Marriage in just four weeks?

[HomeschoolDad]

I wasn’t (and am not) speaking of chastity in general, just cohabitation.

I understand that, I was just responding to the idea that, even though it might be “most”, a significant percentage of couples do not cohabitate, nevertheless, that does not mean they are remaining chaste. If there were absolutely no danger of unchastity, as might be the case with elderly couples with low libido, it would be very difficult to make a case against living together, even without benefit of engagement.

I know of one elderly couple who are very explicit that they live together for financial reasons (to be able to keep their pensions and benefits that they would lose if they legally married), and that there is “nothing going on”. I take that at face value, and to those who would echo the modern refrain that “it’s none of anybody else’s business”, I would only say that there is such a thing as giving scandal, and they are absolutely right to make their circumstances known, precisely to keep from giving scandal. The lady partner in the couple is a faithful Catholic, participates fully in parish sacramental life, the pastor has no problem with it, and neither do I.

 

[babochka]

My parents married six weeks after they met and my dad was gone for two of those weeks. It wasn’t ideal. They really didn’t know each other, but they did love each other. They had 50 years of successful marriage before my dad died in 2018.

 

[EmilyAlexandra]

Yes, I am always puzzled by those couples who seem to regard fiancé(e) as a long-term status seemingly with no intention of getting married any time soon.

I also don’t understand why people think that a wedding has to take ages to arrange. Somebody told me recently that she was going to have to have a baby before she got married. Her reasoning was that at 35, she could not afford to put off trying to get pregnant until she was 37. I was confused. Why would she have to wait until she was 37 before she could try to get pregnant? Apparently she reckons it takes two years to organise a wedding. Given that they only want a civil marriage, it can be arranged in a matter of weeks. Admittedly, I did have a 2-year engagement myself, but my excuse is that I was only 19, so it was impractical to get married any sooner. The wedding was basic. My dress was from a charity shop, the flowers were from a friend’s garden, another friend made the cake, etc.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

I also don’t understand why people think that a wedding has to take ages to arrange.

It doesn’t. I suspect that, a lot of times, people are just trying, whether consciously or subconsciously, to find “reasons why not”, possibly to give themselves an “escape hatch” as long as they possibly can. And weddings in this country are big business. In America, you never have to scratch too far below the surface, to find the “Benjamins factor”, regardless of the endeavor at hand.

Yes, I am always puzzled by those couples who seem to regard fiancé(e) as a long-term status seemingly with no intention of getting married any time soon.

In addition to what I said above, there may also be the concept of “I want to lock this partner in, to make sure I don’t lose them”. And not to sound too cynical, but it can also be one partner’s (or even both partners’) desire to “keep their options open”… you know, just in case someone better would come along… happens all the time. They’d never admit it, but it does happen.

One aspect that is rarely acknowledged, is the injustice that is done to one partner, when the other one changes their mind. Two, three, four years “off the marriage market” has meant that the partner, who was expecting to get married, has lost the opportunity to find someone who would go through with getting married, and has to “start from scratch”. This kind of fickleness is just accepted as part of the warp and woof of society, but nobody ever stops to think about the injustice of it. Put another way, “you either want to marry me, or you don’t want to marry me, which one is it?”. Fish or cut bait, so to speak.

 

[Lifeisbeautiful3]

One aspect that is rarely acknowledged, is the injustice that is done to one partner, when the other one changes their mind. Two, three, four years “off the marriage market” has meant that the partner, who was expecting to get married, has lost the opportunity to find someone who would go through with getting married, and has to “start from scratch”.

I call that “perma-dating”. As long as both parties are okay with it, I’m not sure it’s always a bad thing. What if folks date their whole lives and never have sex? Again, so long as ‘all the cards are on the table’ it might well be okay.

 

[Shasta-Rose]

Two, three, four years “off the marriage market” has meant that the partner, who was expecting to get married, has lost the opportunity to find someone who would go through with getting married, and has to “start from scratch”.

Exactly. That happened to me before I finally married someone else. After a couple of years, my boyfriend left me. I was furious. He stole a couple of years of my youth that I could never get back. I vowed that wouldn’t happen again.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

HomeschoolDad:

One aspect that is rarely acknowledged, is the injustice that is done to one partner, when the other one changes their mind. Two, three, four years “off the marriage market” has meant that the partner, who was expecting to get married, has lost the opportunity to find someone who would go through with getting married, and has to “start from scratch”.

I call that “perma-dating”. As long as both parties are okay with it, I’m not sure it’s always a bad thing. What if folks date their whole lives and never have sex? Again, so long as ‘all the cards are on the table’ it might well be okay.

If that’s what they want to do, and they are being chaste, that is fine, that’s their choice. This might be more apt to happen if the couple is of a certain age, they’ve grown accustomed to one another, and there is no “ticking clock”, whether of fertility, or just eligibility and foregoing other opportunities in general. Put another way, they’re not “on the market” and probably wouldn’t be looking for someone else, even if the relationship eventually fell through, or one of the partners died.

HomeschoolDad:

Two, three, four years “off the marriage market” has meant that the partner, who was expecting to get married, has lost the opportunity to find someone who would go through with getting married, and has to “start from scratch”.

Exactly. That happened to me before I finally married someone else. After a couple of years, my boyfriend left me. I was furious. He stole a couple of years of my youth that I could never get back. I vowed that wouldn’t happen again.

I am very sorry this happened to you, but this is precisely the type of injustice I’m talking about.

Our society is so ethereal, so poetic, so lovesick, when it comes to the subject of marriage — “there is one who is right for you, and it will happen [Catholics would add here “if God wills it”; non-Catholics typically don’t have a concept of God positively willing that some people should not marry] at just the right time, so don’t worry about it, it will all fall into place”. It would be nice if our society were this conformed to “just letting things happen” in other aspects of life besides marriage — people would be a lot less stressed-out and happier on top of that.

 

[Greenfields]

I think a certain amount of instruction from a priest would need to be considered if it’s to be a Catholic wedding.