Why Marry?

As the date of my own marriage approaches, I've been reflecting quite a bit on what I feel that marriage is - i.e. what I feel it represents, what I want it to mean to me, and how a decision of a lifetime can be made with only a handful of years worth of data. For context, my parents divorced when I was young and neither have been able to find what I would call a successful relationship. For this reason, I haven't felt like I have a great example to use as reference, and I've had to form my own opinions. Below I outline how I currently view marriage. I often take the male / father perspective because this is how I've formed my own thoughts, but I do not intend to imply a higher importance or value to these roles.

   

Wrong Questions

 

I've wrestled quite a bit with the idea of limited data. How can we know when we have found "the one"? Is it possible to be prepared for marriage in a way that makes divorce not a possibility to begin with? The reality is that even given an unrealistic amount of data, you could never be certain that you had found the answer to these questions. I believe these questions are flawed in the sense that they are the wrong questions to ask.

 

As I've reflected on marriage, the answer to the question of "why marry?" has become obvious. We answer this question without knowing it every single day but simply fail to see the relationship between the beliefs that govern our every action and a decision that seems to big to make. Ultimately, it boils down to our morality. We believe that treating others with a higher degree of kindness and care than we give to ourselves is right. We believe that the journey of becoming more responsible and more capable is right. The closer a person gets to these ideals the better of a person they are. Marriage is one of the highest aims someone who shares this morality can have. A successful marriage is exactly all of these things which we deem as right. It is arguably the best opportunity to live in accordance with the beliefs you use to guide yourself through every other avenue of life.

   

Responsibility

 

Marriage is an adoption of great responsibility. It must be the case that the maintenance of a marriage is of higher responsibility because its loss is of greater consequence than that of the unmarried relationship. Isn't it the adoption of responsibility, the bearing of the cross, that forges us into people we can be proud of? Marriage is perhaps the ultimate responsibility - to care for, and bring out the best of, someone else as if they were you (even and especially when it isn't of direct benefit to you). The golden rule to the highest degree which I would argue is the foundation on which our relationship with our children is founded. When a child asks for advice from a good parent, they do not have to be concerned about whether the parent has his own interests in mind. A good parent always wants what is best for their children regardless of the consequence that has to themselves. This kind of relationship seems clearly right when applied to a child, but our fear of what could go wrong makes it seem risky or illogical when applied to a partner.

   

Freedom

 

Marriage is often viewed as a restrictor of freedom. We call it being "tied down" after all, but marriage is a commitment which frees the participants in more ways than one. Compare a relationship with a new acquaintance to that of a lifelong friend. The strength of the latter goes hand in hand with it's permanence. I don't have to convince you that there is immense value in a relationship for which there is nothing you could do or say (within the confines of the shared morality) that would send the other person running. In marriage, the best version of yourself becomes accessible (the best friend, father, communicator, supporter, most responsible, most resilient version) because the best version of yourself is no longer important but rather necessary - what other options do you have when you can't run away?

 

It is also far from unreasonable to think that when your world is falling apart, your child is sick, your parent just died, or you've lost your job, that you will want everything you could possibly have working in the favor of your relationship to better your odds (i.e. the public vow, the difficulty and risks of divorce). In this sense, marriage is freeing because life's difficulty poses less of a threat to your relationship.

   

The Human Condition

 

We are all subject to our predisposition to put off the things we know are good for us. We all battle the human tendencies to be self-serving and to prioritize our experience of today in sacrifice of the person we could become tomorrow. It is often the burdens of responsibility, guilt, and necessity that are enough to get us on the right path. To think that you will sit and bear the challenges and sacrifice that exists between yourself now and the best version of yourself when the option to leave is still available is optimistic at best.

 

To marry is to adopt these burdens with courage - knowing full-well that they will make life challenging but having faith that they are the only way to become the person you want to be. The way I see it - marriage is the most important pursuit because it becomes the foundation for all of the other most meaningful pursuits of life.

   

Common Objections

 

"50% of marriages end in divorce. Why play a losing game?"

 

What do you think the % of non-married relationships that end is? 50% of these end within one year and only 10% last longer than five years. This is the alternative you are choosing. Also I would argue both of these statistics are hardly relevant as they leave a lot of questions unanswered - what percent of these marriages are composed of previous divorcees, what is the average age of partners at the time of marriage that makes them most likely to divorce, and so on.

 

"But we can be committed to each other without marriage. It's just a piece of paper."

 

It's not uncommon for the argument to be made that you can create a relationship with all the characteristics of a good marriage without marriage itself. This claim is one that sounds really promising when you hear it - almost as good as the claim that you can skip the calorie tracking, eat anything you want, and still lose weight. Both of these claims are seemingly true in theory but are almost never in practice. It's easy to make pursuits of simple mechanics, but which take discipline and dedication to extremely rare degrees to accomplish, sound attainable. I don't have to remind you that just because something is possible doesn't make it a good aim.

 

Opting to forgo marriage must be less committed because doing so relies, logically, on the relationship to end. Marriage offers a better tax bracket, is more socially acceptable, has better structure for raising children, brings more responsibility to shape you, and more. An honest look at the differences is enough to see that the only way the unmarried man comes out ahead is if the relationship ends. The unmarried man is looking out for himself first (only in a materialistic sense as he fails to account for the person he could become) and in doing so can't participate in the level of commitment required of a marriage.

 

🍻