Marriage

Marriage has been an age-old ceremony of two (or sometimes more) people agree to commit with each other in some way. Technically, I suppose there are two types of marriage: legal and religious. Still, I thought both were to be taken seriously. It just doesn't seem like that's the case anymore. Due to a variety of things, I can't help but think, "Does marriage mean anything to anyone anymore?" Because everyone around me seems to think nothing of it at all when it's kind of, I don't know, supposed to be a huge long-term commitment. Instead, it seems to be more about, "Yay, let's do it for the hell of it." And, for the weddings. Let's not forget the weddings. Because, you know, the dress you pick out is obviously more important than the fact that you're supposed to be declaring your love and commitment to another person. Granted, this opinion is coming from a random sixteen year old who has never been married or been in a serious, long-term relationship... so take it with a grain of salt.


Anyway, I've been fortunate enough to have been born into a family with two loving parents who have miraculously managed to stay together despite all the shit thrown at them. I, however, am in the minority it seems. The vast majority of the kids I meet seem to come from divorced parents and a large part of those kids have had those divorces be really, really messy. And, of those kids, most of them seem to be really screwed up psychologically from it (mostly from parents who act like raging baboons instead of adults when they decide to call it quits).

Which makes me wonder why so many people are throwing in the towel so easily. Since marriage is supposed to be a long-term commitment, it obviously wasn't meant to be easy. It must be incredibly hard to sustain something for a lifetime, especially with pesky things like children and finances in the way. Even harder once the lust flickers and life gets super busy. But hey, you kind of signed up for the package when you signed the marriage certificate so it's not something that can be so easily tossed aside. These are all things to think about when you're sealing the deal for life.

The problem is, I'm not even sure people are thinking about these things at all. There's been this creepy trend of women trying to pressure men to get married. But why? It doesn't seem to be out of the love of their own hearts either but rather an urge to finally have the wedding they've always dreamed of (which brings me to the question: What's the point of wedding? Isn't it supposed to be about the love and not the pomp?). Our country glorifies weddings and doesn't even seem to think anything about divorce.

I'm not trying to demonize divorced people here by any means. Sometimes, things don't work out no matter how hard you try and in those cases, it's better just to move on than try to painfully keep holding on. Things happen. As far as I see it, though, that should be the very last option. It should happen after a couple has tried everything out and can't seem to get their shit together. Obviously, people shouldn't stick in relationships that make them feel unhappy and burnt out because no one benefits from that.

And if you are going to end up divorcing a person, at least have the maturity to do so gracefully. I don't care if the other person is the biggest asshole ever, there's no reason why you can't divorce civilly especially when you have kids in the picture. Because if you don't divorce gracefully and you have kids, you're pretty much telling them, "Guess what, kiddo(s)? My feelings and hurt are more important than your psychological well-being so I won't even bother to try to restrain myself and mask my hatred of your other parent." Which makes me wonder why in the world you decided to be a parent in the first place.

There should be a little bit of balance. It's not like I'm encouraging that fake, smiling fifties family but I think people are way too willing to divorce too easily in this country. It's like no one wants to try for anything anymore and everyone makes it all about them. Marriage should be seen as a solemn thing, not some big game of Dress Up.

Yeah, I know I have some really harsh opinions here. I probably sound really judgmental too. I've just seen what divorce has done to the people that I've loved and it's really started to piss me off. These poor kids have given up on love and relationships and the other sex all because their parents have been such shitty models. And they seem to think, "Oh whatever, I'll just get divorced anyway too so whatever" and they repeat their parents' mistakes and enter this vicious cycle. That's just not right.

Point is, marriage is supposed to mean something. People, go on and act like it does.