Is Marriage a Failed Institution?
Darwin taught us that only the fittest organisms survive. And as reward for their ‘efforts’, they get to pass-on their genes. For most organisms, for the most part, this is true. Humans, however, have turned this law on its head. In comparison to the Siberian Tiger or an African Bull Elephant, we are neither fitter nor stronger, yet we are outperforming all of them! And worse still, our action of hunting, is causing the extinction of some of these majestic and ferocious beasts; the Tasmanian Tigers that once roamed the Down Under and the Black Rhinos on the plains of African, are no more. What makes it possible then that the actions of a significantly weaker organism is causing the extinction of its stronger and fitter counterparts? The answer lies in our ability to form intentional coalitions. It is our ability to form and maintain relationships.
There are many forms of relationships, but this article will discuss the idea of marriage. We will attempt to answer the question: whether marriage is a failed institution? High divorce rates and infidelity are causing some to question its validity. To offer a fitting response, we need an understanding of what marriage means. And for that we need to begin from the beginning. This beginning is that every marriage builds on an existing relationship. Every marriage builds on friendship.
To the above, therefore, I answer that: No. Marriage is not a failed institution. The problem is that we have lost an understanding of what the concept connotes, and have come to perceive it as a mere social convenience or religious bigotry. To reorient ourselves, we need to clarify a few things again. First and foremost, marriage is a not an invention; it is not something created by society. It is rather an expression; society recognizing and naming what humans choose to do intuitively.
Statistics tell us that 1 in 2 marriages end in divorce. And contrary to some opinions, your marriage is not a piece of paper no more than an education is a diploma. Marriage is not what you do before a Judge or before some guy or gurl you got drunk with the night before in Vegas and he/she is now wedding you and the stripper that gave you a lap dance. But hey, who am I to judge? It is a free world, right? Right!
Marriage happens between you and your partner long after the “I do”. And prep work for it begins in you as an individual, long before you walk down that isle and continues in both of you long after you’ve had your first kiss. So, what does marriage mean? It is the self-giving of one for the good of the other. Genesis 2:24 says; “that is why a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife and the two become one flesh.” When we get married, something new is supposed to happen. Ideally, an entirely new entity is created. Because, after you marry two objects or elements, something new comes forth. Such is marriage. The intentional creation of a new unique entity, born from love and sustained with love, honor, integrity and commitment. Marriage is a solemn continuous declaration, because you’ll have to make a choice for that person again and again. In order words, when the two people decide, and get married, they are now a new creation, one person, of sorts, emerges after they profess, “I do”- hence “the two become one flesh.” This means that when you say “I do”, you declare your life for that person and more so, because none of you knows what the future holds, you are saying in those two words, “I do”; “hold me to my word. I’ll be there for you through thick and thin. I pledge myself and my resources for your welfare. On my honor, I am committed to you.” This is what your “I do” means. This is what marriage is- a union born of love, sustained by love-infused honor and commitment, declared for the good of the other. Marriage is a natural next step in a relationship between a man and a woman. It is unique to the couple. Everything else that now surrounds it; the courts, churches, pictures and paparazzi’s, are non-essential extras in the expression of a marital union.
If this is what marriage means, are prenuptial agreements necessary? In simple terms, no. To go into such a covenant that is supposed to rest on honor, integrity, commitment and love with a “just in case” clause, which is what prenuptial agreements are, “just in case you do not prove to be as honorable as I thought…, I got myself covered,” just means that supposed love, integrity and honor that are foundational to, and sustains a marriage are nonexistent or shaky at best. Therefore, there really isn’t a marriage. Cohabitation, maybe. I believe the idea of marriage as a mere social construct for the satisfaction of some religious zest, stems from ignorance; a general societal intellectual sloth that we have encouraged with our quick fixes and instant gratification. Marriage is at once a gift and a sacrifice. But it begins in friendship. But every friendship, relationship that’s worth its name, takes work. It will cost you something.
Many of us will make money, acquire degrees, build spectacular edifices, testaments to the creativity and intelligence of our specie. Yet none of these things fill us with content or regret when we are on our death beds. Rather, at that time, we seem to focus on our relationships; “I wish I spent more time with my wife and kids”, “I wish I was nicer to my sister”; “I wish I was a better friend.” If this is the one constant that we worry about when we are close to death, why are we not very effective at building and maintaining good relationships?
A very good friend of mine once told me that friendship is the foretaste of heaven. Careful thinking reveals the veracity of this statement. No one can deny the positive impact of good friendships. A scary statistic reveals that once every 40 seconds someone commits suicide. Leading to nearly a million deaths annually, twice the number of those killed in homicides.[1] The root cause for the above statistic have not been explicitly addressed, but we can reliably deduce from studies on well-being and happiness, that people that have close friendships or a support system generally report higher life satisfaction and are less prone to self-harm. Good friendships are indeed the bliss of life. However, we all know the saying, good friends are hard to find, and good relationships take work.
This is because in any true relationship, you are seen and loved exactly as you are, which however, does not mean the acceptance of mediocrity. To the contrary, it challenges and encourages you to be the best version of yourself which will not always be pleasant. But you are loved and can be secure in that knowledge. The nature of relationships being between two people means that conflicts are inevitable. These challenges are not necessarily negative. Conflicts or challenges are opportunities, but they are particular types of opportunities, of which the way you handle them have consequences. Uranium, for instance, is a particular type of element. Handled correctly, can generate immense power and very clean energy at that, but handled poorly will level entire cities and render them uninhabitable for years thereafter; Chernobyl and Fukushima are testaments. So too relationships, regardless of its nature and the inevitable conflicts that stem from them, are opportunities that if handled well, yields immense benefits, and if handled carelessly, can scar and mar people for life or at best, for a very long time. Take the case of a woman who is married but literally recoils at the touch of the man she loves and has married. Not because she is repulsed by him, but because the man who was supposed to have been her protector and guide, her father, molested and raped her when she was a child. Or consider the case of the man who serial dates and dumps women, leaving a trail of broken hearts, and thinks every female is a gold digger, because he was used and dumped by the woman he loved and invested time, money and energy into to see her through difficult times. Or the child, now a man who can’t hold down a job, did not graduate college and has no drive beyond to exist, because he believes that he has nothing to offer the world and is unintelligent, because his mother always said that he will never amount to anything, and teachers at school told him that he could not learn. Our relationships matter and the conflicts that naturally happen within them, have the potential to make or break us. Every relationship leaves a mark. Question is, what type?
The presence of conflict/challenges in your relationship does not mean all is lost. How they are resolved matter more than the challenges themselves. Challenges can be high or low quality. You want to have high quality conflicts in your life and avoid low quality ones. Imagine this scenario: a guy picks a fight with his wife because after she returns from her 8hr job, like himself, she does not race into the kitchen, whip up gourmet dinner, serve him, clean up the kitchen and gets the children ready for bed before 7pm. This is low quality conflict. Because it is driven by selfishness and pride. Now consider this conflict; a woman fights her man because he gambled away or bought a new car with the children’s college fund. This is high quality conflict. It is motivated by the good of the spouses. So, what quality of conflict predominantly happens in your marriage?
There are many reasons why conflicts happen in any relationship, but we can group most of those causes into two categories. 1. Ego. 2. Perspective.
Ego: This simply means you are identifying personally with whatever the situation is. And you interpret any contrary statement that does not align with your own opinion as an attack on your person. However, this may not mean that you are an egotistical or an arrogant person, it just means you have personally identified with the situation, that you translate any challenge or contrary view as a negation of your person. For example, consider this exchange between two friends; John and Cindy. John: “Can you imagine what Tom did? That s.o.b took my promotion! Can you imagine?! And this is someone that’s supposed to be my friend!! This is why you should never trust anyone! No matter what you do for them, they will always stab you in the back!” Cindy: “Come on John… he did not take your promotion. The promotion was offered to him. And you must admit, the guy is good at his job. Also, he has seniority, the experience, knowledge and necessary skills. Then he has the contacts to pull necessary strings if our department finds itself in a bind. You know I care about you, but even I would have voted for Tom to get the promotion. Our department really needs his expertise and contacts.” John: “What sort of friend are you????! Fuck!” In this scenario, yes, John is qualified, but the fact that Cindy pointed out Tom’s strengths only made John furious. John may generally be a pleasant person, but in this particular situation, he wants what he wants and anyone not supporting him in the endeavor is an enemy. There are many similar situations in which if we believe our pride is hurt or is at stake, we will lash out. In those situations, we are blinded by the “pain” of our injured pride. It makes it hard to consider anything else anyone is saying.
Think about the following questions for a minute: If there is a better way of doing something, why should your idea be adopted? If someone else is better suited for a responsibility, would giving you the job make sense? It takes humility to acknowledge the strengths of others. The book, Team of Rivals, by Doris Goodwin, does an excellent job of X-raying the virtue of humility, as exhibited in Abraham Lincoln. He saw and acknowledged the political savvy and pedigree of his ‘opponents’, then he coopted them to work with him, and together, they made history. It is a worthy read.
Perspective: We are products of our environments, coupled with our individual internal programing. Consider this tale of two ladies. Both are in a car and they see a man asking for change/food at the traffic light. One of them reaches into her purse, brings out two 1-dollar bills and hands them to the man. The other is upset and berates the one that handed the man the money for being wasteful, stupid and for encouraging laziness. Who do you think is right in this scenario? Before you pass verdict, consider their backgrounds. The one that gave the money comes from a middle-class family. Growing up, their parents taught them to believe that tomorrow will be a better day. As a family, they made it a duty to annually go down to the adoption center and spend time with the children there. They would bring them food and clothing and sometimes will have the children from the center over to their home for some of the holidays. Their parents encouraged them to be generous; asking them to periodically scan their closets for clothing they no longer use or had outgrown and they would go with them, the kids, to donate the articles of clothing to the adoption centers. Lady #2 that did the berating, comes from a rather wealthy family. Her upbringing was one where they were taught that people always want to take what belongs to you, therefore guard your possessions with your life. They were taught to work hard, that laziness leads to poverty. Now that you know their backgrounds and their perspectives on life, how do you now pass verdict?
The analogies above tell us that we all have different sets of assumptions, prejudices, biases and our egos, all of which influence the way we perceive and interpret the world around us. What are your prejudices, biases? How do they influence how you interpret situations? Do you know when your ego is acting up? If you are aware of these things, you are better able to hear and see objectively, otherwise, it will make these two apparently simple tasks, hearing and seeing, extremely challenging. More so in a marriage where you see the person every day and if care is not taking, you both begin to take each other for granted. The blindness and deafness are life altering.
Like we said earlier, conflicts are inevitable in relationships. And the difficulty stems from the fact of the various sets of assumptions and egos that we bring into them. They make it difficult to have necessary conversations. Challenging conversations however, are necessary to all relationships. It enables relationships mature and blossom into the best they can be. Some of us are conscious of our biases and prejudices, and that’s good. At least you know why you do the things you do. Hopefully you are working towards improving yourself. And for the rest of us, we are unaware of our driving perspectives and egos, which like we have stated are huge obstacles to any meaningful relationship. For the fact that you are unaware of your motivating influences; how and why they manifest in your life, and what purpose they serve, if any, when conflicts arise in your relationship, you may be blind to any resolution that isn’t what you imagined and how you envisaged.
What can we do then in our marriages considering that we all have these blinders and wax that seal our eyes and ears? Listen to yourself and to the other person. Whenever you are in a conversation, especially those difficult ones, periodically scan your body to see how you feel. If you feel any tightness in your abdomen, chest and or throat, know that you are not listening in that conversation. You are waiting to respond. And when you catch yourself like that, open up. Relax and reengage. Listen. What happens when you listen? You understand the person. You are not just hearing what they are saying, but you are also understanding what the situation or thing means to them. This in-turn helps you to be empathetic; that is, to walk in their moccasin, which does not mean you agree with them. It only means you understand how they feel about the situation. And because you are listening and can understand and empathize, you are able to come up with constructive responses. That is; your responses are generated directly from the situation. If you learn to listen, the quality of the conflict you’ll have will be high; because you are not in your ego, and neither are you hooked on your own perspectives alone. You can really see and hear your spouse. Part of what it means to be mature is to be able to hold and understand conflicting perspectives, without losing your own, especially within a dialogue-challenging dialogue.
Now if everyone does these things, does it mean there will be no more divorces? No. It does not mean that. It only means that even when a divorce happens, it will be for the good of everyone involved. And more importantly, before one steps into a marital union, they will give it thought more than, she is good in bed and has a banging body, or, he can pay my bills! The institution of marriage is a human expression. It recreates the individuals into a new being. The challenges within them are opportunities for growth. Learn to listen. Give your marriage the opportunity it deserves to be the best it can be.
Michael
[1] Hannah Ritchie, Max Roser and Esteban Ortiz-Ospina (2015) – “Suicide”. Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: ‘https://ourworldindata.org/suicide’ [Online Resource]