I remember when Rhoda got
married. Rhoda who? Rhoda Morgenstern, best friend of Mary Richards. Mary who?
Oh my…is my age showing? Rhoda Morgenstern was the best friend of Mary Richards
on The Mary Tyler Moore show back in
the 70s, and when she got spun off into her own series, Rhoda, she got married…on the show.
I don’t remember much
about the wedding, but one thing I do remember is how the vows ended.
They didn’t say “Til death do us part”, or even the variant of “as long as we
both shall live.” Instead, they said something that was new to me, and that
this then 18-year-old really liked.
If my memory serves me
correctly, they said, “As long as we both shall love.”
I was reminded of that as
I read the essay The Sacrament of
Divorce in Ann Patchett’s book Thisis the Story of a Happy Marriage. She mentioned that as she was getting
married for the first time, a marriage that she had her doubts about, but was
too naïve to know not to go into, she thought to herself that if this marriage
didn’t work, the only way out was to die.
To die.
No matter how miserable
they made each other. No matter how much one abused the other. No matter if at
some point they both realized that the kindest and most loving thing they could
do for each other was to dissolve the marriage, the only way out was for one of
them to die.
Fortunately, she realized
that, despite what she had been taught, she didn’t have to die in order to get
out of a bad marriage. But let’s talk about that. Why do we still say that?
I haven’t been able to
find out just when we started using that phrase in the English speaking world,
but I suspect that it goes back to the days when love had absolutely nothing to
do with marriage, and when it was often a way of cementing alliances, and the
two people getting married were expected to put up with each other out of a
sense of duty to something larger than themselves…and if they ended up liking
each other, that was a bonus.
But times have changed, and
we marry for love and not the to join families or empires. Our expectations of
people are different. Our expectations of what people should have to put up
with are different. So why are we still saying this?
Um…maybe because it
sounds nice? Let’s face it, at a certain level it appeals to the idealism of
those who get married…who can’t imagine how horribly bad things could actually
get. We can’t imagine what things will be like for us 30 years from now, and we
definitely can’t imagine the drinking or gambling problem that was successfully
hidden from us until a week after we promised to put up with it until one of us
died.
“As long as we both shall
love.”
I like the sound of that,
and yet, I realize that there are some people who think that that puts too much
importance on a feeling that could be fleeting, and that it comes down to
building a house on a foundation of sand that could shift at any time. There
are also those who think that anything but “til death do us part” is tantamount
to looking for an escape clause before the marriage has even begun. But do we really want to lock to people in a
marriage that is miserable, abusive, and unfulfilling until one of them dies?
I don’t.
So I say we should part
with “til death do us part.” What do I propose as its replacement? What do we
say that speaks to the idealism of the couple getting married, while
recognizing the reality that shit happens?
I’m not quite sure. I
just know that “til death do us part” has to go.
Posts
Why do we still say that?
ReplyDeleteBecause it's important to have a right understanding of what marriage essentially is, and a right intention to be faithful not only to one's spouse, but also to that essential nature of marriage -- even though we know that it is all too possible that the marriage will fail, and the vow will be broken. If the marriage does fail, then that is what it is: a failure. The vow has been broken. But that does not mean that there was something wrong with the vow. It means that one or both of the spouses were unable to keep the vow. A vow is a statement of the intent of the heart, not an enforceable contract. To dilute the vows because some will not be able to keep them is to cheapen the institution of marriage itself and to rob it of its meaning and power.
Of course, there is a difference here between civil marriage and Christian marriage. No one, I think, expects marriage as defined by the State to be a permanent bond. I don't know that a civil marriage ceremony even includes "til death do us part." But marriage as defined by Christ is different. The vow "til death do us part" is entirely consistent with His words "let no man put asunder."
The last thing we need now is any further damage to the institution of marriage.
I hope you're still there and listening, because you brought up some interesting points. At first I had thought about addressing them here in this response, but then decided that they deserved a blog post of their own.
DeleteSo hang on, and let me get through February, and I'll address what you've said.