Marriage
On my way in this morning, my mind wandered over to the concept of marriage. In the recent past certain members of this group (the He/She board) have made claims to the effect of “I’ll never get married [again].” And I just can’t figure out what that means.
Marriage can be seen as a legal, religious and symbolic action. The legal and religious aspects of the institution aren’t truly relevant to my point. Whether there is a filed certificate or a ceremony presided by clergy does not make a marriage.
Marriage is a symbol to the community that (the metaphorical) we are together and are not searching for mates in the sexual or economic sense. With the symbolic definition of marriage, the only way “I’ll never get married” has any meaning is only in the self destructive sense that any long term relationship will be destroyed to prevent the relaying of the symbol of togetherness to the community.
In this day of long courtships and long stable relationships that last longer than marriages the symbol is not just the ring it is a state of being. When a couple who are dating move in together that is part of the symbol of marriage. In the old days of short courtships resulting in marriage at pre-arranged times (graduations, etc.) the ring was powerful because it was more likely to convey availability. Today it’s accuracy suffers. But it is buffered by other mechanisms in certain social groups (think class rings, pledge pins, and other things I’m to obtuse to notice).
My point is that whether there is legal or religious actions there are symbolic actions doing what marriage is traditionally supposed to do, convey a status of taken. Given that, for people who think “I’ll never get married,” do you mean that in the legal, religious, economic, or destructive sense?
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