I Now Pronounce You Liable For Damages
Today's post from described a conversation with an Egyptian emigrant who, from the perspective of his cultural divide, can't understand why she's not married. In eloquent terms that speak for themselves, she explained to him why so many American women do not feel any need to desperately throw themselves at the first "good enough" guy who's stable and acceptably worth having to put up with having sex with him. Here, our friends fill in for our family-- they need to be deliberately cultivated that way.
In the comments, played devil's advocate for the position that everyone should get married:
"What happens if you fall over and bang your head at 4am, then lay bleeding and unconscious? Your friends, unless they live with you, aren't there for that. Cats are not sufficient.
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Friends move away. There's an effort involved in finding and keeping up new friendships.
The investment isn't as deep. You can count on friends for moral support, but if things get really bad you can't expect them to go into debt for your medical bills. Virtual family vs real family is sort of like an HMO vs traditional insurance... the old-style insurance stuck with you no matter what, once you'd signed the contract. The HMO pays for the first $300 with a $400 deductible. Of course, real insurance doesn't exist anymore, it got replaced with a PPO.
If you got laid off, would your friends take a second job to help support you? Support you while you went back to school?
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I can think of times when I've taken care of my friends, and they haven't done the same in return for me."
In Egypt they might be shocked to hear this, but marriage as a mere business arrangment is a form of prostitution. What describes is insurance. Insurance is gambling, and in gambling there is a winner and a loser. If you cash in on your insurance policy, you win and the company loses. If you don't, your premiums are wasted and the company wins.
Compare this to the One True Forever Love from storybooks who makes lavish, extravagant promises like "I love you more than all the other people in the whole world" and "till death do us part." Do people realize how much that is to ask of someone? It's... everything. Weddings shouldn't go setting up a damn passionless insurance contract on terms like that. "I now pronounce you liable for damages, you may indemnify the underwriter."
You can lose at the marriage gambling game, and you can lose big time. That is a cesspool of brooding resentment and regrets, a nightmare from which the only escape is dishonorable abandonment of the devil's contract that you signed in blood at the wedding altar just because you were afraid. If you go that route the devil will come back and have his or her due, because even if you win the gamble and end up as the invalid being cared for, you will know your spouse only gives up the rest of the prime of their life just because you've got your hooks in.
Whereas if you cultivate close relationships with people, they will come to your aid not because you're calling in the wedding wager, but because they want to. If so, they want to help you whether you marry them or not. Marriage to such a person is a wonderful and beautiful thing, but the wedding is pretty much a public celebration of something that was already there. So, if you don't think your friends have your back, the solution is to find new friends. Oh, and by the way, you need to have their backs when they're in trouble. That's the way it works. I've seen it in action and it's beautiful. I've seen more medical bills eliminated from the donations of a hundred cheerful friends than from the crippling, life-ruining, all-consuming subservience of one slave. If you're so concerned about late-night accidents, get a frickin' roommate.
The wedding vows are wonderful promises, only if they're spontaneously felt, and genuine. But if not... if you immediately run out and search desperately for a "good-enough" who you settle for... you'll grow bitter. The bottom line is that the cards life deals you might mean a different form of social structure will work for you.
Comments
bardicwench on Jul. 27, 2005 4:36 AM
I agree with you on this 100%... and with your permission, I'd like to make a copy of this to send to my parents next time they ask why I'm the oldest female in the history of my family not to be married!
I don't want to settle. And my friends are more of a family to me than the people who happen to be related by blood.
matt-arnold on Jul. 27, 2005 1:07 PM
I gladly give permission for that.
rikhei on Jul. 27, 2005 4:49 AM
Awesome entry - I agree completely. I will probably link to this (and Rennie's original entry) in my own LJ...
matt-arnold on Jul. 27, 2005 1:11 PM
Cool, I look forward to it.
sothisislife on Jul. 27, 2005 10:17 AM
My cat is fully trained to dial 911 at 4:00am if needed. And if she can't get through, I am perfectly okay with dying alone if it means I don't have to marry someone just for the sake of not being alone!
But to be honest, it would be nice to have someone legally able to pull the tube if I Terri Schaivoed, since I know my parents wouldn't.
marahsk on Jul. 27, 2005 12:59 PM
Can you not write a living will, saying that you would want the tube pulled, and/or appointing whoever you want (who is willing) to speak for you?
sothisislife on Jul. 27, 2005 1:03 PM
I could write one, but I don't have anyone to appoint.
marahsk on Jul. 27, 2005 2:10 PM
Well, it may help to write one anyway, so no one can argue about what they think you would have wanted.
tlatoani on Jul. 27, 2005 3:34 PM
If nothing else, you could appoint a lawyer, with specific instructions.
cannibal on Jul. 28, 2005 10:46 PM
How do you fit into the equation that marriages entered into by people from arranged-marriage, marriage being about other things than love sort of cultures always seem to work out, last, and thrive, whereas most marriages "for love" end in bitterness and divorce?
Please note that I'm ten years older than you, never married yet, and have had many long-term relationships (meaning more than a year) including living with someone.
matt-arnold on Jul. 28, 2005 11:45 PM
Duly noted. I'm still working out just how much of a devil's advocate you've been, but the point is the same either way.
It fits into the equation really well. There is an expectation problem at work. Those cultures expect little, demand little, and as a result receive little. Then they bend over and say "thank you sir can I have another" with an obsequious smile. Thriving? Most people in Westernized cultures, especially feminists, if given a close look at the day-to-day conditions and relationship style of an arranged marriage, would say "good gravy, that needs to end! Have they no self-worth? Are they humans or cattle?" I don't envy arranged marriages at all, no matter how happy the people in them are, for the same reason that I happen to not be masochistic or suicidal. But if other people are masochistic and suicidal, or in an arranged marriage, hey, pain/death/imprisonment might give them kinky kicks! Who am I to judge? And that's just counting the ones that say they're happy, never mind the cases of indentured servitude.
By contrast, over here our expectations are ridiculously high. For instance, we think a marriage has failed unless it lasts forever. I don't consider longevity a measure of marriage success, because most of them last way too long. How many marriages that do not end in divorce are merely endured for the sake of children, in a stupor of boredom, until ended gratefully by the sweet release of death? That was where R and I were probably headed. Our marriage lasted five years and we graduated from it successfully. It was quite a peaceful marriage, the same peace you would find in the accounting department at Cadaver and Jaundice, PLC. So we didn't break up because of fighting, we just didn't believe in the value of "forever" anymore. We walked arm-in-arm through divorce court and went out for ice cream to celebrate with hugs and kisses. In fact it was so successful, the relationship was greatly improved by divorce and that's why we eventually moved back in together.
So yes, I agree people should be more realistic about love. There are two ways that jaded cynics like you and me can go-- giving up to conformity and going along with the problem, or a hopelessly doomed radicalism that will never work but is worth trying anyway. If (a big if) you're not just playing devil's advocate, I think it's clear which one of us has which of those styles of cynicism. The answer is definitely not a stone-age throwback to obsolete relationship styles that worked when everybody was a slave to somebody above them and closed off all choices for the rest of one's life. Riding those railroad tracks is the easy, lazy way. The answer is to embrace the modern buffet style of individualized options. Get radical and innovative. Do the hard work of finding a customized approach. It's even harder than replenishing your circle of friends who have your back when some of them move away. But that's life whether you're married or not, and those who want guarantees are fooling themselves.
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