This was a Companion Piece to Betty Rollin's Motherhood, Who Needs It? that I wrote for my English Final. Writing it was very entertaining, because Rollin writes in such a brisk, matter-of-fact tone. I sought to imitate her writing, and I apologize in advance for any content the reader may find controversial in any way. Oh, and don't be afraid to be harsh when reviewing! :]
Marriage: Who Needs It?
Needless to say, we are a strange species. Leave it to humans to take an act strictly for the purposes of love and procreation and mold it into the sanctimonious trend we believe to be necessary in the eyes of God and society. In reality, no other animal feels a need to remain coupled with another for reasons beyond reproduction. In fact, many kill and eat their mates, especially females. The Black Widow, being the more publicly-known example, devours her spouse immediately after she is impregnated. I suppose, like motherhood and fatherhood, the appeal lies with the outcomes of previous generations. An unhappy pair of parents is just as great a motivator as a happy pair, because children have strong desires to make work what their parents could not.
What really astounds me is how the act of marriage gained so much reverence over time and simultaneously countless negative stereotypes. I’m sure if there’s a God, he would not have wanted his invention, a union between two lovers, to become a common punch line including the word “shackle”. Little did he know he would be hoodwinked into having his beloved marriage, a once unbreakable bond necessary to gain entrance into Heaven, transform into an activity that may happen more than three times in one’s life. In addition, an equal slap to the face of God is probably how often divorce and adultery occur. It is estimated that now nearly 50% of marriages in America end through divorce. “’Till death do we part” has become an almost laughably inaccurate depiction of an actual marriage. I’m sure when our generation reaches the altar, it will prove difficult to resist rolling our eyes when that anecdote is uttered.
All-in-all, marriage has gone through some interesting changes throughout history. Today, it is not only used to legally validate love on paper, but also as a strategy to attain notoriety, property and, who could forget – money. All of these promote not some higher being’s original wishes. They promote the romanticized, sunlit, florally-smothered wedding every girl over age 2 dreams about. Then there is gay marriage, which I resent even referring to as an “issue”. Regardless of orientation, everyone has the right to cheat, divorce, re-marry and generally piss off God just the same as everyone else. I’ve never witnessed a better example of hypocrisy, the idea of straight couples claiming a certain marriage to be unnatural while 85% of all women involved in divorce claim it to be resultant of adultery. There is as well the matter of an “open marriage”. Has there ever been a more obvious oxymoron? One cannot marry another and have the disturbing freedom to be able to sleep with whomsoever they please; that’s not an open marriage, it’s dating! It baffles me. The so-called “rules” of marriage are broken at a faster rate than they are produced. This would be called “efficiency” in physics, but can only be called pathetic in what we refer to as real life.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting the majority views marriage so naively, but I do believe it is getting out of control. I’m fairly certain we’ll reach a point at which it will be possible to unify happy couples via webcam. When this happens, I sincerely hope I’m lying peacefully in my coffin, within the same 5-foot radius as my lover, though perhaps not wife. To answer the question, “Marriage, who needs it?”…many people, I accept, do. However, countless individuals are wasting their time saying their vows right as I read this paper, some preparing to begin a life of regret, others confident in their abilities to cheat undetected. At any rate, marriage has become a habit of humans that has no correlation with how long they live, but has been ingrained in our minds as something influential on happiness. Perhaps in the distant future we will no longer be burdened by this sort of thinking, and will be able to view the act as not our divine duty, not what is presently stylish, but somewhere in between.
But for now, who needs it?
Otherwise you're promising to spend you're marriage away from your spouse. 