I've been married twice now, and there's still so much I don't get about marriage.
They put all this emphasis on it in our society. And who is and who isn't married. But when you get married and you change your status everywhere, they never ask you to prove you're married. You can get all the benefits, health insurance, hospital visits, etc., just by saying you're married. No proof required. No one has ever asked me for my marriage certificate number or a copy of it. Seems weird to me. Not that I'm complaining, just seems weird.
Also, we hear all this talk about how it's an "instituation" but in what way? Every marriage is very different from every other one. And if it's so important to society for people to stay married, why isn't there more support for married couples? The only difference is that it's harder to break up if you're married.
What I mean is, there are no formal support structures, like counseling, therapy services, financial services, available to married couples that aren't available to single people. I'm not saying there should be mind you. But, if it's this awesome institution, shouldn't there be? As I say, seems odd to me.
It's also odd that the options everywhere are: Single, Married, Divorced or Separated. So you can go from single to married to divorced to married again. If it's so imporant to track all this, at your doctor's office or whatever, why isn't there something like, Divorced and remarried, Widowed and remarried. And conversely, why aren't the options just Single or Married? Is there really that much difference between Single and Divorced?
I would say there could be a big difference on an emotional, spiritual, or personal development level. But when I go to the dentist or when I apply for a car loan, is there really much difference between single and divorced?
OK, I'm really rambling now, close to a rant. But my main point is, it's a very odd instituation and it's odd the way society deals with it.
As always, a very insightful comment. Thanks again for chiming in.
Good point about the counseling thing! If you get marriage counseling, that's supposed to mean something is going wrong. It's not a fringe benefit or something.
I concur about the marriage certificate thing. If I can't write in "partnered" I just check married and write down mrpet's name. Nobody has ever asked me for proof, except when I tried to put him on my health insurance. Since I couldn't furnish any, we just used his instead.
Oooof. I'm still in the process of sorting out what marriage means to me. My mom's been married three times, I was in two of the weddings, and for a long time I looked down on people who'd been married more than twice.
Now I've been engaged and broken that off, and I'm seriously partnered with someone who was previously married for what were perhaps not the reasons he'd originally envisioned for the event (health insurance, mostly).
I think that the legal stuff that comes with marriage is so unfortunate - I believe you should be able to designate someone (partner or other family or close friend) to be your advocate in case of vital life threatening circumstances, and the tax stuff and health insurance crap - it's the symptoms of several broken systems, and there's got to be a way to deal with it such that people get married for reasons other than "financial convenience".
All that being said, I think I'd like to get married one day regardless - I like the idea of a formal, societally recognized manner of declaring my intent to partner with someone through good and bad.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2008-09-22 05:14 pm (UTC)They put all this emphasis on it in our society. And who is and who isn't married. But when you get married and you change your status everywhere, they never ask you to prove you're married. You can get all the benefits, health insurance, hospital visits, etc., just by saying you're married. No proof required. No one has ever asked me for my marriage certificate number or a copy of it. Seems weird to me. Not that I'm complaining, just seems weird.
Also, we hear all this talk about how it's an "instituation" but in what way? Every marriage is very different from every other one. And if it's so important to society for people to stay married, why isn't there more support for married couples? The only difference is that it's harder to break up if you're married.
What I mean is, there are no formal support structures, like counseling, therapy services, financial services, available to married couples that aren't available to single people. I'm not saying there should be mind you. But, if it's this awesome institution, shouldn't there be? As I say, seems odd to me.
It's also odd that the options everywhere are: Single, Married, Divorced or Separated. So you can go from single to married to divorced to married again. If it's so imporant to track all this, at your doctor's office or whatever, why isn't there something like, Divorced and remarried, Widowed and remarried. And conversely, why aren't the options just Single or Married? Is there really that much difference between Single and Divorced?
I would say there could be a big difference on an emotional, spiritual, or personal development level. But when I go to the dentist or when I apply for a car loan, is there really much difference between single and divorced?
OK, I'm really rambling now, close to a rant. But my main point is, it's a very odd instituation and it's odd the way society deals with it.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-22 09:15 pm (UTC)Good point about the counseling thing! If you get marriage counseling, that's supposed to mean something is going wrong. It's not a fringe benefit or something.
I concur about the marriage certificate thing. If I can't write in "partnered" I just check married and write down
no subject
Date: 2008-09-23 12:11 am (UTC)Now I've been engaged and broken that off, and I'm seriously partnered with someone who was previously married for what were perhaps not the reasons he'd originally envisioned for the event (health insurance, mostly).
I think that the legal stuff that comes with marriage is so unfortunate - I believe you should be able to designate someone (partner or other family or close friend) to be your advocate in case of vital life threatening circumstances, and the tax stuff and health insurance crap - it's the symptoms of several broken systems, and there's got to be a way to deal with it such that people get married for reasons other than "financial convenience".
All that being said, I think I'd like to get married one day regardless - I like the idea of a formal, societally recognized manner of declaring my intent to partner with someone through good and bad.