I Do, But I Don't (an essay)

I Do, But I Don't

Once upon a time, a woman could only be seen as a woman once she belonged to a man through the act of marriage. Once upon a time (and currently in some cultures), two people who had never met were arranged to be wed whether they chose to or not. Once upon a time...once upon a time is just that- a part of the past. It is not something to be cherished as a better or more simple time, it is a line of speech we use in fairy tales when the characters are dumb and don't know any better. We all make mistakes. Marriage is one of them. The whole act and idea of marriage is a negativity we have carried on our backs throughout the eras of history. Marriage as we know it should be banned because it is strongly laced with inequality, gender stereotypes, and it carries heavy associations to ways of thinking that need to be phased out. Would we say that life was better when we all thought that blood-letting cured people of disease? If not, why have we dragged the practice of marriage into our current, more aware society instead of updating it to reflect our growing intelligence about life?

Inequality is something we constantly fight in society whether it involves gender, race, or life preferences; marriage thwarts the attempts we make for change by cementing our crookedness into a legal document. When two people marry, one person (usually the woman) takes the last name of the other person. When we stamp our name on something it becomes a sign of ownership. "This person now belongs to me. We are Mr. and Mrs. John Smith." Where did the other person go? Did they suddenly dissapear or change, becoming the ultra-ego of the one whose name he or she bares? A person cannot be owned, but marriage tries to imply that. It is also an act thick with torrents of gender labels. The wife stays at home and has babies; the husband goes to work- delusional boundaries of who we are supposed to be. With the final label cemented into the mix, that marriage is only between a man and a woman, we suppress ourselves into a stagnant existence that supports, encourages us to be unbalanced in our relationships and stresses the needs of one person over another, and the rights of one group of people over another.

Most of us are aware that real people do not fall into easily defined packages, and yet gender stereotypes abound and have been enforced and reassured by the act of marriage. Women do the cleaning; men drive the car. Women feed the kids; men fix the house. Women are passive; men take action! Of all the advancements we have made in the past decades, marriage has undermined them by keeping these stereotypes alive. A woman who is talented and has a solid career, once married, is still expected to come home and cook, clean, and take care of the children. And men who don't fit the stereotypes of what a "man" is supposed to be interested in are still seen by society to be responsible for duties such as fixing what is broken and taking care of the bills and taxes. Once hitched, couples are actively stereotyped by their family and peers as being bound by roles, and that bias is deepened further when marriage is perceived as having "stages". First, society says, the marriage will be great. The couple will fall into their duties and life will be happy for the first two years. Then the sex will lessen or stop because the woman will become a "cold fish". Then the woman will start to nag because the man does not help out around the house and is always watching sports. Then the man will start spending more time away from his wife and kids. And, if they have made it past the first twenty years, he'll become a "dirty old man" and she'll become an "old hag". With such negative gender stereotypes, we should wonder why so many people continue to get married.

Marriage has lugged with it a stubborn tradition that we have morphed into an almost required life passage- an old tradition and way of thinking that no longer reflects our current society. In modern times, the focus of marriage is not one of partnership and love; rather, its focus is to make babies. We see it as a means to start a family. If you want babies, if you want to fulfill your duty as an adult, you'll need to get married to experience life "correctly". Why else would you get married? Marriage is an excuse to procreate, instead of a bond of love, as if babies cannot be raised "successfully" outside of marriage or as if you are not a true adult without the legal document. This restrictive focus has made it hard for gay people to gain the right of marriage, and has made it harder for married couples to remain together once the babies are made. Why did they marry in the first place? Was it for money or security? After ten years together, after the babies are made and have grown, some couples begin to question their motives. Once the family has been created, many couples feel hollow and find they no longer have a purpose to stay together.

Marriage was a security utilized by our ancestors so they could ensure their children would survive in a world where many died young due to disease. In our modern world, we hold the luxury of having longer lives, and so we seek out deeper means to create a fulfilling life. No longer do we feel complete simply by saying, "I'm married and I belong to someone; I am secure. This makes me an adult so now I will raise a family." The rising divorce rate is a major signal that our system needs reworking. For too long, we have clung to a train that has run out of steam- too nervous to let go and move forward without it. We need to make the subliminal message to marry less of a factor in our judgments of people, and also stop forcing it on each other as a necessary tradition or passage into adulthood. With less pressure, couples could reflect on whether they are really ready to raise a child instead of doing it because it is "the right thing to do" at their age. We would see more responsible parenting. If we could marry out of love instead of as a means to procreate, we would see a lower divorce rate. With less stereotypes and roles undermining marriage, we can open it to everyone. And with no name-erasing (how about combining names?), we can continue to belong to ourselves and bring forward a balanced equality into our lives. Let us ban marriage as we know it by changing its name and image to one of partnership- a lifelong bond devoted to enriching and enhancing both people's lives. After all, the true purpose of marriage is, lest we forget, to create happiness.