There are so many theories when it comes to marriage. Many people, from a young age, think they will meet their soulmate across a crowded subway on their way to a six-figure income-earning job straight out of college, knowing—without question—that he or she is THE ONE. Others believe that marriage is a spiritual or religious bond. And perhaps more people are drawn into marriage by societal expectations. After all, once you reach a certain age, the idea and pressure of fulfilling the marital dream—buying a three-bedroom house with a white picket fence, raising 2.2 children, and owning a golden retriever—are drilled into your mind from every angle of mainstream society.
Interestingly, many people either fail to read or have missed the intense 2011 study that seemed to prove, without a doubt, that single people not only live longer but are also happier and healthier overall.
However, is marriage good in theory?
In a world where we have near-instant access to millions of people, is choosing to shack up and build a life with one person truly a step toward happiness? With more than half of all marriages ending in bitter divorces that financially and emotionally drain people, is marriage really the best option? After all, without the formal contract of a marriage license and a metal ring, one person could simply get up and leave without causing the massive stir and strife that would haunt you for the rest of your life.
And those 2.2 children? What are their real chances? Parents today are overworked and stressed, and feeding those 2.2 children takes a toll not just on the pocketbook but also on emotional well-being. A CNN study by Katherine Dorsett indicated that childless couples were, in fact, happier than their counterparts with children—and this is no surprise. Raising children has always been hard work, but in today’s world, it’s even more exhausting. In fact, today, many women with the highest education levels and incomes are choosing to remain childless ‘on purpose’—and they’re happy. Sure, many of them are still married, but having the means and the freedom to travel the world while riding a wave of self-success makes being married much easier than being a cooped-up housewife with a beer-bellied blue-collar husband and four kids hanging onto your pajama pants.
When it comes to marriage, there are so many fairy tales people buy into. No one tells you before you get married that waking up to the same person for 51 years gets boring. People fail to mention that your sex life can become a routine, making you long for the wildness of your 20s. Answering to someone else all the time, seeing them at their worst, sharing a home, arguing over things like whose turn it is to feed the dog, and getting stuck in the rut behind the white picket fence is enough to drive anyone crazy. And we choose this? Why? Because we think we will be different? We think we can figure out the marriage thing despite the fact that no one else seems to have? Do we believe that marriage is the only way to prove our love for someone? Or are we falling into a trap created by the media and passed down from one generation to the next, telling us our life is a failure unless we settle down, get married, and have kids?
This isn’t to say that marriage is bad. But clearly, according to statistics, the idealized notion of marriage we hold before tying the knot doesn’t always hold up in reality. Are we so convinced we need a set of fancy table settings for our kitchen that we’re willing to get married just to acquire them?
Half of us get divorced. Another quarter of us are stuck in marriages of convenience. The remaining quarter has somehow made it work—or simply decided to make the best of the situation, ignoring the possibility that they might have fallen for the world’s cruelest trick. Despite a struggling economy, relationship experts remain some of the busiest professionals in their field, and most married couples today (around 52%) don’t even own the house or white picket fence they thought would define their happily ever after. In fact, they can barely afford to keep the electricity on. As for infidelity rates? Since most people would never be honest about how often they think about cheating on their spouse (or actually have), this remains a grey area of marriage likely to never be fully understood. But somehow, it almost feels like being with one person for the rest of your life is like being forced to eat nothing but apples for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the remainder of your life.
In theory, marriage is the path most people follow. The reality, however, paints a completely different picture. Seriously, are you willing to make a life out of eating nothing but apples?
What do you think? Is the theory of marriage better than the reality of it?
