What is marriage for anyway?
Here is an article on marriage from the Atlantic that I think is rather frank regarding something I have noticed. Many bright, articulate women wanting marriage find themselves waiting year after year for the “right” guy, and not realizing how they might be contributing to their own situation. The ideal of marriage has become so romanticized and worked up by Hollywood that we have forgotten what marriage is for. It seems that every woman wants to marry up (why is that?), and when you are pretty impressive yourself it’s rather disconcerting that maybe the ordinary guy in the next cubicle, or the quite nice guy at church might just be what this author calls “good enough.” I disagree that men who are “good enough” are really just that. Maybe the guy who seems to promise all the thrill of a Hollywood romance is really a candle in the wind put out by the first life storm that comes through. This is the point when women need to ask themselves, what is marriage for anyway? How about life long stable, some would call boring, companionship? Most of life is ordinary and mundane so what a good woman needs is a stable “good enough” man. Maybe she can learn to be a “good enough” woman and not make herself into a pretzel trying to please. That may lead to “good enough” parents who aren’t running around trying to raise the next Bill Gates. So now my next question is, why are these articles always about women?
July 2nd, 2008 at 4:49 am
This is a weird article. You’re right - why are these articles always about women ? What about men who don’t want to settle ? I know men who admit that they could have settled with ‘good enough’ women but who are waiting for their very own Yoko Ono. There is also the problem of men who don’t ask women out even though they like them. I’ve been at the receiving end of this kind of nonsense several times. It’s also important not to forget that there is a lot of disrespect and rudeness around in contemporary society, that is frankly off-putting in a date.
I think my biggest objection to this article is not its basic message of encouraging settling: ultimately this is a good goal. The problem is that the author seems naive. There are people out there of both sexes who would make marriage hell on earth and who could wreck their spouses’ mental health and welfare. I’ve managed to turn men like this down. They could be suitable spouses one day - IF they have the courage to face their problems and get pastoral care. There has been a vast increase in mental health problems and lifestyle-related illnesses in western countries in the last few decades. Simply believing that settling will solve unhappiness betrays magical thinking.
The whole problem of not getting married requires vastly more understanding of the underlying problems than the author has mustered.