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- Jun 8, 2008
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ksinger|1302262661|2890923 said:Well, I'll chime in, since I've had perhaps a bit more experience here than most (although many might not think that "experience" qualifies me to comment, since much of it is of the "what NOT to do" category) I'm the child of divorce, I've cohabitated, and I've been married and divorced and am now married to the right guy, just for background.
On the whole, I think formal marriage has been and is, a good institution for society. Especially for children. As a child of divorce, blessed with a remarkable mother - mentally stable, constantly employed, partially college-educated, and with definite views on child-rearing and an iron will, I used to argue from my own experience that divorce had minimal impact on children. My husband, dealing with a large set of the kids resulting from the idea that marriage is dispensable and the view that fathers are going to be pretty much non-existent, has since disabused me of that notion. Children without 2 parents in the home - and let's face it, if marriage is dead as a concept, many men won't and DON'T stick around - are more likely to live in poverty, and to repeat the cycle. The children of single parent female-headed households are less likely to do well in school than kids with two parents or even those in single father-headed households. And of course the impact for male children, of not having a father is huge. The growth of gangs pretty much shows how desperate some of those young men are for a male structure that many females simply can't understand or provide. It's negative certainly, but there it is.
As an example of what the death of the idea of marriage has wrought as an unintended consequence perhaps, I would use this. I mentioned in another thread that a week or so ago one of my husband's students, a smart girl that he had hoped would break out and go to college - she had the chops - showed up pregnant, showing all the other girls her sonagrams. He said she was a minor celebrity, with all the girls crowding around and cooing and congratulating. Yeah. A 17 year old gets pregnant and it's a celebration?? This girl will likely NOT marry, and likely NOT go to college, and will likely struggle all her life, and her child along with her. And this is part and parcel of the death of marriage.
I'm not at all arguing that we should all be forced to stay married, or be forced to marry if a pregnancy occurs. But I do think we should be honest that the decline of marriage has some pretty large consequences for the structure of society and our economy, and some of those consequences we are dealing with now and they aren't very pretty.
I disagree with Kenny that marriage vows are meaningless when divorce is possible. I would argue the opposite. Marriage vows adhered to mean much MORE when you CAN walk with impunity.
Personally, I like marriage much more than cohabitating. I like it better even though my first marriage failed. It signaled my intent to the world, to make a relationship work for the long term. My husband and I are currently beating the odds of second marriages being more prone to failure. But then our situation is a bit different perhaps. He's kinda like athlete's foot - never can quite get rid of it, might as well accept that you're going to have it forever.
I agree with Karen totally. I love being married and sure it isn't for everyone but this is coming from someone who never thought she wanted to ever get married. It was the best decision that I have ever personally made. It did change our relationship- it brought it to a whole new level of commitment and caused other people to view our relationship differently as well. You can argue it doesn't matter what other people think and I for the most part agree with that but it sure feels good anyway to have other people view your relationship differently (better) when you are married. I admit it. It matters to me.
I feel more of a team with my husband than I did when we were dating and though we felt like a team before we were married it just feels more so now if that makes sense. I knew I could count on him before we were married but I feel that way even more so now. It just magnifies everything good (and bad too don't get me wrong) by being married and as another poster wrote I feel like we are 2 parts of a whole. We are separate individuals made stronger by being together. We make each other better people and we strive to be better for each other.
I am not saying that if you don't get married you cannot experience this but I am just relaying my own experience of what happened when we got married. I didn't realize how much it would change our already wonderful relationship (we were together 5 years before we got married) but the consequences of marriage for us were undeniable and very very positive. I should add for the sake of full disclosure that we did not live together before we got married so that might have something to do with it.
I think it would be a very very sad day if people stopped valuing what marriage represents and all that is associated with it. I believe everyone should be able to get married if they desire. Whether straight or gay. There should be no barriers to love between two people. I am not sure how I feel about polygamous situations but will save that topic for another day.