In Defense Of Burning Marriage To The Ground
... and rebuilding with something sustainable
Modern marriage is in trouble.
It doesn’t matter if you’re liberal or conservative, religious or secular, it’s likely you’ve had an inkling that marriage, as an institution, simply doesn’t work for most people — no matter how much they may wish it did.
It’s not exactly shocking, either. Expecting 21st century adults to behave like it’s the 19th century is just a set-up for failure and disappointment.
A tiny sliver of history
The modern concept of marriage as committing to a monogamous, romantic relationship is relatively new, historically.
Before that (at least in many Judeo-Christian and other Western traditions) marriage was a commodity, a tool for trade and tribe-building. Children’s betrothals were, essentially, bartered for. Yes, today we call that human trafficking.
That means modern marriage, one based upon love and monogamy, is only a few hundred years old. A tiny sliver of the human experience. So why do we act like this marital and family structure is somehow innate to humanity?
While it’s new in the course human evolution, socially, it is outdated. Think about this: The type of marriage you likely committed to was developed at a time when there were no antibiotics or chemotherapy, let alone ambulances or sanitary surgical theaters.
In other words, even if you married for love in 1899, you would be right to assume that you or your spouse would probably be dead within a decade or two. If you get married today at the age of 25, you could safely assume you’d have 60 or more years together.
When romantic, monogamous marriage was “invented”, most people didn’t even live for 60 years.
Regardless of the reasons the institution of marriage is crumbling, I’m here to say something that might make you uncomfortable:
It’s time we burned traditional, prescriptive marriage straight to the ground. In its place, we need to build marital systems that actually serve and support spouses (and their future children).
I’ve even got a (very loose) idea of how to do that.
So, who’s got the matches?
One-size marriage in an individualistic society
In nearly all areas of life, we agree that one size does not, in fact, fit all.
In fact, if you’re an American, you probably embrace the fact that there are many paths for many different kids of people.
Different people need different things (duh)
An easy way to illustrate this is to imagine a class of 200 kids graduating from high school in a standard city or town.
Not all of these graduates are going to go to a four-year college or university — nor should they.
For some kids, going straight into the family business is a better choice, for others, a skilled trade training school or apprenticeship offers the best future. Some kids may choose to go to a 2-year technical or certification program that sets them up for a career, and others might start at a 2-year CC or JUCO after which they may transfer to a traditional undergrad program.
Some of the kids headed to college will drop out and others will transfer after their first year. Some will graduate and continue on to a post-graduate degree. I think we all agree that every single one of these choices can be a good one for the right student.
(Of course, in real life, we don’t help all graduating students find a path to success like we have in this illustration, but that’s a conversation for another day!)
What we can all agree upon is that there isn’t just one path when it comes to education — nor should there be.
Why the ruse?
Despite the fact that we can all agree that different people need different things when it comes to things like schooling, careers, hobbies and more, the same is not true when it comes to relationships and marriage.
What’s more, as a society, it feels like everyone went to a meeting and collectively decided to pretend that the traditional marital structure works. How did we get here?
You’ve got one real marital option: life-long and monogamous
Note: Up until a few years ago, I would’ve included “heterosexual” in that list. Thankfully, that is one area in which the majority of Americans have opened their minds.
Not only are we all expected to commit to life-long monogamous marriages, our relationship paths and marital trajectories are expected to be shockingly uniform.
The accepted path to marriage almost always looks exactly like this:
Start dating around age 16
Date a few people before committing to one partner for a few years
Become engaged (with the man proposing to the woman, if heterosexual)
Have a wedding that costs a ton of money and involves a bunch of people whom we may or may not value as a couple
Have children after a few years
Retire and live happily ever after as grandparents
Cute, right? That’s the American dream. That’s how it should work, right? Two parents, a couple of kids, safety and security and a lifetime of bliss.
Based upon the fact that this program is almost universally-accepted as the “correct” way to do love, sex and family, one would think that it is an incredibly successful formula, right?
But it’s not.
Divorce rates are going down, but marriage is still failing
First, let’s look at the stats.
One well-researched and fact-checked article in PsychCentral (see link for citations) sums up marriage failure rates:
“Among adults 20 and older, 34% of women and 33% of men who’ve ever been married have been divorced. Among those ages 55 to 64, that number is about 43% for both sexes.”
As this article emphasizes, every year you are married increases your risk of divorce until age 65, when rates finally start to decrease.
Maybe you’re saying “Well, I personally think 57% of marriages staying intact is a huge success!” and I can’t blame you for that. 57% success rate is significantly better than, say, the number of new restaurants that are still in business after five years (20%, yikes).
But is that how want to define success when it comes to the foundation of your family, the bedrock of your children’s lives?
And when we move past divorce as the only measure of a “failed” marriage, things get even more bleak.
The low-bar definition of marital ‘success’
Is “not divorcing” really the only measure that matters when it comes to something you do literally every day for the rest of your life? Something in your home, in your bed, in your bank account, in your parenting?
What about happiness or overall life satisfaction, do they not matter?
Infidelity
Various studies yield different results (most often based upon data-collection methods and demographics sampled), but the rate is almost certainly somewhere between 20% and 40% of married people reporting having had sexual interactions outside of marriages that were supposed to be monogamous.
These are married people, not divorced people.
Can we call a marriage where there’s been sexual infidelity “successful”?
I don’t presume to know the answer to that because I — apparently unlike the majority of this country — don’t assume that what works for one married couple will work for another. If there was infidelity and a couple healed, that is wonderful.
But what if the infidelity was traumatic enough to jam a wedge between the spouses that can never be undone — but, because the couple is so committed to the marriage or their children, they decide to stay together?
Is that success?
Domestic violence
What about a marriage where physical abuse or assault takes place? Is that a successful marriage simply because they didn’t get divorced?
According to the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, 1 in 5 marriages experience domestic violence. Per the AAMFT:
“In almost 20 percent of all marriages and intimate partnerships, couples slap, shove, hit, or otherwise assault each other. Emotional abuse—verbal threats, humiliating or degrading remarks, and controlling behavior—is even more common.”
Many of these couples will likely divorce, but for those who do not, would we consider a marriage to someone who beats, torments or degrades you really a success?
I think we can all agree that it is not.
And yet, the burden placed upon people who are divorced is significant enough to assume that some of the people who stay in abusive marriages do so because of the fallout risk of divorcing an abuser. Not just the risk the abuser will further harm or kill you, but also social shame and the loss of a safety net. For many, divorcing an abuser means a life of abject poverty.
Society isn’t set up to support victims who aren’t the primary breadwinner in a family. Leaving an abusive marriage when you have children often means accepting a life of struggle, isolation, poverty and various forms of marginalization.
In a report produced by Purdue University, authors explain that half of the women and children who experience homelessness report having been victims of domestic violence. The report goes on to say:
“Research shows that a variety of factors may contribute to the poverty of women and children who have experienced domestic violence, including lack of affordable housing and lack of accessibility to legal assistance. Some of the most significant factors are barriers to employment.”
General misery
When it comes to happiness levels, can we consider a marriage where one or both of the partners report significant, lasting unhappiness with the relationship a success?
Happiness and satisfaction, as concepts, are hard to define — let alone measure — but it’s generally agreed upon that lots of people are unhappy in marriage.
Documentary filmmaker-turned-author-and-divorce researcher Dana Adam Shapiro told Buzzfeed: “I think 17% of marriages are happy. Fifty percent of marriages end, and of marriages that stay together, I think a third are happy, a third are happy enough, and a third are unhappy.”
Granted, this was ten years ago and he’s guessing, but has marriage really changed so significantly in ten years that one would expect this rate would actually go up significantly? The truth is, if you talk to (honest) married people regularly, this stat probably feels right.
The myriad ways 21C women aren’t served by 19C marriage
Millennial women — especially those who are married with kids — have started raising the alarm about the emotional and relational toll experienced by married mothers.
Data shows that married mothers do more of the housework and household management, including childcare (with a few exceptions, like discipline and activities, which are relatively evenly distributed), even if they both work full-time at paying jobs, which accounts for nearly half of all married couples.
TLC sums up a different study that compares married mothers and single mothers’ workload — and it was not what I was expecting:
“A recent study by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development found that married mothers or mothers who live with a male partner do more of the household chores like cooking, cleaning and laundry than single mothers who live without a partner.”
To put it casually, a woman who has the burden of both breadwinning and homemaking is, in essence, caring for her husband alongside her children.
If you think that the added work a husband brings to a breadwinning mother’s life will make her happy — or anything other than resentful — you’re naive.
If you think this is going to leave room for her to be horny for the husband she’s cleaning up after along with her kids, you’re ridiculous.
Just when you thought the gendered labor disparity couldn’t be worse, prepare yourself for this Science Daily headline:
Married mothers who earn more than their husbands take on an even greater share of the housework, research finds.
[Emphasis mine]
I need a nap.
Some people will thrive in traditional marriages
Let’s pause so I can make clear that I want you to get married if that’s your thing.
Not only do I want you to get married, I will attend your wedding and I will probably cry. I love romance, I love love, I love families and I love public declarations. I love fathers crying over their kids’ happiness, I love watching Haka performed in bridesmaid dresses and groomsmen’s suits. I love clapping along with the Hora.
I want you to get married in a church or under a chuppah if those are what are important to you. I want your sealing ceremony to be meaningful in the ways you hope it will be. I want you to jump the broom or have your Mehndi applied, if those are your respective traditions.
I want you to do you, Boo.
What I don’t want is for society at large to continue the masquerade that there is only one way to do marriage right.
Feeling defensive?
If you are happy in a traditional marriage, remember that not everyone is going to benefit from marriage like you have. Not everyone wants that. That is not a dig on your marriage, which I’m sure is wonderful.
If you’re feeling defensive, go back to the post-high school education analogy and cross-examine your reaction. Are you, as a person with a college degree, defensive when someone says college isn’t for them? Or that they would prefer a 2-year certification program? I doubt you are.
I bet you’re happy for people who find what works for them. The same applies to marriage.
My proposed marriage revolution (v 0.5)
Note: This is nowhere near a fully-formed plan. As you read this, imagine I’m telling you this over dinner at a sushi bar, not at a conference or in some other professional setting.
Step One: Get out of other people’s business
First and foremost, get out of other people’s marriages and their relationships in general. This includes your adult children.
If someone comes to you for advice, give honest and caring advice. If you think someone is in trouble, ask if you can offer them some insights and share some concerns. Otherwise, be quiet. Yes, even with your adult children.
Every person has the right to define happiness how they see fit, as long as it does not harm anyone else. So let people define what fulfillment looks like for them.
Even more importantly, not everyone is going to be safe or mentally well in a traditional marriage.
Step Two: Be honest about what marriage can and cannot guarantee
Things you are not guaranteed with marriage:
Monogamy
Fidelity
Honesty
Security (financial)
Security (emotional)
Children (happy, healthy or otherwise)
Respect (from inside or outside the marriage)
Happiness
Love
Emotional intimacy
Sex (good, bad or otherwise)
Safety (physical or emotional)
Self-esteem
The approval of your family (or your in-laws)
Things you are guaranteed with marriage:
A marriage license
Married tax status (in most cases)
That doesn’t mean you won’t have those things on the first list. You probably will have all of them at some point, and most of them some of the time. You will probably be happy a lot of the time, and you will be unhappy some of the time. This is how life is.
But if you think all marriages feature all of these things most of the time, you are painfully wrong. Not even most marriages feature all of these things, regardless of what both partners said when they agreed to it.
Step Three: Ask honest questions, give honest answers
Here are a few questions you should ask one another before you decide to get engaged, in addition to the convos everyone else already tells you to have (ie “how many kids?”, “what religion?”, etc).
The 10 painful conversations everyone must have before they get engaged (but almost nobody does)
Why do you want to get married (other than “I love you”) — and how does that mesh with the reasons I want to get married?
How shall we divide housework and childcare? How will that change depending upon who is earning money to support the household?
In what circumstances is sex, love or romance with someone other than your spouse acceptable? What should either of us do if we feel a strong and lasting attraction to someone outside of our marriage?
In what circumstances should married people keep secrets from one another?
Do you see yourself wanting to be married forever? If not, how many years is reasonable given your shared goals?
How often do you think you will want to have sex when we first get married? After we have a baby? As our kids are growing up? As we enter menopause/low-T ages?
What should we do if we find that we have mis-matched libidos/sex drives?
What should we do if we are fighting a lot or find ourselves unhappy in our marriage for an extended period of time?
In what ways will we each rely upon our relationship for validation or security? Do we each feel we can fulfill these needs consistently?
Is there a number of years after which we should have the option to “renew” our marital contract? Seven years? Fifteen? Should we never do this? If not, why not?
These conversations will initiate some pretty serious disagreements and probably some tears, if they haven’t been had before. But that is why they need to be had before you decide to get married — and especially before you decide to have children together.
Most people who are madly in love and ready to get engaged simply cannot imagine these scenarios being relevant — but I guarantee you at least seven of these ten issues will arise at some point in your lives together.
When they do, you want to know that the person you married has, at the very most basic level, the same general plan for what to do next.
Step Four: Accept that not all marriages should look the same & form new marriage models
Not all marriages should last forever.
Not all marriages should involve having children.
Not all marriages should be monogamous.
I’ve been thinking recently of a model for marital structure that offers three basic options. Like I disclaimed at the beginning of this section, this is a loosely sketched-out idea that’s just been bouncing around in my head, not a formal presentation.
Forget what your mom or pastor or great-aunt Tillie might want for you…
Which of these three marriage styles is best for you?
The “forever-and-ever, always-romantic” nuclear family model: This is what most people today believe they are signing up for. It is the most work, the most disappointing and the least likely to succeed exactly as intended.
It’s also extremely beautiful when both partners have the same goal and work their butts off to achieve it. You will likely need a therapist or trusted clergy to help you through various phases, but that’s OK. Like cars, marriages require regular maintenance to run smoothly — and, like (most?) cars, there’s no such thing as a lifetime bumper-to-bumper warranty.The “we mean business” marriage model: Picture here the couple who wants to form a family together to raise kids in a safe, healthy home — but doesn’t necessarily believe in “happily ever after”.
These people accept that they aren’t going to be the only source of their partner’s joy, and thusly they may prioritize each other’s hobbies, passions and careers over “couple stuff” or traditional family activities.
The routine maintenance needs of couples like this center around how to manage everyone’s schedules and who will do the work that needs to be done; the point being to ensure that workloads and emotional burdens are shared equally. They will also need to re-evaluate their agreement to be married when kids grow up, or any other time there’s a major change in goals.The “fast-and-loose” marriage model: Imagine the couple who gets married at a drive-thru chapel in Vegas, the couple who experiences a surprise and unplanned pregnancy before they were committed to a long-term relationship, or the anti-establishment couple who values freedom and individual expression over the acceptance of standard societal norms. While ethical non-monogamy may feature in example #2, I’d imagine this marriage model will be the most attractive to non-monogamous or polyamorous couples.
This couple may or may not have as many challenges as the first two, likely depending upon whether they have children together or not. But a marriage is a marriage, and it’s guaranteed to be a struggle at least some of the time. What they do when the struggle arises is up to them, as they have not previously decided how long they will try to keep their marriage intact.
Step Five: Accept that people & marriages change, and be willing to adapt
A few examples:
You started out believing you would want to have children two-to-five years down the road, but now one of you doubts you will ever want to be a parent.
You thought you were both monogamous, but one or both of you have discovered that you don’t want that anymore.
You both believed you wanted religion at the center of your marriage and family, but one of you has had a revolution of faith and now wants something different.
You agreed early on that, when you had kids, Mom would stay home with them while Dad served as breadwinner, but after a few years, Mom discovers that she would be happier with a paid job.
There are a million other scenarios that may arise, and they will, regardless of how much you agreed upon early in your marriage.
The only thing guaranteed in marriage is that you will both change and grow over the course of 30, 50 or 75 years together.
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The big question remains
How will you survive change if you believe that the promises you made when you were first married were truly meant to last forever?
For me, it all comes down to this:
Human beings are complicated and dynamic. If your marriage is not also dynamic and capable of handling complications, it won’t be able to keep up.
We change, we grow and we evolve. We face old traumas an experience new ones. We inevitably will experience huge loss over the course of our lives, just as we will experience profound joys.
With all of that in mind, how can you call yourself a good partner if you don’t accept that major changes will happen? How can you be a good husband or wife if you meet the changes in your partner with resentment?
Your spouse will not be the same at 45 as they were at 30. Neither of you will be the same after the birth of your children as you were the day you met.
Expecting otherwise is not only foolish — it’s cruel.
The cruelty of marriage is the elephant in the room
There are joyful, rewarding, happy marriages. There are beautifully balanced and healthy marriages.
There are marriages where there is almost no cruelty, almost no suffering. But based upon the data I cited earlier, it’s clear that the majority of marriages feature an upsetting amount of suffering.
I am of the opinion that expecting someone to stay in a situation where suffering continues without significant resolution or change is cruel.
I’m also of the opinion that expecting the vast majority of marriages to fit into a model that features such a high rate of suffering is cruel.
And while we all have the legal right to structure our marriages any way we’d like, I believe it is cruel to continue this large-scale masquerade where we all pretend as if the traditional structure, this 19th century model, of marriage will work for most people.
It’s cruel to the people getting married (as well as the children born into these families) to promise that their family structure will last forever, or even to imply that it should. That’s because the prescriptive nature of traditional marriage comes complete with an implicit message that divorce means you’ve failed and that you’ve damaged your children.
That is why marriage is dying a slow, painful death. It doesn’t work for everyone — or even most people — and expecting it to is cruel.
It’s time to burn society’s expectations of marriage to the ground and rebuild with something new. Something that works for all people who want to get married.
Joanna Schroeder is a writer, editor and media critic whose work has appeared in The New York Times and The Boston Globe, as well as many online publications. For more, including representation contacts, socials and clips, visit her Linktree.
If this were Medium I'd give you fifty claps.
This reminds me of this writer: https://medium.com/@Tullia/there-is-a-way-to-discourage-affairs-ab74e4cbc122
Brilliant, thoughtful, disturbing, urgently needed and painfully honest. I can feel this has been brewing in your head (and loins ?) for decades. I also wonder how age-appropriate children would feel about these paradigm shifts or potential upheavals?
At 67 years old and by no means a rigid traditionalist when it comes to relationships or marriage- as evidenced by my own partnership based in companionship and to be honest, reality-based need… I nonetheless found myself feeling some anxiety upon reading this. And that’s a good thing. It means you plucked the right chords; you rattled nerves.
You’re a fearless thinker: You toss up BIG questions then tackle them to the ground with analysis and genuinely open curiosity- two of your power tools. 👏👏.