My friend and I, at like, two in the morning while watching season two of Doctor Who, were talking. She randomly brings up the topic of marriage–not only today, but what it was back in the day. She asks me if I ever plan on getting married and what I thought of marriage.

I had to stop and think, not only because this was so random, but because I really hadn’t thought about that kind of thing since I’d been seven. Because, honestly, what little girl doesn’t dream about getting married and having a dream house and a pink convertible like Barbie?

I told her,
“I don’t know. I suppose, since it’s kind of expected, right? I don’t know if it will be any time soon, since I don’t have a boyfriend or anything.” And I added, “But then again, marriage is really just kind of a legal thing, right? Just a bunch of paperwork and a legal title. Plenty of loving couples don’t marry and live with each other and are happy for decades (referring to the hippies and new agers). And now, today, divorce is the end point of more than 53% of marriages…”

Then she asks about love and love in marriage from back in the day. She talks about how divorce was less common because of the stigma.
I tell her that was true, but that doesn’t mean love was stronger in the past. Divorce was just an ugly word in the public and there is no real way to tell if past marriages in, say, the 1800’s were really full of love or if they were just together to save public face.
Then we move on to specifically love.

She seemed to think for a moment that love was more simple back then, compared to the 21st century. I told her that it could have been, but at the same time, I argued that marriages thanks to alliances and to money ties were more common back then, too. Most men chose their wife based on the size of the dowry and the prestige of her family’s name. And women really didn’t have a choice on the matter. Love would have only had the chance to grow.

And I thought to myself that love was hardly the case in marriages and only if they grew to love each other would love be simple. But then I thought of how the love would be compared to some of today’s “brand” of love. Wouldn’t it be, because it was time grown by force, a love of comradeship and fondness? No real passion and flirting the line of love and lust?

Sure, they obviously had children, but honestly, sex is a tool used by humans. Just like today’s one night stands, it’s easy to find physical love. And in the Victorian Era, the motto for women (specifically in Britain) was for them to let him be the boss and to lie on your back and think of the Queen and England. It must have been rare to show true love in the form of sex when one participant was only there (or, at least told to be) for duty and love of the Queen Mum.

Going back to marriage…
I really, at the moment, don’t see myself marrying anyone. Especially since I’m not dating at the moment. Hard to imagine who I’d legally bind myself to, for better or worse, when I don’t see anyone but a man’s silhouette, a shadow.
Not to mention it is ridiculous that our country, along with others, cannot see fit to give homosexuals marriage rights. I mean, they might have a better chance at lasting longer than some of the hetero couples that I see. Those couples obviously loathe each other, yet are staying together for some random reason.
And how fucked up is it that more states in the U.S. allow first cousins to marry than gays to marry?

So, in short, marriage just might be overrated. Love is most likely a chemical imbalance that is good only for a good night, and the future is pretty damn opaque.

Tashia