Soap Box: Marriage

My parents and I tend to have a lot of conversations regarding life, religion, politics, women, education, etc. I like this about my parents, especially since they don't automatically hate me if I have a different opinion. And because they raised me to have an opinion.

On a recent visit to The Parents', we had a conversation about Marriage as a destination vs. a process. Earlier today I read an article that referenced a similar thought, it made my fingers itch to analyze it on a keyboard. (Disclaimer: By nature of my fundamental beliefs about life, families and so forth, here's where I get slightly religious).

We believe that families are forever - that two people can be married by one with the proper authority from God (in the temple) and that they, and any offspring born to them, are linked forever in the eternities. Heaven would be a very sorrowful place to spend by oneself.

As a result, we teach our young women (I can't comment on the young men side, I am never was one, nor have I taught them), that Temple Marriage is the key to eternal salvation. In a matter of speaking. The problem is, here's where doctrine and culture get all mixed up. Doctrinally, yes, eternal (ie temple) marriage (regardless of when it happens) is a key tenet to salvation. But it is not a guarantee. It is not the end of the road. Culturally, however, we teach it as such. People sigh and think happy thoughts when someone is married in the temple, saying, "Oh good. They've made it."

In reality (and doctrinally), marriage (of any kind) is NOT a destination. It is a stepping stone in the process of life. I fundamentally believe that a temple marriage DOES provide extra support and strength to weather the storms of life (internal to, and external of, the marriage). But it does not mean "you've made it."

I have been particularly alarmed of late noticing that young women see marriage as an endpoint. An "arrival" where all will be well if they have the right kind of marriage ceremony. I see those with whom myself and my siblings were raised - with variations on the same theme - and see a staggering pattern of young women who view marriage as a dependent relationship and as their ultimate life's goal.

There is nothing wrong with marriage. There is nothing wrong with having a goal to be married. What scares me is the view of a marriage relationship as a dependency and as THE one and only goal. Should it be a goal? Absolutely! But it shouldn't be the culminating goal on a life's "to accomplish list" - it marks the end of a solitary journey and the beginning of a journey together, which should bring with it an even longer set of dreams, hopes and goals - and work.

Case in point: My youngest brother knows someone whose sole desire in life is to get married, at all costs. In her early 20s, she is desperate to get married. Rather than putting energy into improving herself and building a life (and a persona) that is attractive to men, she dropped out of school, works a dead-end job and lives at home - and concentrates on pushing marriage on every person she dates.

She will achieve her goal of marriage - and probably even temple marriage - but I wonder what kind of marriage it will be? Where does she go from there? What does she have to offer her husband, future children, society? It's not just a lack of formal education, but a lack of life education - the inability to cook, be independent, take care of a household. Yet everyone will cheer for her success and say "all is well," because "the goal" has been reached.

Marriage is hard. It is wonderful and sustaining and fulfilling, but it is hard. It takes work. Neither love (nor a temple marriage) is enough to sustain a relationship. An enormous amount of love combined with work, mutual goals, continual improvement, charity, long-suffering, patience, more work, selflessness, tolerance, acceptance, companionship, and so forth make up a marriage, a long with a good does of reality, forgiveness and a sense of humor.

I cringe to see young women (and young men) enter into one of the most sacred, complex unions completely unprepared. One can never be perfectly prepared, for that would require one (and one's spouse-to-be) to be perfect. Yet, there is an amount of preparedness that one can achieve prior saying "I do" - in preparing oneself to be able to take care of, and provide for, oneself. Some are ready very young. Some are not. Marriage is not a surrender to "here - take care of me forever!" it is a joining of two souls with mutual goals and aspirations, vowing to care for, love and support one another.

I'm by no means an expert. I've only been married five years, and Himself and I are still a work in progress (something akin to how I see Jackson Pollock paintings). But as the number of marriages that fail continues to rise, as the world screams "if you don't feel butterflies, it isn't love," I wonder what kind of disservice we as a culture and society are doing to teach our youth that marriage is a destination, implying that what follows are years of effortless perfection, bliss and butterflies.

I pray I don't fall into the same unintentional cycle as I raise Baby Girl.

End of rant. Off my soapbox.