Marry, Marry Quite Contrary

Marriage is an institution, a ceremony, a sign, a contract, a religious right, an enabler, and is culturally structured to promote heterosexuality. My distaste for it stems from my family’s history with ‘failed’ marriages and the social anxiety that accompanies and sometimes overshadows personal grief. My family is Christian. One side Catholic, the other Lutheran, divorce is not looked upon kindly among either of the faiths. I was baptized Lutheran, had first communion, confirmation, and attended Catholic schools K-12 as a “Catholic”. My cousin, whom I love dearly, was raised as a Lutheran, Missouri Synod. From my subject position growing up I saw marriage as a binding contract, which the destruction of would end in struggle and criticism. My parents had divorced when I was two. My mother went on to get a second divorce and is currently on her third marriage. My father is working on his second marriage. My cousin has grown up with the same parents who produced 11 children, maintained a flawless record of church attendance while teaching their children to keep their faith, find a spouse of the same faith and raise as many children as possible within that faith. I am not being snarky, I swear, these people are my family and some of the most loving, hard-working people I know.

My cousin sees marriage as an inevitable part of her life. If she ever wants to have sex, have children, and ultimately be happy she will need to get married. Her protestant up bringing along with the relationships she has seen around her have constructed a world of predetermined actions, marriage being a very defining part of that somewhat predestined life. My martial views are based off of a detachment from the religions I was raised in and watching the relationships around me deemed as “failures”. I spent a lot of time wondering how such a failure of a relationship could produce me and what that meant. I purposely work to eliminate the idea of marriage as something essential to my life, but it is hard. My cousin and are of different beliefs and family situations, but we are both in a society that favors heterosexual marriage and is constantly reminding us of it. With bridal magazines, wedding planners, movies based strictly on marriage, dresses, parties, books, celebrity weddings, and terms such as spinster, middle-aged-single-woman, and single mother. We have different views on what marriage means, what it signifies, if it is necessary, and these beliefs are not bound to change easily. Where we can connect is our mutual status as the target market for marriage as young women. It is a choice to get married, but no one sees it as a woman’s choice to remain unmarried…that is always an unfortunate situation. As women we are both structured by cultural materials, vocabulary, and actions to feel that we have failed if we are not married and if we have been divorced. Our issue is much deeper than religion and family, it runs and weighs on us through our society…our opposing views are operated by the same cultural intricacies deemed as inherent.