I’m an old fashion mid-age man. I will not then take into consideration in this post the marriage between homosexuals. In fact, if for some reason I was asked to give an opinion about that modern stuff called “same sex marriage” I would answer “no”. I know, it’s controversial but let me have the freedom of having my own opinion, will you?
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“Marriage it’s an institution” it’s already no more than just a cliché coming from the far gone 70’s and no longer used by new generations. As a matter of fact I don’t see new generations very much worried with marriage or its definition. What I see very often is people trading some moments of sex, video and lies. Marriage it’s a trading. Sometimes to trade feelings, sometimes to trade fortunes. Sometimes to trade expectations, sometimes to trade frustrations. Sometimes to trade peace, sometimes to trade war. But, as a rule, through marriage we trade comfort. A society it’s more controllable if we make its members believe in marriage as the right thing to do in life to be happy: there’s a man, there’s a woman, there’s marriage. Easy, simple, linear, comfortable and convenient.
Years ago, really many of them, marriage in the western societies could be used to measure the power of a man to get a woman and after that raise children. Nowadays, there’s still men buying women, sometimes paying in camels sometimes in a normal currency. That’s true, in some societies women are very badly positioned in the social market values up to the point that it’s not unusual that an animal (horse, camel, cow, whatever) may get a better position in the market than a woman. While in some societies men may own a bunch of women (just depending on their economical power) in other, the supposed civilized ones, a picture with one man and a couple of women go no further than just a sexual phantasy because men do not own women and because just the word “marriage” it’s enough to frighten some men so badly that may even cause some erectil dysfunctions.
In occidental societies, marriage is no longer as frightening as it was before cause it’s no longer so intensively controlled by the power of religious fundamentalisms or social preconceptions. Check for instance Brazil: a country tremendously surrendered to Christianism, yet totally sunk in divorce and separation processes. It seems that the hand of God is no longer heavy enough to stop these people from going through pathetic “rodízio” kind life experiences: marry, separate, divorce, marry, separate, divorce or, sticking hard to the generic concept of “rodízio”, tasting a bit of this and that meat one after the other… Even Portugal, typically Catholic, is far away from the old-fashioned state “you’re now husband and wife till death do you apart”. Unfortunately, tradition is no longer what it used to be and divorce it’s already a signal of a step forward in evolution of man as a social animal.
Women are now supposed to be free and intelligent. Nowadays, women take as point of honor for them to show they’re better than men and they’re standing at a higher level than males in the mankind evolution chart. Even in what divorce is concerned, women state very often that divorce cause much often more evil to men than to women. If they refer to the domestic skills of women, well, that might have been like so in former times but no longer is because a bunch of modern girls I’ve met lately are not able to properly prepare not even a fried egg. Nevertheless, in these running modern times, women very often give the first step towards the divorce. The same identical step they used to give some years ago towards marriage cause they, by then and due to an usual paternal pressure, were seeking their independence through it. Then as today, they’re doing the very same mistake: they’re reacting rather than pro-acting. In fact, then and today, they’re reacting to the very same stimulus: men power!
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The wedding day it’s usually as much unforgettable to women as disposable for men because women are usually more romantic than men. The book “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus” (John Gray, 1992) might be silly regarding its contents but at least we can get some meaning off the title: men and women behave so differently that both seem to become from different planets. For more women than you can imagine, marriage starts as a fairy tale and finishes as a nightmare. All that because women usually invest too much on marriage due to the large romantic side of their brain. Men used not to be like that because only now men have found out that they may cry and let tears drop down their face. What has to be stated here is, despite the visible differences between both genders, both man and woman, wife and husband are responsible for the success or failure of a life in common. For instance, when a woman (wife) starts getting angry because her husband always leaves the toilette cover in the up right position she should realize that he, husband, may be already eating live toads since years just because she pushes the toothpaste tube on the middle and not on the rear end. As we all know, these are the signs of a tired marriage and they come up more and more early.
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Sexually speaking I could describe here a lot of differences between men and women and also how much sex contributes for the success of marriage. I could but I won’t because I know shit of nothing about that. However, I still remember the book I read years ago, “The Hite Report on Female Sexuality” (Shere Hite, 1976), and one thing that I’ve kept in mind from it was the submissive role of women in the sexual game of a couple which drove the author to conclude that, by then, there was lots of women who never had tried an orgasm. Damn it!! Seen by our side, men, going through a whole life without experimenting that stuff turns life to a total worthless thing to be lived… Fortunately for all of us, men and women, things are currently not that much bad but even so we still have many wives (women, generally speaking) complaining about the male obsession for sex. On the other side of the barricade, we hear here and there some women commenting that their marriage it’s cooling down just because the husband no longer “attends”…
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Children have a strong impact on a marriage: they can cheer it up, empower it, cool it down or just kill it. Women after giving birth and assume a new role in life, mother’s, become different enough to annoy men and make them looking for alternatives. Personally I believe that certain women change so deeply their behavior after their first child birth that I only can be solidary with their husbands and understand their escape towards a bottle of beer, a game of snooker with friends or, not rare, some flirting with some babes flying around… Again, fortunately for all of us, men and women, we’re going through times when men are already more sensitive to their role as fathers and they’re more oriented to take time for being an important part of their children’s life. Anyhow, I think couples should be aware of the ambivalence created by the introduction of children in the marriage as a tool for fixing it. Yes, many people use children to fix up their marriage or even the needs of one of them but dangers coming from there are more than many. In my case, I just wanted children because I was already tired of teasing always the same person: my wife. With a girl and a boy I’m able now to perform my chauvinistic side over my daughter at the same time I’m showing my son how men should treat women. I told you, right at the beginning, I’m an old fashion guy…
Men and women don’t have to get married. That is a principle I think people should integrate more and more in their minds. Marriage it’s one link more of the chain we tighten ourselves with. Times they’re changing and our attitude regarding marriage is changing as well, for our sake. We’re realizing that we may keep being social animals, organized and respecting order and law without stuff like marriage which exists only to keep tormenting our lives and increasing the income of others. Proof of that is the inclusion of the concept “living arrangements” in the list of marital status. Currently we have:
- single,
- married,
- separated,
- divorced,
- widowed,
- engaged,
- invalid,
- annulled
It’s a long list, isn’t it? This list, compared with the one from some decades ago, shows we’re patching more than improving. In former times we had:
- single,
- married,
- widowed,
As you can see, this old list was the one totally matching the concept “you’re single once in life, since you marry then it will be till death do you apart”… My proposal for a balanced list would be:
- single,
- bound
As a matter of fact “rights and obligations” are the core of matter here: children, properties, money, belongings and everything that turns around the situation “mine is mine, yours is mine”. As long we are able to guide our lives by a short list of marital status like the one I propose here, life we’ll be a bit more simple regarding our relationships with our boy or girl friend. Children are exclusively a matter of how much we’re able (or not) to handle responsibility and it should be always handled independently of your level of economical commitment with your partner. Don’t forget that it’s possible to assume your role of single father or single mother on your own and like so, only by yourself, bring happiness to a child’s life. It’s also possible to drive your need of giving love to a child and share it with someone else without a formal official written contract through what you’re forced to publically assume you’ll be living happily ever after. Don’t do it because marriage it’s not and will never be total happiness at any time, you will not burn in passion forever and you will not be eternally romantic to see always the other part of your marital relationship as the other half of you.
Along these years of life, I’ve already noticed that many marriages fail because both wife and husband have given too much importance to the event and when the time goes on they very hardly deal with responsibility per si, with responsibility sharing and, above all, with the pressure coming over them from family, relatives and friends. Marriage it’s always taken as something serious, hard, irreversible, full of deep thoughts and beliefs and above all with many people watching you, paying very much attention to all the steps given towards a ceremony that has necessarily to be a success, as successful as everything in life after that very same ceremony. What a huge weight on top of such a short life experience or life knowledge from those being pushed to play marriage. So, the way for a long marriage, if you wish to have one, is: take it simple, play fair but take it as a trade. Yep, go for a normal trade relationship (call it marriage if you wish), full of the rules and techniques you may know about trading. If you feel you don’t know much about it or there’s many concepts and practices you’re missing about trading then learn them first as you’d do it before facing any other trading. Giving without be given it’s pure fantasy. Going for a negotiation without admitting the possibility of failure it’s too much arrogance or ignorance. And trading a relationship can be so elementary (not necessarily easy, I know): you want be loved, the other wants too, you feel like being evil, the other may feel like being even worse, you need to be desired, the other has surely the same need. Above all, try not to forget that, when buying something, people want always to get the much by paying the less.
This post is dedicated to my friend AM, a “short words” pal who got divorced some time ago and to my wife with whom I’be been bound for endless years. To the first I’ve promised to write a post of how much marriage sucks (that was a couple of years ago because I took a long time preparing this text). To the latter I owe the respect which is due to a patient woman who is able to live with me and yet with a smile on her face. My single long marriage to the same woman can not be used as a recipe for the proliferation of long marriages. First, because you have to answer the question “who wants a marriage?” or even “who wants a long marriage?”. Second, because there’s no recipes for these matters. Marriage sucks only for those who have been expecting too much from it before they took the step to make it become true. Marriage sucks for those who believe that they can only be happy with someone if they marry to that someone. Marriage sucks for those who are not able to live under the stress of family pushing them towards marriage. Marriage sucks for those who take it as a passport for free sex. Marriage sucks for those who think that marriage has to suck. Marriage sucks for those who are not able to understand the context what they freely walked or simply have been pushed into. Marriage always have sucked, still sucks and will suck until man kind disappear or until you terminate marriage. All that because we, men and women, have this special gift, this special skill of perverting things.
The happy side of this story is the fact of not many people in this world agree with the title of this post. The unhappy side of this story is the fact that people hit by marriages that suck, probably will not be able of getting rid of them or will not be able of getting rid of divorces that suck as well. The depressive part of this story is the fact that millions of people haven’t got yet the right of having an opinion about their own marriage.
Finally, to all my readers from all over the world who still insist on not staying single, I wish you find the other half of you, bind yourself and be happy!! Commitment is the key, not the social contract you’re forced to subscribe together with your partner. After you digest properly this, then there’s another good orientation for both men and women living a marital life reasonably stable: an experient man never tries to understand his woman as much as an experient woman never expects to be understood by her man or by herself. Why? Just look at the brain’s morphology in this post. Duuuhhhh…
May the gods be with you…
Long time no see… A good reason for a writer not writing it’s the lack of inspiration. I assume I am a writer just for the simple reason that I write things I want them to be read by someone. In the last couple of weeks I have had nothing I wanted to be read by someone, therefore I’ve been all this time long without posting here. Inspiration it’s fundamental for an artist, assuming I am one and feeling comfortable with this assumption, and I haven’t had much of that lately.
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