A Question
So, I'm curious.
Why do people get married?
Do write and say why you think.
posted by miss machismo @ 9:49 PM
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Monday, March 20, 2006
Why do people get married?
Do write and say why you think.
12 Comments:
babies!
..that's why I'd get married
and to ensure that my husband might stick around to raise them...
AND to have one helluva party with my friends!!!!!!!!
People get married to make themselves feel legitimate, to make their parents happy, to help their partner cross a border, to celebrate a commitment, to give children security, to ensure that someone will always be with them, to move on to the next stage in their life.
The reasons are various and sundry, good and bad, tacky and beautiful. I don't know whether I'll get married, or for which reason if I did. It's complicated
Hm.Interesting. The more I think about it, the sillier marriage seems to me. I begin to wonder why it is. (Parties aside.)The reasons I could think of seem paltry or silly or wrong-headed.
I suppose to give children security is a good reason. But then, why would one be having children with someone who might cause insecurity? And if they were going to, they probably would even if they were married.
To feel legitimate- is that a good reason? I would have said no, but maybe I guess.
To make your parents happy is silly. But compelling I bet when under pressure!
TO celebrate a commitment- to what? This is a vague idea. Maybe I don't understand this one.
Either someone will stay with you or they won't. I'm sure divorce laywers can attest to the fact that marriage will not ensure they stay!
I really don't understand what you mean by moving on to the next stage of life. What stage am I in? When do I know about the next one? If I become an aged spinster will I stay in the same stage forever?
I had a....friend.....who married to get out of the house because she couldn't take living with her parents anymore.
I would say that for a lot of people nowadays, when cohabitation is really common, marriage is about demonstrating to the world that you are fully committed to your partner, and, to paraphrase men's razor commercials, to take your relationship to the next level. As you say, there's nothing about marriage that a divorce can't end pretty quickly if that's the way that people want to go, but still it seems like people associate marriage with Now We are Really Serious. For Real. Perhaps the fact that most people spend the equivalent of like a years wages on a wedding is the more potent sign of that commitment?
I think people get married when they love and care for each other so much that they want to show not only each other but everyone else that they know (and don't know) that they're committed to each other for not just the moment of the wedding ceremony but for eternity.
Marriages are registered and recorded by towns, cities and governments as a form of history. What better way to declare your love, friendship and faithfulness to someone than to have it recorded for all to see and for as long as recorded history survives.
People want to get married not just for the great party, fancy dress and presents but because they care so much about the other person that they are willing to make it exceedingly difficult (physically, financially and emotionally) to terminate it.
Yes, there are a multitude of other reasons why people do get married but I think those are secondary.
I still am unsure.
Why does the world need to know? Why do you have to prove a commitment?
WOuldn't a relationship achieve whatever you mean by 'the next level' anyway?
If you decided to get married, then you were Really Serious before. So why the marriage?
Okay, love etc.
But surely there are lots (or at least several) people that you love, and are committed to, and will not abandon ever until the end of time, but you wouldn't consider marrying them. Why do people only marry one person then? Is there only one person you are friends with, love and are faithful to?
So is marriage then like in grade one when everyone in my class was busy classifying thier friends as "first" "second", and "third" best? I love you better than everyone else, so I will marry you. I think that is also a silly reason. Not least because it is kind of rude!
The issue of loving other people as much as you love your wife/husband is a side-issue, I think. I have noticed my mother's slightly frustrating habit to see my boyfriend (when I had one) and my brother's fiancee WAY above (in importance, in inclusion in family events, etc.) of any other friends we might have. She is currently trying very very hard to include my brother's fiancee (whom she doesn't quite understand) as "part of the family", and yet can't understand why my best friend Victoria gets annoyed that she still isn't invited to family gatherings after our over a decade of us being friends.
However, that long aside ... aside, I think that sex is an important deterining factor in any discussion of "why get married?" Like it or not, sex is a volatile thing which can cause new life, or drive people to kill/abuse. That sort of passion is societally dangerous and so it makes sense to contain it in some ritualistic fashion. Individual people, when they get married to one another, are both celebrating the fact that they are together (in mind and spirit like friends, but also in body like lovers) and setting the relationship apart (making it special) in some way as a reminder (to them and to others) to treat the great power (for good or for evil) of sex with the respect it deserves.
Wow, that's a lot of parentheses. I hope that makes sense. And please don't try and fit what I said here into what I said before -- my views on marriage are contradictory and ever-changing.
My notion of sex as a big factor in marriages may seem old-fashioned by the way, but I'm not making an argument for chastity before marriage. I'm just saying that the "making a commitment" part of marriage is, essentially, a statement about monogamy and a way of acknowledging that infidelity to one's partner is a dangerous/hurtful thing which one should try and prevent/avoid.
Marriage as a container for sex. Okay. That is what I thought. Only,it doesn't go with all the sentimental goo that accompanies discussion of marriage.
I think it does go with all the sentimental goo, though. Sex can be rough-and-tumble, but it can also inspire people to be very very sentimental. After all, this is a very intimate and (if done with the right person for the right reasons) very sacred act.
I think the sentimental goo (and the worries about whether people will commit or not) are all tied up in sex too, but a lot of people prefer to just talk about love and leave the physical details out of it. Love and commitment and devotion and public display are all legitimate parts of what marriage means (and why people get married) but I think the thing that sets it apart from other human relations (with family, w2ith friends) is definately sex.
Well no one likes a bald box. People naturally want to decorate it - with goo! But I think much of it is totally irrelevant, though nice sounding. "I promise not to have sex with Other People" does not sounds as nice as flowery discussions of faithfulness.
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