Pledging Marriage For Life Doesn't Make Sense

Life is very different than when our marriage laws where written. Life is very different than when our customs about marriage were solidified.

Most people used to live their entire lives in the same place, unless they got traded away in slavery or were sent off to war. Upward mobility wasn't much of a thing. You grew up working the family farm or in the family business, or you got an apprenticeship in someone else's family business. Usually, everyone in the area shared the same religion. Most people lived in farming villages but even if you lived in a city, your prospects for partners were minimal. If you got paired up with someone, either per your family or your own efforts, you stuck with them because there was a little other choice. If you were a woman, leaving was likely to mean destitution. A man could rape his wife and beat her without running afoul of the law or society, and he could beat his children into submission or kick them out of the home. But for anyone who needed to raise his own help, a fertile wife and resulting children were appreciated. Leisure and recreation were limited and retirement wasn't much of a thing.

Today, we can reach around the world instantly with our communications, and travel to anywhere in the world in a matter of hours. We have the potential to interact with millions of people over our lifetime. Education and career training can take decades, we can take promotions offered from the other side of the planet, and changing jobs, changing entire careers, and moving from one residence to another is quite common. Family law can reward a woman for divorcing her husband, and her friends and other cultural elements might urge her to do so. Leisure and recreation play a much larger role in the lives of most of us, and most people expect to retire with decades left to live.

In the past, other than aging, life didn't change much short of war, revolution, or disaster. Today, those are all still things that happen, and life changes in so many other ways, and we have many choices to make throughout life. We have many more options about most things than in the past.

In the past in most places, women weren't full citizens in the same way men were. Women needed men if for no other reason than that. This has changed.

For most people, it no longer makes sense to pledge a lifetime of devotion to one person. The proof is in the decline of marriage rates, the higher ages of first marriages, and the frequency of divorce, separation, contempt, indifference, and misery in relationships that do involve marriage. People are getting married later, and, if they divorce, are staying unmarried longer.

You can marry someone who seems compatible with you, but will that compatibility really last ten years? Twenty? Fifty? Plans change. Goals change. Lifestyles change. Desires change. What happens when, one day, they say that want to take a better job in a city to which you don't want to move, or you get offered your dream opportunity and they won't agree to it? What happens if they decide their vision for retirement is entirely incompatible with yours? What happens if you no longer can support the religious institution to which you both belong, or they announce they have embraced beliefs and practices incompatible with yours? What if you two were vegetarians, even vegans, and they say it's not for them anymore? Or you love your steaks and they go vegan and insist the home be a vegan home? What happens if you really like your residence, and they decide they want an entirely different kind of home? Similar incompatibilities can develop in so many other areas if life, like when it comes to friendships, dealing with family, how to spend free time, when to take vacations and where to go on them, hobbies, politics, money, and definitely sex.

What are the chances, if you're compatible now, neither of you will change, the two of you will only change in ways that are compatible, especially over fifty or sixty years? It's not likely, unless one or both of you give up on what you want and what you like and what you feel you need.

I don't want all the same things I did when I married. And my wife doesn't supply everything I want. She could probably say the same. This is common.

You might say, "It doesn't matter. I'm going to commit to my spouse no matter what life throws our way." OK, let's say you chose this road and you're going to stick with it, even if conditions deteriorate, even if a landslide rumbles across it. You still can't rely on your spouse to do the same.They might jump out of the car and hitch a ride with someone going the other way. Guys: You can't control her. She can say anything right now and it can all change tomorrow. And the law and society will empower her to ruin you. Thinking you'll avoid this because "love conquers all" is delusional.

Most wives think they settled. Most wives do not find their husband sexually attractive by his physical appearance alone; they couldn't marry a man who they do find attractive in that way. The resentment they have for their husband grows. And most men want youth, vitality, enthusiasm, and variety. Like most things in life, the situation almost inevitably deteriorates. Aging is inevitable, and some people age better than others. Hormonal problems, traumas, injuries, illnesses, increasing limitations change things. One spouse is likely to never ever forget perceived problematic incidents for which they blame the other, and so those accumulate over time. Keeping anything in good condition takes a lot of work. The same goes for marriages. But is it worth it for marriage? Usually it isn't.

So what's the alternative?

The alternative is staying free. If you prefer having a close, steady relationship, have one (or have as many as you want and can), but don't make promises that are ridiculous. Enjoy being together for as long as it is enjoyable or you're meeting each other's needs. Dennis Prager is the most staunch seller of marriage I know of, and even he says "til death do us part" isn't in the Jewish marital vows and that marriage is a contract; when someone isn't fulfilling the contract the other person is justified in leaving. I take it a step further by noting the terrible state contract need not be part of the relationship in the first place.

Dennis Prager looks at marriage like a job, and that brings up a good analogy. Even if it seems to be your dream job, would you ever pledge to stick with your job until you die, no matter what, even if your job stopped paying you or providing benefits, especially if your employer could dismiss you for no reason and if it meant a judge could tell you to pay your employer when the job is over? Even long-term contracts can be broken or ended. You understand that things can change a lot. Well, the same goes for marriage.

Mutually beneficial agreements are great. However, they might last for life, decades, years, months, or days.

We must deal with life as it is, not as we wish it to be.

Stay free.