Marriage
is a sham. I knew it the moment I was conned into the role
of flower girl at the age of seven. The first lesson in Bizarre
Marriage Rituals 101 is being trotted out as a frothy little love
mascot for a happily-wedded pair destined to happily-part ways
as quickly as you can say "two-car garage". That wedding was just
the first in a line of events that would shift my views on nuptial
bliss. As the years, ridiculous weddings and crumbled marriages
have flowed by, I've realized that society’s "sacred institution"
is nowhere near sacred for most of my generation.
Lucky
for me, my partner shares my admittedly cynical views. Actually,
our take on commitment is the norm -- most people our age feel
that marriage is nothing more than an outdated economic institution.
The wisest thing to do in our era of divorce court and Divorce
Magazine (witness niche marketing at its most profane) is to move
in together, try your best at making it work, and hope it lasts.
There’s a perception among our generation, however unfounded,
that once you get married you’ve begun the rapid no-turning
back descent into the Gap-shopping, SUV-driving, condo-owning
vortex. You might as well go full throttle into mediocrity. Underneath
those layers of image-conscious crap, however, is a pure and unadulterated
reluctance to make our parents' mistakes.
Like
many people my age, my parents have long been divorced. I think
that little nosh on love’s bitter pill was one of the best
things that could have happened to me. After spending years in
an unhappy haze, my parents decided to stop making each other
miserable. It was a little dose of real life. It helped me to
clear the fairy tale pap floating around my brain about being
whisked off my feet into some doe-eyed stupor. I ditched the crappy
"Love Boat"-inspired daydreams about lasting unions formed on
four-day Caribbean cruises. I saw that people had to work really
bloody hard to keep a giving and satisfying relationship. The
concept of healthy love had been introduced.
I
decided quite early what my future love life would be like: As
an obnoxious 16-year-old I announced, in the way that only teenagers
make proclamations, that I was never getting married. "Oh? Hmm-hmm,"
my parents had patiently nodded. (Read: "Just wait till she changes
her tune.") Nearing 30, after nearly nine years in a steady and
happily-loving relationship, I am still obnoxious, still making
proclamations, and still whistling the same anti-betrothal ditty.
Oh,
I can hear them now, the die-hard traditionalists wishing I could
see the error of my ways. Perhaps this will help the purists to
understand: marriage would be a hell of a lot more appealing to
me if weddings themselves weren’t so boring and predictable.
I can't bear the majority of them. Where did creativity and originality
go? Out the window once they bought into the myth? Every relationship
is indeed unique and complex, but most couples just can't seem
to celebrate it that way. Instead, we get the same conventional
display as every other wedding we’ve been to. Some call it
tradition. I call it laziness.
Example:
the unabashedly unexceptional wedding I attended last summer.
Its setting: a luxury golf course complete with a sweeping vista
of teeing-off yuppies. The weepy aunts sniffled; the ceremony
droned; the perky bridesmaids in off-the-shoulder chartreuse frills
shifted from foot to uncomfortable foot; the newly-hitched couple
smirked through cliché toasts that told little about why
after a few months of hanging out together, they felt ready to
commit their entire lives to adoring, forgiving, tending, and
accommodating one another.
During
the course of the reception, I passed the time dodging nosy questions
about my romantic life from distant family and complete strangers
as mind-numbing top 40 hits blared in the background. I
decided almost immediately that this particular marriage was an
elaborate scheme by the bride and groom to get their greedy mitts
on a mini-deep freeze, set of fine bone china, and piles of afghans
lovingly crocheted by their Great Aunt Evelyn. Adding further
to my general chagrin, my father in-common-law abruptly dragged
me from my seat for what appeared to be no purpose. That is until
I spotted her. The bride, high on champagne mimosas and the pain
that her high-heel satin shoes and corset-tight dress were inflicting,
stood preparing to pass on the baby’s breath-dappled flame
to a gaggle of spinsters who reached up with outstretched and
ring-less fingers. I suddenly found myself in the middle of the
melee.
While
the tipsy group jostled for position, the coveted bouquet whizzed
past their hairsprayed heads and landed in the grip of a woman
in her late 60s who had been busy scarfing wedding cake but was
blessed with enough finesse to catch it with one hand and hold
it up with a look of surprised triumph. I had not budged. I had
waited for my chance to get away as my in-laws shook their heads
and tore up petals from the table’s flower arrangement in
dejection. My partner and I just smiled at each other. We'd been
there before.
In
fact, my boyfriend (companion, mate, significant other, common-law
husband, better half, yada yada) and I have been through plenty
in the last eight years. More, I think, than many couples go through
in their speedy five-year marriages in which 1.5 children and
multiple heartaches are bred. We’ve made it through the seven
year itch (just not in the seventh year), through mistakes major
and minor, and through the loss of close friends. We’ve had
countless fights that involve flying food and made it through
periods of scarily divergent life expectations. We don’t
require any more confirmation of our commitment to each other,
we live it every day.
So
despite the hearty objections and clever schemes of my mother
("Well if you two aren’t going to get married, will you at
least give me a grandchild before I die?") and well-meaning in-laws,
we know that traipsing down the aisle will not shine some magical
light on us. It will not miraculously bless us with the wisdom
and strength to keep loving each other. It will, however, award
us with a few fat personal checks and a hutch full of dust-gathering
china
When
I'm returning the nasty looks of pious strangers who think I’m
a hopeless fornicator well on my way to some mythic place called
hell, I consider that maybe I’ll eat my words someday. Perhaps
years from now I’ll be convinced that getting hitched in
some weird and truly memorable way is a smart thing to do. Until
then, I’ll keep ducking the flying bouquets, leading questions
from strangers, and heavy sighs of my disappointed mother.
