Growing up this thing called marriage is a rather current subject. As girls, we are told that marriage is an essential step in life. Pushed to dream of a white dress and an eternal round ring. The years go by, and we are influenced to believe that this day must be desired as well as crucial to our existing. Why? That information is not sold to us. Just that we must follow the yellow brick road, well in this case, the one filled with flowers. We then grow up to want this day, not the years that follow the commitment but the day itself. As boys, they are told that they must do this sacrifice for the girl. The message is not the same and so the ethics are not the same. It is a basic experiment, two genders with two separate perspectives collide into a pre-planned event.
So the question maintains, why do we get married?
Let´s think about getting married for a second
Is it a religious thing? At least when my grandparents got married, it was. History has told us that marriage started as a territory contract. It is still a contract, right? Weird if you think about it. If I told you that a piece of papers symbolizes a life promise would you believe me?
Well, we can cross out the question about religion because even atheists get married. Then is it a way to feel commitment? As human beings, we have a need to control the chaos. All that surrounds us is temporary so maybe this is a way we found to delude ourselves that some things stay. Is marriage a fearful act of desperation to not end up alone or a need to prove eternity to someone? As human beings, we are programmed to fear loneliness. To be alone by choice is a blessing, to stay alone is a nightmare. However, some of us love with no bounds. So were weddings made for these few? Have we planned a contract made of fear or does love actually win in the end?
Let´s talk about the day itself. Why do we need a bunch of strangers watching something so intimate? If marriage truly is the melting of two hearts into one, then it is the most intimate act one can experience. The start of something new. To have the courage to be naked, raw in front of the ones you love. To promise eternity with no doubt. Then why in the middle of the crowd are faces you can´t place names? Is it for the attention or another social norm we follow without questioning?
After the proposal and before the day, comes a whole lot of planning. You watch families, spend so much just for a day. A day to celebrate love. So why just a day? Why do we only marry once? Has someone ever thought of celebrating that love every year? Forget the spending, forget the strangers and just plan a party filled with love. Even better, elope to a place just the two of you. If marriage is to celebrate two people, then that should be the whole focus of the day. The two people, becoming one.
I read about this tradition. Ways to keep love and bring good fortune to the couple. Some have sugar others have beatings but we all know the classical ones. Something white, something blue and something old. A day filled with so much superstition. Have you ever thought about how many people that get married, follow these rules but don´t even know why? Why are we told that by doing these simple things on our wedding day, then everything will be ok? We should be talking about real stuff. Teaching that marriage is work and that work isn´t gone with a few traditions. This brings us to what marriage has become. Another step in a relationship. Something you have to do but not feel. Divorce has become so easy that people treat marriage as a relationship. Not afraid of the end, not invested in the forever. Nowadays the only thing people are actually invested in is broadcasting love instead of feeling it. The life we see is a painted mirror, filled with lies.
Let´s talk about vows. We all promise this “I, ____, take you, ____, to be my lawfully wedded (husband/wife), to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.” All I hear is bullshit. So you are telling me that I am about to dedicate my life to my soul mate and all I have to say is this? This is my life promise? Where are the actual promises? The daily gestures, the compromises, the flirting, the nurturing and the growing? Where is the truth behind this standard superficiality?
Marriage is monogamy
Is it? Generations before us have all grown with the pressure that they must fall in love and get married. That is the ecosystem of life. Darwin didn´t actually have to write this because we are all different. Our minds have evolved to individuality. If we all desire, feel, need different things, why must we all do the same? Here is the problem. We breed an army of young adults, marrying as an obligation. A bunch of adults differing in ethics. That is when a marriage starts to fail. To marry someone is to promise a lifetime. To touch that one soul inside and out. The exclusivity of the touch. Then why do many cheat? Because we weren´t all made to be monogamous.
Marriage is love
At the end of the day, marriage is love. Not a social step for acceptance. It is the ultimate gesture to ask someone to be part of your life forever. It is the most intimate breathtaking question you will ever have to answer. It is not an easy question. It won´t be a life of carefree moments filled with fleeting happiness and breezy laughs. Marriage is like a word that we all use, but few use it with meaning. It is the broken link of communication. Lost with divorce and modern love. Marriage is one of the most fulfilling things one can feel, yet it is misinformed and misused. Let’s just hope it won´t go extinct.
