I Do, or I Don't.
To believe the latest study, I'll be miserable either way.
Last fall, I got swept up in the hype surrounding the latest Todd Solondz film, "Happiness." Having been blown away by Solondz's previous effort, "Welcome to the Dollhouse," I couldn't wait for the wrenching, gripping, profound cinematic experience the advance reviews of "Happiness" promised.
Didn't happen. While some of the individual performances in the film were indeed amazing, I was bored by the movie's relentless pessimism. (Yes, you read that correctly. I know I bitch and whine a lot in these pages, but in real life, I truly don't hate everything, and I like to think I'm more optimistic than not.) The message of the film seemed to be "Life sucks, and no matter what you do to try to improve your lot in life, it's going to keep on sucking." That would have passed for a profound philosophical insight back when I was a drunken college student minoring in self-pity, but at the age of 30, I expect a little more originality from films presuming to comment on the human experience.
An article published in the Friday, July 2 edition of the Washington Post rubbed me the same way: "For Better or Worse, Marriage Hits a New Low." As someone planning to be married in a few months, I took note of that downbeat headline right away. It only got worse from there.
The article lays out the results of a study, touted by someone (the article never says who) as "a benchmark compilation of statistics and surveys" compiled by Rutgers University's National Marriage Project. I would have liked to read the entire study and learn more about the people who compiled it, unfiltered by one reporter's point of view, but I couldn't find a copy of the study anywhere on the Web. Despite the fact that they obviously believe they're doing groundbreaking work, nobody in the National Marriage Project has put up even a rudimentary web page with information about themselves and what they're doing. Therefore, I'm limiting my comments simply to what's presented in the Washington Post article. I know I'd be fired from a publication for doing such a slipshod research job in real life, but since this is for my own little page, it'll have to do. Besides, I found the way the information was presented in the article as significant as the study itself.
"Americans are less likely to marry than ever before, according to a new study, and fewer people who do marry report being 'very happy' in their marriages ... The report, released yesterday by Rutgers University's National Marriage Project and touted as a benchmark compilation of statistics and surveys, found that the nation's marriage rate has dipped by 43 percent in the past four decades, leaving it at its lowest point in recorded history ... This historically low marriage rate, coupled with a soaring divorce rate, has dramatically altered attitudes toward one of society's most fundamental institutions."Boy, those little nuggets of information sure warm my heart. The marriage rate has declined, the divorce rate is "soaring," and less and less people who do marry are "very happy" in their relationships. The way the article presents the information, staying unmarried is somehow an undesirable state -- but compared to what? Divorcing, or being unhappy in your marriage? Sheesh. I've already spent most of my adult years being reminded of the "50 percent of marriages end in divorce" statistic that continues being bandied about in the media and in online discussion groups (and which appears later in the Post article). I'm not exactly sure why the concept of more people staying single is necessarily a bad thing, but the article presents this information in the study as though it signals something wrong. I guess I'm not the only one put off by the relentless negativity towards marriage:
"'Young people today want successful marriages, but they are increasingly anxious and pessimistic about their chances for achieving that goal,' said Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, co-director of the National Marriage Project."Golly gee. Young people are feeling "increasingly anxious and pessimistic" about having successful marriages? I just can't imagine why. Can you? I'm sure it's got nothing to do with their being beaten over the head with statistics that predict marital doom, or assertions that people who stay married are "less happy," or anything. Does Ms. Whitehead suppose that a "benchmark" study like this one, full of depressing statistics and predictions, is going to make anyone feel more optimistic?
Before anyone gets the wrong idea, I'm not consumed with fear about the stability of my upcoming marriage. I wonder about how things will go over the years, of course, but I have a fundamental belief that Bill and I will be able to confront the problems we have and work through them without splitting up. If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't be getting married. Even so, studies like this one have a way of gnawing at me. At a time when I'm preoccupied with the details of our wedding, I really don't need the relentless reminders of how it could all end someday. It's as if I'm being mocked by the experts. "Ha. You think you're going to make a go of things no matter what happens? Foolish girl. That's what half of couples like you thought before they got married, and just look. Fifty percent! Fifty percent!" This must be how pregnant women feel when strangers and co-workers accost them with horror stories about life-threatening deliveries, stillbirths and seriously ill children.
The article goes on to cite the increasingly familiar scapegoats for the decline of marriages:
"The National Marriage Project report blames the declining marriage rate on people postponing marriage until later in life and on more couples deciding to live together outside of marriage. According to the report, nearly half of people ages 25 to 40 have at some point set up a joint household with a member of the opposite sex outside of marriage. As a result, the report's authors argued, marriage is no longer the presumed route from adolescence to adulthood and has lost much of its significance as a rite of passage."Maybe I'm just being contrary, but I don't buy this. Well, the part about the declining marriage rate being due to people postponing marriage until later in life makes sense, I guess. But once again -- why is this supposed to be a bad thing? If marriages are breaking up at such an alarming rate anyhow, who's to say that all the marriages these stubbornly single people would otherwise be having would be any more successful? Without having the entire study in front of me, it's hard to get an idea of what reasoning the authors used, but it's going to take more than the snippets in the Post article to make me see why delaying marriage -- or simply not getting married at all if you don't find someone suitable or just plain don't wanna -- is always a bad thing.
As for the arguments against cohabiting, I've heard all the grim statistics and Dr. Laura horror stories about the evils of "shacking up", and once again, I don't buy it. Not in all cases. I've had friends who didn't live together before marriage and ended up divorcing less than two years later. I've had friends who cohabited first who show every bit as much commitment and seriousness towards their marriages as do other friends and family who went the traditional route, so I'm a little put off by the authors' assertion that cohabitation is somehow causing marriage to lose its significance. And I've had friends who fell everywhere in between on the map. (In case you're wondering, I'm somewhere in the "mushball middle" (tm Al Franken): I moved in with my intended after we were engaged.) I wouldn't presume to draw any hard and fast conclusions from their experiences when there are so many variables involved and each situation is so different. I will say this: In the divorces I've seen among friends and family, I'm hard pressed to understand how maintaining separate households right up to the point of the wedding ceremony would have made any real difference in the outcomes of the marriages.
There was one last thing about the way that the study was presented in this article that didn't sit too well with me. See if you can read the following quotes and spot the problem:
"(I)ncreasing numbers of young adults, particularly young women, are ... far more accepting than in the past of alternatives to marriage, including single parenthood and living together with a partner outside of marriage" ... "Moreover, marriage is far less likely to be associated with first sexual experiences, particularly for women, the report said. Whereas 90 percent of women born between 1933 and 1942 were either virgins when they married or had premarital sex only with their eventual husbands, now more than half of girls have sexual intercourse by age 17, and on average they are sexually active for about eight years before getting married." ... "(T)he percentage of teenage girls who said having a child out of wedlock is a 'worthwhile lifestyle' increased from 33 to 53 in the past two decades."Maybe it's just me, but my inner Susan Faludi would love to know why women were being singled out in this article as being particularly responsible for the decline of the institution of marriage. What were the attitudes of men surveyed about things like single parenthood and premarital sex? Does the study offer statistics on what they thought? If so, why weren't they presented in the article, too? If not ... why not? Could be I'm still overly paranoid, thanks to that infamous study a few years ago about women over 35 having a better chance of being killed by a terrorist than finding a husband. But maybe not.
Anyhow, after all the gloom and doom of the first part of the article, Kristin Moore's comments, buried in the last paragraph, offer a far more reassuring picture of things -- people still do indeed take marriage very seriously, and there is cause for hope after all. And as discouraging and downbeat as certain media talking heads want to be, I have some better and more inspiring examples of marriages that work right in front of me. In a couple of months, two different members of my family will be celebrating their 60th -- yes, 60th -- wedding anniversaries. As my future husband and I look towards our own wedding a couple of months after that, I can't think of a better and more reassuring send-off.
Read the Post article that inspired this rant.