All right, I’ll admit it: I don’t normally read the University of Denver Magazine. But for some reason, I happened to glance at the Winter 2003-04 edition, with its smiling, white, young, heterosexual couple on the cover in their wedding costume, next to the words “The marriage movement: DU researchers are fueling a drive to bring ‘I do’ back into vogue” I have to admit that the first thought that came into my head was “Since when was ‘I do’ not in style?”
If you are married, divorced, separated or ever planning on being one of the above three, I suggest the article. It’s an interesting look at marriage, the institution, how it’s changing and what both liberals and conservatives are doing about it. I would like to highlight some of the issues covered (or not), and expand on the “‘marriage movement’ that is transforming the personal into the political.”
One thing that must first be recognized is that, despite the happy, smiling, white heterosexual couples whose wedding photos litter the bottom of each page, we wouldn’t be having a “marriage crisis” in America if all married couples were genuinely so happy.
While factors such as race, sexual orientation, income level and the presence of children were touched on throughout the article, for the sake of space I will limit myself to the male/female roles in marriage, and what exactly those are in this day and age.
One factor mentioned is that “marriage changes men substantially on how they behave and think about women and children. Cohabitation does not change that. Young men earn more and achieve more, and are more willing to sacrifice, when they marry.”
Therefore, in general, it sounds as though men become more responsible when they are formally/legally/religiously tied in marriage to a woman, and will probably have children to raise in the future.
You know, it’s a real shame that “young men” need to get married and have other people depending on them for them to “earn more, achieve more, and (be) more willing to sacrifice” for others.
Of course, one could argue that the rising rates of two income families preclude the male being the sole supporter of the household.
Unfortunately, a couple pages further on comes the observation by a DU social work professor that “most young women, when asked, say they expect they’ll be married for life and have a husband to support them and their children. This romantic expectation keeps many women from acquiring the necessary education and job skills to ensure that they are able to support themselves and their families should they need to.”
While marriage education, in order to promote healthier marriages for all involved, is both a laudable and admirable endeavor, it is not the sole solution to the problem of “saving marriage.” As one researcher points out in the article, Americans are becoming more and more “serially monogamous,” meaning that we may be with one person at one time, but we’re with multiple people throughout our lives.
Why, therefore, should divorce be so incredibly difficult to obtain in many cases?
In a now-defunct science fiction television show, set in the future, society had come up with what they termed “trial marriages” you married a person for a trial length of time, which could be set in three to five year increments. If, at the end of the trial marriage, the couple decided not to remain together, then their marriage was ended. Because society had become accustomed to short-term marriages, the divorce and ownership laws, child custody, etc., were changed to reflect the temporariness of the state of matrimony itself.
Fourty-three percent of first marriages end in divorce. The expectation of young women today that they will marry once and stay married their entire lives not only bucks the current trend, but is idealistic in the extreme. While studies may show that young men grow more responsible when they get married, that responsibility may not last.
It should not take standing in front of an alter saying “I do” to foster responsibility, however brief, in men. And it should not take a messy divorce, coupled with children and late (if any) alimony payments, to make women realize that their partner is not going to be around forever to support them and their family.
Both sides need be educated about marriage but also about the fundamentals of society that marriage rests on, and to realize, better sooner rather than later, that the only permanent thing in life is change.
