Marriage | The Beachside Resident

By: Dan Reiter

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Marriage
By Dan Reiter

It happened one idyllic afternoon, over six Valentine’s Days ago.

The sunset flooded in through the church windows and shed a dreamlike, coral pink glow over our clasped hands. We recited our vows and donned the rings. I was 26. She, 21.

At the reception, a friend of my father’s approached us on the dance floor and said, rather unwittingly, “Cherish it, my boy. This will be the happiest moment of your life!” I thanked him for his gracious words and twirled away to dance with more optimistic folk. I hoped what the old codger said wasn’t true; after all, marriage wasn’t the end of the journey, but the beginning… right?

We glided through a sea of friends and loved ones, and though most were smiling and joyous, I detected a tinge of remorse in some of the older couples’ faces. Was it possible that poor devil was onto something? I took care to etch the evening permanently to memory just in case — the sumptuous ballroom with its high, inlaid ceilings, the tables adorned with hydrangea and sweet-smelling lily of the valley, my bright-eyed bride, a delicacy of silk and embroidered satin in my arms… The music, the spread, the wine, our happy hearts… Truly the old man must be mistaken — marriage was nothing less than a blessing from the heavens! This ecstasy was bound to last forever, and only be enriched with each passing day!

This buoyancy, this hopeful confidence, is common among freshly-married brides and grooms. Not a one of them expects the glow to fade, to dim away, and eventually disappear. Sadly, 50% of all marriages in the United States end in divorce. The other half, I suppose, end in death. It is hard to say which is worse, divorce or death — only that a bad divorce is commonly acknowledged to be worse than a good death. Why then, given equal chance of success and failure, do intrepid lovers flip the coin at such alarming rates? What misconceptions draw so many into doomed marriages? And — more importantly — what can we do to avoid them?

“You only know what happiness is once you’re married, but then it’s too late.” — Peter Sellers

Maybe unreasonable expectations are to blame. Just talk to a young girl about weddings. At the very mention of the word she will tremble with excitement, stricken with visions of satin gowns, ladies-in-waiting, her tall, handsome prince, roses clambering up a stone wall, and the castle guard standing at attention. Bluebirds and sparrows will flutter about her head, eagerly offering up white ribbons. Hers is a dream of happily-ever-after, preened and cultivated since early girlhood. No matter that the fantasy is unattainable. She wants it all the more.

A young man’s expectations of marriage might be markedly less picturesque, yet he will crow on about “defying the odds,” or how “love will conquer all things.” He, too, has fostered an illusion, a thinly-applied plaster over his emotional attachment to her legs, her breasts, and the gentle curve of her neck.

The very young see marriage as an opportunity to better themselves — a noble endeavor — and yet in some way they have been fooled. They fail to understand certain implications of the pact.

Why do we marry, really? The covenant is as old as civilization itself. It has been around at least since our first recorded history, when the code of Hammurabi dictated marriage laws to the people of ancient Mesopotamia. (Infractions often resulted in one party or another being cast into the river.) Over the centuries, humans have used matrimony to promote stability, to propagate the species in an orderly fashion. Logic tells us that the coupling of one male to one female assures no one be left out of the child bearing equation. But is marriage a man-made construct, or does it run deeper than human society?

Poets, philosophers, and biologists have long extolled species like swans, wolves, ducks, and prarie voles, who mate for life. The scientific term for this phenomenon is called “pair-bonding.” Some theorize that marriage, like pair-bonding, is an innate instinct in the animal kingdom. This view has recently been called into doubt, however, by certain scholarly types. Anthropologists David Barash and Judith Lipton, in their 2001 book “The Myth of Monogamy” prove that cheating — or “extra-marital copulations,” as they phrase it — runs rampant even among pair-bonded animals. Their findings seem to conclude that holding a single sexual partner for life is not only a difficult task, but an unnatural one, especially for (get this) the more dominant males of the species.

While Tiger Woods may take comfort in these scientific findings, I for one, cannot abide them. I say, when we start looking to beasts for marriage counseling, we may as well go ahead and try out eating our young, or bathing ourselves in our own feces. No, I do not see marriage as a struggle against our own nature. Rather, I view at it as an elevation of it. Yes, we all have animal instincts. Undeniable, physical instincts. But why not rise above them… mold our perceptions to our will, exalt our own mates over the rest, glory in their imperfections… and tarnish forever the allure of extra-marital copulations?

“Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.” — Oscar Wilde

I’m sorry if I’m beginning to sound religious. Well, I suppose I do believe that marriage is divine. A holy, life-altering, magnetic force. A miracle that draws two souls together, and holds them fast as a single flesh.

“Every creature seeks its perfection in another.” — Martin Luther.

And yet, I have known men who loved each other just as profoundly as any man and woman. I have seen such couples pair-bonded for long years, and I have come to believe that they, too, are married. I have looked upon these heathens and somehow I did not recoil, nor once fear for the safety of my children. Why? Doubtless, I figured, looking into the eyes of these rapturous deviants, my two-year-old daughter understood their relationship better than I could ever explain it to her. Who am I, anyway, to try and account for God and his sundry works?

I leave you as a Valentine’s gift five well-trodden phrases which have served me well over the past six years, and which I hope can help at least one couple stay together, thus tipping the scales in our favor. Please, use them liberally, and be sure to say them with intention.

“Let’s open a bottle.”

“Date night.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll do the dishes.”

“I appreciate you.”

And finally, the most important phrase of all… and you simply cannot overuse this one:

“Yes, dear.”