Last weekend I was at a friend's wedding and one of the 760 guests in attendance was the mother of a childhood friend. Now maybe I'm getting to that age or maybe it's because we were at a wedding or maybe both; but one of the first questions she asked me, "Are you engage? Are you married?" Her response to my answer of no was, "Oh...well that's ok, I'm sure there's someone out there for you." Which prompted a brief discussion on my beliefs on marriage, short because 1) she was an old family friend and 2) well we were at a wedding, so it wasn't exactly the proper venue.
While I don't really enjoy weddings (the receptions are always entertaining, but the ceremony's always bore me); I'm not against weddings per se. But in today's world, I don't feel it's necessary, especially in Canada. In Canada if you live with someone for longer than 6-months you are legally married...you can file joint tax returns, put your partner on your benefit plan, and if you separate everything is split 50-50.....so all the benefits, or drawbacks depending on your point of view, are conferred upon the couple. Now of course if both individuals truly want to get married then by all means spend 6 months and $50,000 organizing.....or better yet just elope....but I think that too many people get married because it's what is supposed to be done or for security or their parents want them to get married...in my opinion none of those are a good idea, which is the reason I don't feel that marriage is necessary.....and that time and money can be better utilized elsewhere.
One of the things that J and I had in common was our mutual aversion to marriage. Neither of enjoyed weddings nor really cared about getting married but thought there was a really good chance that we'd spend the rest of our lives together. The irony of this is that if we both believed in marriage there probably would've been a very good chance that we would've been married making our break-up that much more difficult, if that's even possible. I always said to her that if she ever changed her mind about getting married; I'd marry her....or I'd buy her a ring and we'd invite 20 of our closest friends over and get them drunk.
The number of people, let alone women, that share my belief are few and far between, even in the poly world, which can potentially make for an early end to any relationship that I may enter into in the future. Now would I be willing to change my belief and marry someone just because they wanted to get married? If they tried to guilt or pressure me into it; the answer would be an emphatic no. I'm not even sure if I'd ever get to the same place I was with J; she's unique in that she shared so many other beliefs that I have....poly, BDSM, large dogs instead of children, and our goal of building our dream house. Maybe if I found someone like that and she accepted me for who I am....then maybe I'd get married....but that's a big maybe.
No comments:
Post a Comment