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The Case Against Marriage A Book in Progress by Glenn Campbell “Read it or weep!” Chapter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Next Chapter>> Production Notes | College Lecture | Glenn's Home Page   NOTE: This work has been ABANDONED as too long-winded and repetitive, but you are welcome to get whatever you can from it. The essential ideas are best summarized in a single page. Most of my new philosophical musings on relationships, etc. are now found in Kilroy Cafe. —GC, 5/09

A Wedding Disorder

The Case Against Marriage - Chapter 8 - 7/26/2007

An entourage shopping for wedding dresses in downtown Los Angeles. (Source)

Something deeply ingrained in the human brain and genome draws men to pornography. Even on the flat printed page, seeing the naked female form or the crude sex act seems to trigger male pleasure circuits—almost as much, it seems, as real three-dimensional females and actual cooperative intercourse.

In the second half of the Twentieth Century, this pornographic urge fueled a huge publishing industry. Glossy mainstream magazines like Playboy portrayed the idealized female figure in seductive poses, while countless grittier and lessor-known publications briefed the male on female gynecology and the objects that could be inserted therein.

Attempts to develop similar pornography for woman never really took off. There was a magazine called Playgirl that depicted naked men in sensual poses, but this turned out to be of greater interest to gay males than it did to genetic females. Females don't seem to respond as strongly to that kind of visual stimulus. That's not to say that that they aren't genetically programmed to respond to pornography or that a vast and useless industry can't be built upon this urge. It's just a different kind of pornography.

Video technology and the internet decimated the printed pornography industry, at least for men. Playboy, once a half-inch thick with lucrative advertizing, is now only a thin shadow of itself. Printed pornography for woman, however, is still as lucrative and shameless as ever. You see it in public places: Young woman drooling over their thick and glossy magazines, thinking selfish and erotic thoughts. These magazines don't depict naked men. Instead they show beautiful women in idealized poses... dressed in wedding gowns!

The male himself is little more than an accessory in this process. His only duties are to show up at the ceremony, wear the tuxedo assigned to him and say "I do" when instructed. It is the bride, her female relatives and her girlfriends who get all hot and bothered about a wedding, usually for months and sometimes years preceding it. The male is dutifully "consulted" in the planning stages, but it is rarely more than a pro forma consultation. His primary duty is to say "Yes" and sign whatever piece of paper is stuck under his nose. There is little doubt who is in charge of this operation.

Weddings come in two kinds: fast and extravagant. Here in Las Vegas, we specialize in the fast variety. You meet someone special and feel, based on three weeks of experience, that this is the perfect match, so you run off to Vegas to tie the knot—quick, before you change your mind! The aim here is to escape the usual ponderous wedding machinery (and the usual safeguards) and just do it. Here in Las Vegas, we can get you married in under two hours, with a variety of available wedding packages that may include flowers, organ music, a video of the event and ministry by Elvis.

If you don't take the Vegas route, then you are condemned to include all of your friends and relatives in the ceremony, and the event will quickly balloon into a massive monster with a life of its own. Especially if this is your first wedding, things can't be done simply. For one thing, you don't think it is your "first" wedding. You believe this will be your "only" wedding, so you think you need to pull out all the stops.

The wedding procedures are strictly programmed by perceived tradition and commercial marketing. Couples often try to deviate from these procedures to make their event seem unique, but they are still defined by the traditions. There will probably be bridesmaids and a best man, who will carry the ring. There will be wedding cake, which has to be eaten by the bride and groom in a certain way. The guests will have to be fed, usually at the expense of the couple and their families, and a photographer must be hired to record the event. The bride will throw her bouquet into a crowd of unmarried woman. At the end, the couple will drive off in a car with "Just Married" embarassingly sprayed on the windows.

In practical terms, we're talking about a huge expediture in both planning and money. Ten grand might get you by, but don't count on it. A good rule of thumb is that an average wedding and honeymoon will absorb whatever money you have in the bank plus the current limit on your credit cards.

What is the purpose of a wedding? We already know that, under the law, marriage is little more than an economic contract to share future assets and liabilities. Nowadays, people can comfortably live together, buy property and raise children without marriage, so there isn't anything you can do after the wedding that you couldn't do before. How does a complicated wedding ceremony change anything? Why do people feel that they need the extravagant public event when a simple trip to the courthouse will do?

Intellectually, couples usually say that the wedding isn't going to change their relationship. They love each other before the ceremony and will love each other no less and no more after it. So why do they need the ceremony at all? Obviously, people wouldn't engage in such an expensive project if they didn't expect it to change something. If it isn't going to change the couple themselves, is it supposed to change their family and friends?

A wedding ceremony seems to be a form of advertizing. It is a loud announcement to the world that a change is happening: John and Sue, once single people, are now man and wife. What is accomplished by making this announcement? Maybe it is a declaration to your family and friends that you have finally "grown up." It could be a sort of coming-of-age ceremony, where you claim to the world that the insecurities of childhood are over and you have finally arrived at solid, stable adulthood.

But the wedding ceremony could also have another purpose. It could be a sort of magical talisman that is supposed to give the relationship substance and certainty when you are feeling privately ambivalent about it.

The first President Bush—who turned out in retrospect to be the wise one—used to have a mantra that he repeated to himself: "It's the economy, stupid!" By this he meant that, all politics and publicity aside, it was the underlying performance of the national economy that determined his success as president. Couples ought to listen to similar advice: "It's the relationship, stupid!" In other words, what is really important is not your marital status or the ceremony you go through or what other other people think or how you eat your wedding cake. The only thing that matters is how well you get along with your partner. This simple fact can easily get lost in a public ceremony or an economic contract.

When you find someone who you get along with, the relationship itself ought to be sufficient reward, right? In most cases, however, it doesn't seem to be. If you fall in love with someone, move in with them and have sex with them on a regular basis, pretty soon things start becoming distressingly routine. "Is this all there is?" you ask yourself. In your own fantasies and in the fairytales you have been fed since childhood, love was supposed to be a magical experience that enlivens your life forever. Reality, however, will probably give you something different, probably a life that is just as routine and boring as it was before you fell in love.

Something seems to be missing, and people look around them to try to figure out what it is. If love right now isn't perfect bliss, then what do we need to do to make it happen? What is the one missing piece?

I know: We need to get married!

You may not have a clear plan as to how this is going to improve the relationship, but if your parents did it and your grandparents did it and all your friends are doing it, maybe you should, too. Maybe living in a relationship just for "now" isn't sufficient. Maybe the one missing step between you and eternal happiness is to stand up before family and friends and make a permanent declaration.

It you know, deep down, that this reasoning doesn't make much sense, it might help explain why the ceremony itself has to get so complicated. If you are going to invest in magic, then you want to pile on as much magic as possible.

If you are not completely satisfied with your out-of-wedlock relationship, there are two directions you can go: You can pull away, or you can dive deeper into it, thinking that what you need is more commitment and less choice. Diving deeper is usually a lot easier than pulling back. At least it seems like an adventure while pulling back can involve painful rejection, awkward disentanglement and a lot of hurt feelings—and then you are alone once again. If you are only vaguely dissatisfied, unclear on your own goals, afraid of loneliness and don't know what to do, which direction are you going to go? Deeper, probably.

The legal path between unmarried and married is really quite simple: You go to the courthouse and get a marriage license; you bring it to a justice of the peace or a certified clergy member who takes your vows; this official then signs a certificate of marriage, which is filed permanently at the courthouse. Under the law, the only thing that proves you are married is that piece of paper at the courthouse.

If you went to Vegas, you could get these steps done quickly and with a minimum of expense, but that's much too easy for most people. If a ceremony is expected to change things, then it has to be complicated. If this magical theatrical event is supposed to be a symbolic representation of the relationship, then it has to have substance if the relationship is expected to.

There is a recurring philosophy often expressed in various forms by couples about to be married: "No pain, no gain." If you want a relationship to succeed, they say, then you have to be willing to make sacrifices.

Is this true? Well, yes and no. Sometimes, you do have to make sacrifices for things that are important to you. The mistake is thinking that sacrifice alone will guarantee success.

Continued in Chapter 9