When I went to university in the 80s and 90s many people thought that the institution of marriage was becoming extinct. The thinking was that group marriage, open relationships would or should bury the institution of marriage.
Gay people wanted to get married in the same way that people wanted to break down the door of a burning building and enter it.
After all we had just emerged from the 60s and 70s.
But here in 2015, Free Love and the sexual revolution are truly over.
What happened? Was it the hysteria of the Aids/ HIV ‘epidemic’?
Or is marriage such an enduring human institution?
Marriage is basically the collective sanction of a relationship as part of a pact with society. So, I don’t see that going away, since people will always want a sanction from their society. This sanction includes a lot, like legal status and economic and taxation policies, which is why people want to get married, whether they are heterosexual or homosexual (or anything else). What I see is opening up the concept of marriage to more than just the tradition one man and one woman relationships to extend the sanction. Why should a free society put limits on the kinds of relationships it’s citizens freely want to embark on, after all?
But I think that people in the 60’s and 70’s really hadn’t thought it through, and were basically against the establishment as they saw it, and that the reality was that there were never a majority of people who felt that marriage was outmoded and going away. The reality was, those folks just wanted to get laid without having to hassle with getting married first and then going through a divorce down the road when the appeal of scrumpin’ wore off. And I can’t blame them…I was part of that generation and a certain try before you buy mentality is a good thing. But eventually I think people settle down and want that societal sanction…if for nothing else the legal and economic reasons.
Free love went out with Flower Power, but the sexual revolution kind of stuck. Most people aren’t saving themselves for marriage. It’s not called Playing House, if you move in with your SO, unwed. It’s unfashionable to call children bastards, now it’s ‘there is no such thing as an illegitimate child.’ And so on.
I assume all of the opponents of gay marriage are now either divorced because marriage is meaningless now, or newly married to dogs, horse, and lawnmowers as Rick Santorum claims
Well, that depends on what you mean by “marriage:”. Weddings are on the decline, but the social, legal, administrative etc recognition of and support for conjugal relationships is not. Increasingly, common law or de facto relationships are being assimilated to the status of relationships formalised with a wedding, with similar treatment from society and from the state while they endure, and when they break down.
In other words, marriage is as popular as ever. We just no longer consider it necessary to inaugurate it with a wedding.
It depends on the state and the ‘treatment’. For example, California has no common law marriage. But parents are both on the hook for child support even if they’ve never married. So that part of being married has been extended to all.
Wanting to get laid had nothing to do with being for or against marriage. It was about not waiting and not hiding not waiting.
I don’t remember anyone being against marriage
Maybe everyone was waiting to deal with it after the revolution to mention another thing a lot of college students (especially in Cambridge) thought was going to happen real soon.
I don’t know. My son-in-law’s German friends are really envious that he got married, and wish that they could also. They lack opportunity, not desire. And everyone is waiting longer, of course.
I have a theory that the fight for gay marriage has had the effect of reviving the institution of marriage in general. Difficult to prove, but if true, the irony is delicious.
In what way do they “lack opportunity”? Are they unable to find partners? Unable to afford a wedding? Legally barred somehow?
I probably would have waited at least two more years to marry if I hadn’t been plugged in to the SSM debate and activism. My wife was ready way before I was, and I had Things To Do before marriage (though we were already living together and mingling finances). Realizing how many people couldn’t do what I took for granted made me appreciate it more. Ironically, I then considered not getting married or making a speech about it during the wedding as a protest, but in the interest of in-law harmony I decided not to do that.
That was mostly tongue in cheek btw. I do think that there were people who were against marriage as they saw it as conforming to the establishment, but the other side of it was just that much of the stigma of not getting married and having sex or having a kid were removed or at least toned down, so it was not a big deal to not get married. But there are fiscal as well as legal and social advantages to being married that still make it attractive to many people…and the recent gay marriage fight has made people think about it more. After all, if gay couples will and have fought for the right to a real marriage then maybe it’s something to consider.
The marriage opponents (and I never heard any of them when I was in college) probably all grew up and had kids.
The thing is, you can easily opt to marry or not if you’re straight, and no one thinks much of it. If you’re gay, though, the whole country thinks it has a right to weigh in on your marriage choice.
New Lifetime Movie: “Torn Between Marrying My Cat or My Roomba”.
I do think that there were people who were against marriage as they saw it as conforming to the establishment, but the other side of it was just that much of the stigma of not getting married and having sex or having a kid were removed or at least toned down, so it was not a big deal to not get married. But there are fiscal as well as legal and social advantages to being married that still make it attractive to many people…and the recent gay marriage fight has made people think about it more. After all, if gay couples will and have fought for the right to a real marriage then maybe it’s something to consider.