ‘real, permanent’ marriage. I’m proud to be married and to have made a committment that I will honour even if it hurts, and I’m deeply grateful that I’ve received a reciprocal committment, to find that lumped into the same category as something much less grand would be a great shame (I think).
Maybe not directly. But celebrities influence the larger society and culture, from whose influence almost no one is immune. Truth is that every indvidiual has some influence in this manner, but in the case of non-celebrities each one person’s influence is infitesimably small. But it adds up.
You are most welcome, stoid. Just don’t expect this for your political posts.
Eh, I still don’t see it. I just can’t conceive of anyone saying, “Hey, Liz Taylor’s had a bunch of divorces! I can just get one, too!” The divorce laws exist and change independently of what celebrities do with their lives. If they’ve chosen to take advantage of easy divorce laws, it’s hardly their fault that those laws exist.
Besides, it isn’t as if there is some small limited supply of marriages that they’re using up. We aren’t going to run out. Anyone who values their own marriage only to the extent that strangers’ marriages are successful is a bit silly, IMO.
I think some folks are trying to let the thing define the people, rather than the other way around. The fact that some marriage vows contain the words “as long as we both shall live” or “until death do us part” doesn’t mean that those words are written in some great Cosmic Book somewhere, never to be altered or trifled with. There is absolutely nothing morally wrong with two people entering into a legal partnership called “marriage” without intending for it to be a lifetime commitment.
I’d be willing to conceed a point to stoid and IzzyR in this regard. I do believe that our society not only accepts but (almost) celebrates divorces on daily and weekly tabloid front pages. This goes a long way in making divorce less of a social taboo. But I’m not arguing that this is a bad thing. In fact, the less unahappily married people walking around the better, IMHO.
I must confess to starting this topic with the intention of playing devil’s advocate. I certainly did not enter my marriage with the intention of having it end before the death of myself or my wife. Nor has my resolve changed in the 8 years we’ve been married (we’ve been together for 14 years!) . However, intellectually, I believe that the above quote reflects the spirit of my OP very accurately.
I just wanted to point out how refreshing it is to have a pornographer arguing for old-fashioned family values. Thanks, Stoid! (What happened to the -ola?) Another reason to love this board. Nowhere else!
Also, how many people would actually take advantage of term-marriage, or whatever? Is “as long as we both shall love” that common? How widely used are prenups? I think most people imagine they’re in love forever, or they wouldn’t do it at all. On the flip side, how well recieved have “covenant marriages” been in LA or whichever state has them?
I’ve been thinking about this and maybe what I actually want (if marriage is to be redefined as something less than permanent) then, is a new term for describing/declaring my own marriage as definitely permanent and monogamous, only because I think people should be able to know for definite whether someone considers themselves to be permanently off-limits*.
[sup]* The implication being that a non-permanent marriage may be dissolved beacuse one of the partners is enticed after something that looks like a better deal.
But many marriages, no matter how commited the partners were at the time of ceremony, fall apart because of adultery. “Until death do us part” does not seem to be the iron clad guarantee some had hoped. Some people still cheat despite the most sincere and explicit promises not to.
Not sure how you would guarantee exclusivity no matter what context or definition you assigned to a marriage.
Of course I am speaking on a very general basis. YMMV - Your Marriage (and hopefully mine!) May Vary.
Its possible that for some people the expectation that marriage is a lifelong committment is what tanks the marriage.
Young, full of love and romance, you may not understand the realities of marriage - the day in day out of it, the bad times that happen. Sure, someone tells you, but that is other people’s marriages, yours will be perfect and last forever.
Then the day to day grind begins, and you begin to ask yourself “if this is what I have to look forward to FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE I might as well just throw in the towel now.”
Or the reality of “I will never be able to have sex with another person” hits, and, being the contray people we are, the finality of that sends us out looking.
I think too many people get married because “they’ve been together five years” or “she wanted a ring for Christmas” or “thats what people do when they get to be my age” or “all of our friends have gotten married.” When the the reason should be - “in 50 years, I want to be calling this person (older, fatter, greyer) in for a tuna sandwich lunch and talking over where we should put the petunias”
I know a couple who got married in order to avoid the draft way back in 1965. She walked down the aisle thinking “we can always get divorced.” They are still happily married.
I agree, and I don’t see marriage as a way of trapping an unwilling spouse, and (God forbid) if my wife one day decided that she could stand no more, I wouldn’t expect pleas of “but you promised” to have any effect. The vows I have made are a standard by which I judge myself, not a way of beating my wife into submission.
To be honest the vows are only a public declaration of (part of) what’s going on in the relationship and in that sense they are immaterial, however, I think they are a good encapsulation of what should build a stable and safe relationship and in turn, society, the fact that humans in the last few decades have had an attention span problem when it comes to relationships shouldn’t (IMHO) cause us to lower our expectations.
It’s what I’ve always hoped my marriage will be like and so far it’s on track. But you see that couple over there… the third couple on the right… yeah, them. You see, they will be signing a 10 year marriage agreement with continuing 5 year options. On top of that, they’ve got a rider that says she’ll bear two children (no more, no less) and he’ll earn a minimum of 150K per year and be home in time to bath the kids 4 out of 5 weekday evenings.
Are they immoral? Have they somehow compromised your marriage, or mine?
(Actually, I think we are very close to being in full agreement here so the above questions are rhetorical. Thanks for taking the time to consider my OP).
I’ve often wondered the relevence of marriage in our times. One out of two fails. This is a remarkably high rate. The thought of becoming married is so daunting, it makes me dizzy.
Forever. Until death. (I get chills.) People do change. Real problems bubble over when a person “forces” love and doesn’t let it change naturally.
I’ve often thought that marriage is almost like saying, “finally! I can stop trying to impress you, I’VE GOT YOU.”
There is an ugly aspect to marriage: neediness and dependancy. I don’t want someone to love me just because I love them. If someone doesn’t want to be with me anymore, then go! Life goes on… you WILL find someone else to love who will love you. Marriage fosters dependancy by assuring that no matter what you do, you are “locked in.”
Why does a personal commitment to someone have to be in writing to mean anything?
Or is it an esteem issue? “If I lose him/her, there’s no way I could ever find anyone else as good, I’m not worth it.”
Tell you what… you start hindering someone’s growth and there will be problems… and there are.
I am still young… maybe when I start losing my hair and growing a gut I’ll start looking around for a girl I can hook up the ol’ ball and chain to.
The same as in the times past. It’s an expression of love and commitment between two adults.
One out of two succeeds. That is no less remarkable.
Perhaps you better sit down.
It has been my experience that you cannot force love. It either endures or it does not. I too think that “until death” is an unreasonable blanket expectation. It is, howerver, viewed as an ideal.
Which would then lead to divorce.
This is not a marriage. It’s a disfunctional relationship.
Because in contract law, an agreement is not worth the paper it is not written on.
Again, an indication of disfunction rather than a congruous union.
…and how does marriage necessarily hinder someone’s growth, exactly?
Just a word of advice… I would not wait that long. Your prospects will be far grimmer, to say nothing of your chances to get close enough to hook one.
Not my job to decide, although I would be concerned for the kids
[quote] Have they somehow compromised your marriage, or mine? No, not at all, quite the opposite in fact - they would have thrown it into sharp contrast, but I would prefer if they didn’t call their agreement by the same name as marriage, I wouldn’t want anybody mistaking my wonderful marriage for something as shallow and grasping as what they would have, that’s all.
Maybe, but until the adoption of No-Fault divorce laws in the 1960s and 70s, the State required you to heep this “dysfunctional relationship” going under the banner of a marriage. You couldn’t get a divorce unless you had “grounds” for it, such as adultery or wife-beating or mental incompetency.
Ah, so you do believe a marriage should be “enforceable,” then, even if one of (or both of?) the parties wants to opt out.
Sounds to me like this “marriage contract” is not so much a nurturing vow, but a threat of punishment for not keeping up its terms.
Why should “till death to us part” be a part of the marriage vows? First of all, those words have become meaningless, at least in the USA, with the high divorce rate. When you assist a wedding (as I have) where both people have already been married (some more than once), how can you hear those words without rolling your eyes?
Secondly, why is a relationship that lasts 50 years or 60 years inherently more valuable than a relationship that has lasted 5 years or 6 years? If I am happy with my first wife for 5 years, and happy with my second wife for another 5 years, I don’t see why it’s less laudable than being happy with the same wife for 10 years.
If marriage has legal ramifications (which it does - taxes, allowing a person to make medical decisions for their partner, etc…) obviously some people will get married to benefit from the laws accompanying the state of marriage, and will not consider it as a lifetime commitment. Once they decide that the legal benefits are no longer useful or needed, why should they stay married?
As far as celebrities “cheapening” the value of marriage by their frequent divorces, I think that in many cases divorce can be a good thing, and I am not willing to stigmatize those that do so. The real problem is the expectation in the puritanical american society that a “married” relationship is more praiseworthy than a committed, loving relationship where the couple is not tied by legal bonds. Which is what encourages people to get married when they probably shouldn’t, if one is willing to accept the equation “marriage = lifetime partnership”.
