Love is in the air. Elsewhere. I live in New York City where “air” is urine-scented steam rising from manholes. That said, I’ve decided to write about “love” and (separately) “marriage” today. Let’s talk about five future brides, shall we? I stumble across Essence magazine’s Will You Marry Me? contest. “We offered 5 men the chance to propose,” the mag explains. Vote. The most popular couple wins $50,000. The female contestants? Proper black girls. Straightened hair. Polished. Appropriate. All very beautiful. I’m rooting for this woman. Recently diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, she: genuinely looks cute and happy with her dude; wears excellent sexy summer dresses; makes funny faces at cameras; and gets freaky-deaky(?) in hot tubs. I love it! What’s more? When her boyfriend proposes, the chick gets so nervous she acts downright quirky. Nervously flipping through a magazine, she darts her eyes around the room then says: “Huh? What the?” Video: 02:44. That’s awesome!
I imagine I’d react the exact same — if I believed in getting wed. Nope, kiddies. It’s just not for me; I don’t see the point of marriage. Few would tolerate its failure rate elsewhere. Imagine 50% of MTA trains crashed during rush hour, 50% of planes fell from the sky or 50% of NYC taxicab drivers knifed their passengers. If any of this occurred, alarms would sound. Clearly, something isn’t working. Right? Not the case with marriage. “It works, dammit! IT WORKS!!! For everyone!!! You’ve just gotta believe in it hard enough.” The assumption? Divorce is failure; however, sleeping next to someone in the same bed without fucking them for months, hell, even YEARS at a time is “success.” Being an adult, walking away from an agreement that once worked very well but no longer fits either party, is “quitting.” Sticking together through the bitter end — and, I mean BITTER fights, namecalling, cheating, loneliness, family feuds, unwanted children, etc. — is “commitment.” Let’s not pretend all marriages are perfect, shall we?
Racialicious gives it to you straight, “plenty of black people – I’d say most – are really committed to the idea of two parents and a stable marriage.” Nuh-uh. Not me. :) Don’t get me wrong. I’m not ANTI marriage, mind you. (Ditto for gay marriage. Whoever wants to marry should be able to marry.) For some, it works. When proposing to the awesome contestant I mention earlier in this post, her guy says, “You once asked me if I could meet anyone, who would it be. The answer is, and always will be, our children.” See? Beautiful. That’s love. I sincerely wish them the best in marriage. For me, for now, I’m okay being single and childfree. How about you? I check the demographic stats on my blog. Interestingly, most of you (54%) are men. Sexy white folks, gorgeous black people, Asian hotties and other lovely readers like getting down with the funky brown. Married, single and divorced people read this site. This blog is most interesting when people respectively disagree; so, tell me your answer to this question: Marriage. Is it worth it?
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Credit paid: Image pf hands is by Kostya Kisleyko.
Yes, marriage is definitely worth it. This summer we will be celebrating 15 years of happiness. Now mind you everything wasn’t always peaches and creme nor is it all the time. Still, that is life as they say. I love my wife and she loves me very much. We have three wonderful children that we hope will one day expierence the same love, respect, faith/devotion, and again happiness that we display on a daily basis. It is sad that as an Afrikan-American couple we have a hard time finding other Afrikan-American couples in our situation. Lastly, as for as the sex goes it is 10 times better now than it has ever been. My God I can not imagine being single. I believe I would be in a “shit load” of trouble if I were. I prayed many a day for this life and thank God he has bless me for those prayers. Yes “Funky Brown” marriage is definitely is worth it. Peace!!!!
I woke up and had the marriage question on my mind. Since I don't have my own blog, I figured I'd come remark on yours. (Which reminds me–another nice feature for a comment system would be to be able to subscribe via RSS to responses to a post.)
When we're talking about the concept of marriage within the western world, we should remember that it was only relatively recently that “until death do us part” became 30, 40, or 60+ years. Previously, with mortality rates, there was a pretty decent chance that if you didn't die, your spouse would, and you'd remarry after that. And even if your spouse didn't die after a few years and neither did you, your life expectancy meant that it was unlikely you'd end up with 60 years of marriage. This was true even into the 20th century when people became more likely to marry for 'love'. There was a period before antibiotics and vaccinations became more widespread. There was also the Spanish flu, WWI, and WWII, not to mention the rigors of childbirth (which killed my great grandmother in the 1920s). Another great-grandmother was remarried several times, while a grandmother spent more years a widow than married.
My point is that maybe the idea of 'spending the rest of your life with someone' meant something rather different when there was a reasonable chance that life would be “nasty, brutish, and short” (as Hobbes might have put it). Perhaps it's fairly normal for people to switch partners every 10-20 years or so, and those people we hold up as shining examples of marriage (70 years together and still happy!) are in fact the odd ones. In the past people whose partners proved annoyingly healthy may have wanted to get a divorce, but it simply wasn't legal or acceptable then to get one. (Perhaps now we are merely seeing the effects of what people would have done all along, had it been possible.)
It's just a thought. People often cite a throw-away culture, unwillingness to work on relationships, an expectation that you can have it all, women's expectations of equality, and numerous other changes they perceive in society as an explanation for why there are more divorces now. Another massive change in society which took place at about the same time was an increase in life expectancy, so it's also worth considering if it had any impact.
Just read this; apologies for the delayed response. Wow. Thank YOU for YOUR honesty, too.
Marriage is not worth the pain, agony and misery that it brings. Marriage is hell on earth and I would not advise anyone to marry. My advise is to run as fast as you can!
i am the survivor of one failed marriage that ended after 4 years and am still friends with the guy. however, i will NEVER marry again. my parents’ marriage has always been awful. constant fighting, completely opposite personalities and viewpoints about everything….all that is good between them is sex…that’s it…they physically like each other and intellectually despise each other. they won’t divorce so they co exist in a private hell. i will never live life that way ever. i welcome being called a spinster. i will never live in a prison like that ever. it is not worth anything. peace of mind is priceless.
Marriage is hell on earth. And I agree with Emmarose!
My father is a tyrant to my disabled mother and she feels powerless to do anything about it. They’ve been married for nearly 50 years of hell. When I look at their marriage I know that there is no way I would ever want to be involved with anything so dysfunctional. I know that my mother will only feel happy and free once one of them dies…no matter which one goes first. Who wants to live like that? You only get one life. To spend your life in an abusive relationship where you have no chance to be yourself, where you have to spend every day walking on pins and needles because you don’t know what will make your spouse erupt? No thank you. Might be better to have never been born.
I definitely say YES!!! I mean.. I’m not married yet, but marriage is a beautiful thing, if one knows WHAT marriage is meant for. Otherwise, our human selfish definitions of “love” create standards and rules that can be broken , changed and defined by anyone. Our source for the definition of marriage defines our reactions and actions.
I don’t think it is worth it. It is nice and comforting to think like Elise, but the truth is marriage is not ‘a beautiful thing’. It is two people in a very special and unique (to each couple) partnership :)
Unless both people are ‘beautiful things’ these marriages cannot all be beautiful. My Husband is one of the most darling people I know… on the inside. He was raised with such issues and bad examples that he makes my life a living hell, will not stop no matter what you say to him and he feels terrible about it and about himself.
 This is not a beautiful thing. It is sad. The same way people cannot get a hold of their addictions, compulsions, bad habits or even overeating, they often cannot be the wonderful spouse they always meant/wanted to be. People are not beautiful, especially if you think of the fact that you are together for the rest of your lives. Marriages aren’t either.
Well adjusted emotionally healthy people are in the minority in this country, healthy marriages are even more rare because you would have to find two of them… and together? Good luck.
My grandmother was married to my grandfather for all of her adult life. She died at 89, my grandfather at 99. She witnessed via her four children and friends how common and acceptable divorce had become. When I told her I was getting married, she exclaimed, “Brian…don’t get married…just live with her!†God how I wish I had listened to her.
Listen to your grandmother!
I found this blog while I was contemplating my future after ending a 21 year marriage. I had always been suspicious about spending the ‘rest of my life’ with another person – so I purposely decided in my early 20′s that I would not marry until I was 30 or so. I believed that I would be mature enough, settled enough, ready enough, etc. to make that commitment. I began to seriously question the validity of ’till death us do part” just a few years into it. But after the first child and the second and third – I began to feel a certain resignation to my situation. In my mind I was willing to sacrifice my personal happiness ‘for the sake of my children’. How warped is that? Where is the benefit in seeing a loveless marriage play out on a daily basis? (I’ll also point out here that we have done couples counseling and individual counseling many times before and since kids. Further, my ex is a Marriage and Family Therapist.)
I have to point out that my ex was my best friend and(I thought) my soulmate when we decided to marry. I should also point out that we lived together as a test of practicality for 18 months prior to marriage.
I truly felt that we had covered the bases as far as ‘compatibility testing’ prior to marriage. I believe that the precautions, the effort to work on the marriage and the fact that we had kids are probably the reason it lasted as long as it did. This is why I, now, seriously question the validity of marriage. The last 5 years of our marriage has been more of a live-at-home estrangement. She decided to pull the plug – and I ultimately agreed.
We attended a wedding recently (pre-divorce) where the bride and groom were in their mid-20′s. I just remember looking closely at their faces – seeing the blissful happiness – and thinking of just how unhappy I was in my marriage. All I could think was that I wished I could bestow upon my friend (the groom), in 30 seconds, a condensed version of my life over the past 20+ years so that he could see in his minds eye what it has been like for me… But, alas, I am reminded of a Garth Brooks song entitled The Dance..
A very good divorce song – he says, “and now I’m glad I didn’t know, the way it all would end, the way it all would go. Our lives are better left to chance – I could’ve missed the pain – but I’d have had to miss the dance.” I did dance the dance but I also felt all of the pain.
So here’s my idea: we amend the ‘contract’ of marriage – remove ’till death do us part” from the language. We treat it more like a business deal (in fact I have come to see my divorce as the single-biggest business deal of my life!) and place a time limit on the ‘contract of marriage”. Think of it as a lease of sorts. A business contract – and MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT -it is a BIG business deal when you get the divorce! A 36, 48, 60 month marriage contract (for those inclined to marry) that is up for renewal and term renegotiation. I’m sure that many who might bother to read this drivel are thinking, ‘heck, if I had to go through all of that just to be married, then why even bother.”
Indeed.
so, from all that i have read being marry is a horrible thing or what please help..
I am a high school graduate (male) i was thinking to take marriage as a considerations, because I feel like living without both parent is painful to me:(
Marriage is/can be great if you don’t marry a feminist which is what almost all western women are. Marry anon-western woman if you want to stand a chance of marriage lasting.