All Dressed In White

"There is no subject on which more dangerous nonsense is talked and thought than marriage."

In the wake of Best Friend's wedding, and after having discussed her upcoming wedding with Good Friend, I was moved to read All Dressed in White: The Irresistible Rise of the American Wedding, by Carol Wallace (2004).

I had expected Best Friend to buck tradition when it came to her wedding, yet as the event got closer, so did she - to almost all aspects of a 'traditional' wedding. (With the notable exception of her choice of officiant. ;) 'Wait a minute, why are you doing this?', I thought to myself several times, but of course as a supportive friend I held my tongue.

Good Friend had already made a life with her now-fiance, including the co-purchase of a home. Their decision to marry came as a result of her getting pregnant. 'But you were so anti-'the institution of marriage', I thought to myself, but as a supportive friend, of course I held my tongue.

It goes without saying that most of the trappings of a wedding are unrelated to the actual success of a marriage, and should be, though perhaps are not always, unrelated to the decision to get married. Yet the talk and the angst and the stress is almost all about the wedding. With so many marriages ending in divorce, the wedding seems to be one of the least important things to stress over. (Don't throw things at me yet; I'm going to make a point here.)

With the erosion of almost every reason to need to get married, now more than ever marriage represents a choice. Yet the institution of marriage has yet to change to reflect the changes in science and society. (And it probably won't change for quite some time.) Those who choose to marry are still forced to choose 'til death do us part', and that seems to be a commitment that many people have trouble keeping. Nor does it seem to be a commitment whose keeping the rest of society is all that concerned with.

Any institution with a 50+ percent rate of failure seems to be crying out for modification. One of the things that stuck with me the longest through all my viewings of the various incarnations of Star Trek (and there were many viewings) was the idea of contract marriages. 'Now there's a smart piece of projected sociological evolution', I thought. A contract marriage (though never explained in detail in any of the episodes I watched) presumably conferred all the legal benefits of 'married' status upon a couple but for a predetermined, limited duration. Since the contract would expire, presumably provisions were included in it for what would happen when the contract was dissolved. Instead of staring down 'til death do us part', couples presumably acknowledge that change is inevitable, and made the commitment that seemed most appropriate for them given the status of their lives, careers, etc. The commitment became more explicit, as couples were forced to consider ahead of time how they would relate to each other if the decision was made not to renew the contract.

The more I thought about this idea, the more I liked it. Instead of facing the social stigma of saying 'I've been divorced three times', for example, a person could say 'I've successfully completed two three-year marriage contracts and a five-year contract.'

With the option to marry so many times now available, the decision to commit to a marriage of a greater duration would presumably revolve largely around the commitment to parenting children. In this vision of the future that I had drifted into, these were the marriages that would result in a celebration that most reflects the weddings of today. A 'wedding' would morph into a celebration of fertility/commitment to a larger goal beyond the desires of the two individuals. The families would come together to greet the first child, as well as to celebrate the couple's commitment to parenting. Society's recognition of the importance of a consistant, stable home for a child would be reflected in the fact that the commitment to this was now the primary cause for large-scale celebration.

(Insert happy visions of Futureland here.)

I haven't put a whole lot of thought into the potential drawbacks of this vision of the future of marriage. Feel free to share any drawbacks that you can think of. This hypothetical aspect of the future may yet end up in a science fiction book one day, by which time I'm sure I'll have given it more thought. ;)