August is over, alas, and the end of this month brings with it the end of the summer marriage season.
I wound down the season by reading a piece by Patrick Parkinson, a law professor at the University of Sydney in Australia, who suggested that the fight for gay marriage in the Western world is having the unintended side-effect of turning my generation's attention back to marriage in a big way.
This is heartening, the author argues, especially in such times as these, where the institution of marriage is being challenged not only by gay-rights advocates, but by couples and mothers who choose to have children out of wedlock, and by the continually rising rates of divorce and unmarried cohabitation.
I don't know.
Maybe it's just the effect of coming off the summer roller-coaster of peak marriage season, or maybe it's the fact that I've spent the last month in deep, agonizing indecision over the cut of my bridesmaid's dress, or maybe it was seeing all those beaming faces at the gorgeous backyard wedding I attended last weekend, but I'd argue that marriage hasn't gone out of style for my generation at all.
Indeed, with shows like Say Yes to the Dress, Wedding SOS and Rich Bride, Poor Bride, one might say that weddings and marriages have permeated pop culture to such an extent that they're now a sort of obsession.
I'm curious as to how this "war on marriage" anxiety became so overwhelming. Perhaps it's because of the oft-quoted statistic that half of marriages end in divorce these days - whatever "these days" means.
(Nobody can ever give me a firm bounded limit on the time frame involved when they talk about "kids these days.")
But the Statistics Canada data seem to suggest that Canadians do believe in marriage. The 2007 data indicate that of a population of about 33 million, 15.9 million of us are currently married, while only 1.68 million have been through divorce. We're getting married later in life, true, and most of us cohabitate before we tie the knot, and more frequently we're choosing non-clergy to do it for us, but we're still marrying - with enthusiasm.
When my brother and I compared notes this summer, it seemed like an awful lot of the people we went to high school with were getting or were already married. Listing off names on fingers, we quickly moved into double digits. Statistics and stories point the same way: For my generation, marriage is the opposite of obsolete.
In fact, I'd go so far as to say that we valorize marriage too much. Of all the relationships that a person will have throughout their lifetime, marriage is the most celebrated. Legally and culturally, a husband of a year is considered to be of more importance than a lifetime friend, or a sister, or sometimes even a parent. It's seen as more important than being a good child, being a good friend, being a good grandchild or sibling. And getting married is a greater celebration than getting a degree, passing the bar, getting a promotion or any of the other ways we choose to organize and assign value to our lives.
Maybe it's because we have a party every time someone gets married. I think we'd value our coworkers a lot more if, every time we were hired, we were welcomed into the family with cake, music, alcohol and dancing.
Marriage has never stopped being important. But my generation disagrees with Parkinson when it comes to questions like why and how.
Of course marriage is changing - but it is surviving precisely because it is changing. It's gone from the exchange of human property to an exercise in performing essentialist gender roles to a personal union based on mutual love, respect and dedication. We should not lament this.
Many years ago, my grandmother and I were having lunch at the Ogden Point Cafe. Partway through my story about my friend's boyfriend's reluctance to do the dishes, an older gentleman, who had overheard me, leaned in and began talking about the days when men were men, women were women, marriage actually worked and nobody got divorced. He shook his head and said that kids these days just didn't know how to be happy in marriage.
Well, I think my generation actually is happy in marriage. And I think we're happier precisely because both partners are doing the dishes.
