Marriage can equal bliss
Megan DeWald-Kline
Issue date: 12/4/07 Section: Opinion
- Page 1 of 2 next >
The week before my wedding, a former Sunday school teacher of mine presented me with a piece of paper he had kept in his files. It was a questionnaire that he distributed to his students asking the student to imagine his or her life in the future. Next to "age you'll get married," I had written "never" in all caps and with multiple exclamation points. Undoubtedly, a huge factor behind that response was the merciless experiment in public humiliation known as junior high, but I had a good laugh at my 13-year-old feminist self as I finished up the details of my wedding 11 years later.
The truth is that I grew up thinking marriage was ridiculous. I never dressed as a bride for Halloween, I didn't fantasize about my dream wedding, and I could not fathom why any woman would want to shackle herself to a man forever. And I was not alone in this sentiment. No less a life expert than Oprah Winfrey has suggested that humans have evolved beyond the need for marriage.
So, why was I getting married? Women have had to struggle for so much and for so long: for the right to vote, for the recognition of a personhood that amounted to more than the status of property, for the ability to enter the workforce and compete on (somewhat) equal footing with men, for the right to be formally educated. Was I now forsaking my female forebearers?
Recently, I read an article that convincingly argued that marriage is passé, demonstrating that marriage only benefits men. Married women are less financially secure and less healthy than single women, it said. Today, women can be educated, have a successful career, make lots of money and even adopt or birth children outside of marriage. In short, the article suggested that Miss Winfrey was right after all.
After reading this article, I boarded a train headed toward my home where I knew my husband would be waiting for me. And I knew there was something much more meaningful at stake in this whole marriage thing than just two people who like each other a lot, holding each other's "rights" in check. By no means do I think that "traditional family values" (whatever that means) are the answer either. However, it seems counterproductive to me to cast off marriage as the problematic institution in today's society.
The truth is that I grew up thinking marriage was ridiculous. I never dressed as a bride for Halloween, I didn't fantasize about my dream wedding, and I could not fathom why any woman would want to shackle herself to a man forever. And I was not alone in this sentiment. No less a life expert than Oprah Winfrey has suggested that humans have evolved beyond the need for marriage.
So, why was I getting married? Women have had to struggle for so much and for so long: for the right to vote, for the recognition of a personhood that amounted to more than the status of property, for the ability to enter the workforce and compete on (somewhat) equal footing with men, for the right to be formally educated. Was I now forsaking my female forebearers?
Recently, I read an article that convincingly argued that marriage is passé, demonstrating that marriage only benefits men. Married women are less financially secure and less healthy than single women, it said. Today, women can be educated, have a successful career, make lots of money and even adopt or birth children outside of marriage. In short, the article suggested that Miss Winfrey was right after all.
After reading this article, I boarded a train headed toward my home where I knew my husband would be waiting for me. And I knew there was something much more meaningful at stake in this whole marriage thing than just two people who like each other a lot, holding each other's "rights" in check. By no means do I think that "traditional family values" (whatever that means) are the answer either. However, it seems counterproductive to me to cast off marriage as the problematic institution in today's society.