Quesiton about marriage

[AnneElizabeth]

Quick question…

Do you think people are marrying for the wrong reasons these days? If so, please state the reasons…

I’m really curious to hear everyone’s replies. Thanks in advance!

 

[Kelfa28]

Yes and No

I think most people are way too naïve to actually understand what marriage is.

Marriage is about self-sacrifice and loving one another selflessly. It is not just spending the rest of your life with someone you love.

So, no…I don’t think the vast majority of people are intentionally getting married for the wrong reasons…but I don’t think they know what the right reasons are.

 

[Xantippe]

Quick question…

Do you think people are marrying for the wrong reasons these days? If so, please state the reasons…

I’m really curious to hear everyone’s replies. Thanks in advance!

No more so than in the past.

Consider that in the past and present in many cultures, marriage has been the only legitimate way for young women to leave home. Hence, many women have married just in order to escape the parental home.

Here are some other traditional reasons to get married that are iffy:

–having been raped by the groom (see, for example, Deuteronomy 22:28-29)
–pregnancy
–pleasing parents
–marrying money
–uniting property/business interests
–acquiring a title of nobility
–cementing alliances
–because the bride or groom is your cousin and you’re supposed to marry your cousin (see, for example, Pakistan)
–concealing homosexuality or other unusual proclivities

The desire for marriage in order to have a fancy wedding (which is probably what you are thinking of) is not that new a phenomenon. See, for example, Pride and Prejudice and Mrs. Bennet’s enthusiasm over Lydia’s bridal finery and lack of interest in the question of how suitable Wickham actually is as a prospective husband.

The worst purely modern reasons for marriage are probably some of the following:

–greed for gifts (see, for example, destination weddings where the guests wind up funding the wedding)
–health insurance (but understandable!)
–visa issues (but also understandable–it’s hard to conduct a courtship when each is in different countries)

But that aside, I think that people in the US do generally marry for good reasons–they want to be together for life, they want to unite and stabilize their finances, they want to have children together, they want to have a permanent home together, etc.

 

[AnneElizabeth]

…

The desire for marriage in order to have a fancy wedding (which is probably what you are thinking of) is not that new a phenomenon. …

Actually, its not what I was thinking about, but I can see how you might have thought that considering some of my past posts.

Thank you for your responses so far.

 

[chero23]

People in the past would get married to leave the house. As I was growing up, they were getting married to have sex.

I think like in every generation, you have your mature individuals and those who don’t care.

 

[Lou2U]

I don’t think that more people are marrying for the wrong reasons, but I think it’s easier to end a marriage and less incentive to work on it because of that.

Lou

 

[Xantippe]

I don’t think that more people are marrying for the wrong reasons, but I think it’s easier to end a marriage and less incentive to work on it because of that.

Lou

And easier to avoid entirely.

 

[Beryllos]

But that aside, I think that people in the US do generally marry for good reasons–they want to be together for life, they want to unite and stabilize their finances, they want to have children together, they want to have a permanent home together, etc.

I would agree with that.

AnneElizabeth, what constitutes “wrong” in this context? What are some wrong reasons you can think of? What are the right reasons, as you see them?

 

[vallancec]

I don’t think that more people are marrying for the wrong reasons, but I think it’s easier to end a marriage and less incentive to work on it because of that.

Lou

I agree with you Lou. It seems many people don’t want to work at a marriage.

 

[Padres1969]

Your post hit home when I was thinking about what I know about of my family past and marrying for the “right reasons” in the past. As I’ve grown up I’ve learned a few things about extended family, my grand parents and great grand parents that frankly I found shocking given the nostalgic view people so often use when talking about the “good old days” when people did things for the “right reasons”.

My maternal and paternal grandparents BOTH married due to pregnancy (and the societal expectation that you had to be married to have a pregnancy, particularly for “good Catholic couples” with devout Catholic parents to consider). And a maternal great great grand father essentially raped a Native American girl and then married her because back then it was as you do?

And even when I consider my parents generation (baby boomers) the “right reasons” end up seeming a bit of a contradiction. That generation has 4 couples in my immediate family tree. 2 couples did things more or less Catholic proper with more formal courting (for the 1970’s mind you), married in full proper Catholic weddings, married for both love and for the desire to have families, etc… 1 couple stole away and married in a civil ceremony several states away in part to screw with their parents who were completely opposed to them even dating never mind marrying (and my aunt left the RCC to convert to my uncle’s faith later on). And my own parents married (in a nice Catholic wedding) primarily for lust, by my dad’s own admission, after only knowing each other for only 6 months (and my dad had been cohabiting and sleeping with another women when they met who he promptly asked to leave his house so my mom could move in before they married). I’ll give you one guess which two couples are still happily married in deeply loving and abiding relationships today (both for more than 35 years) and which two couples have long since divorced far less than amicably due to adultery…

So what are these “right reasons” you speak of is my ultimate conclusion? Granted it’s a small sample size, but the idea of “right reasons” to me is a fiction. What’s right for one couple is not going to be right for another. I mean I got tons of flak early on in my relationship with my wife from a pair of couples who I was good friends with for what they saw as deficiencies in the reasons my wife and I were together particularly when compared to their own relationships. They’ve both long since divorced as well. And my wife and I are still happily married and welcoming our first child in a few weeks who we are happy to be welcoming but frankly had no real plans for until she made herself part of our plan.

Based on my family experience, Lust, Parental Spite, Out of Wedlock Pregnancy, Simply Enjoying each other’s company, and as frighteningly possible as it seems even Rape, seem to have a solid track record of trumping Deep Abiding Love, Respect, planned Desire to Raise a Family, and other traditional notions of what are the “right reasons” to marry at the time the decision to marry is made.

 

[HerCrazierHalf]

Quick question…

Do you think people are marrying for the wrong reasons these days? If so, please state the reasons…

I’m really curious to hear everyone’s replies. Thanks in advance!

And what would the “right reasons” be?

I think part of the divorce issue is that societal expectations out pressure from family or even the spouse pressured people to marry who shouldn’t have. I.e. “because we should” = The wrong reason and I think there was more of that in previous decades compared to today.

I think fewer people marry for the wrong reasons, but unlike decades before they were not forced to stay married. Also, a growing number of people realised that they don’t need to get married (practically speaking, not morally).

Wrong reasons include:
She gave an ultimatum.
She/He is waiting for marriage before becoming sexually intimate.
Pressure from those outside the relationship. (Family, friends, etc)

 

[AnneElizabeth]

A couple of you asked me what the ‘wrong’ reasons would be… I didn’t ask the original question because it came from my thoughts, but because I overheard it being said once and I had wondered what other people’s take on it was. I also found a non Catholic Christian website with a list of wrong reasons, I felt maybe the Catholics had something to share or add in to that view… So, I don’t’ really have an opinion to share on that… not yet at least.

I hope others will still share.

 

[AnneElizabeth]

Your post hit home when I was thinking about what I know about of my family past and marrying for the “right reasons” in the past. As I’ve grown up I’ve learned a few things about extended family, my grand parents and great grand parents that frankly I found shocking given the nostalgic view people so often use when talking about the “good old days” when people did things for the “right reasons”.

My maternal and paternal grandparents BOTH married due to pregnancy (and the societal expectation that you had to be married to have a pregnancy, particularly for “good Catholic couples” with devout Catholic parents to consider). And a maternal great great grand father essentially raped a Native American girl and then married her because back then it was as you do?

And even when I consider my parents generation (baby boomers) the “right reasons” end up seeming a bit of a contradiction. That generation has 4 couples in my immediate family tree. 2 couples did things more or less Catholic proper with more formal courting (for the 1970’s mind you), married in full proper Catholic weddings, married for both love and for the desire to have families, etc… 1 couple stole away and married in a civil ceremony several states away in part to screw with their parents who were completely opposed to them even dating never mind marrying (and my aunt left the RCC to convert to my uncle’s faith later on). And my own parents married (in a nice Catholic wedding) primarily for lust, by my dad’s own admission, after only knowing each other for only 6 months (and my dad had been cohabiting and sleeping with another women when they met who he promptly asked to leave his house so my mom could move in before they married). I’ll give you one guess which two couples are still happily married in deeply loving and abiding relationships today (both for more than 35 years) and which two couples have long since divorced far less than amicably due to adultery…

So what are these “right reasons” you speak of is my ultimate conclusion? Granted it’s a small sample size, but the idea of “right reasons” to me is a fiction. What’s right for one couple is not going to be right for another. I mean I got tons of flak early on in my relationship with my wife from a pair of couples who I was good friends with for what they saw as deficiencies in the reasons my wife and I were together particularly when compared to their own relationships. They’ve both long since divorced as well. And my wife and I are still happily married and welcoming our first child in a few weeks who we are happy to be welcoming but frankly had no real plans for until she made herself part of our plan.

Based on my family experience, Lust, Parental Spite, Out of Wedlock Pregnancy, Simply Enjoying each other’s company, and as frighteningly possible as it seems even Rape, seem to have a solid track record of trumping Deep Abiding Love, Respect, planned Desire to Raise a Family, and other traditional notions of what are the “right reasons” to marry at the time the decision to marry is made.

I thank you for this honest assessment!

I know you implied which ones, but I wasn’t exactly clear on which couples you mentioned stayed together and I’d like to know more about what happened in those relationships. When you say those aspects "trumped’ deep abiding love, respect… etc… When you said ‘trumping’ did you mean that those are the ones that lasted? Do you mean to say lust, parental spite, out of wedlock pregnancy…etc… are the marriages that lasted? While the traditional ‘right reasons’ failed?

I sometimes wonder if the notion of ‘right reasons’ is a set up for failure due to pride. They say pride comes before the fall, and people can be fooled by their piety to think its not actually pride, when its a false lull to security. If one thinks they’ve ‘made it’ they usually don’t do the work it takes, the upkeep. Things backslide or fade/weaken.

Congrats on the upcoming birth of your first child! How exciting! May God bless you all.

 

[AnneElizabeth]

I would agree with that.

AnneElizabeth, what constitutes “wrong” in this context? What are some wrong reasons you can think of? What are the right reasons, as you see them?

I wish Xantippe’s quote was in your quoted box too because what I’m going to say has something to do with what she said as well…

I answered your question to me in a post above, so please see that before reading the rest here…

Part of why I’m asking this is because when I was studying God’s Word, it is said “what God put together may no man tear asunder” when it comes to marriage… I’m wondering what is that makes marriage something ‘that God put together"… is it just two people making an arrangement? Just the ‘love’ itself they share? Remember even that can fade in time. Who knows who is here in one’s life for a season, a reason or a lifetime? Who could know the distinction? How is any of that "what God put together’ as it is said? That phrase just seems to denote something of a more significant event or notion than just two people deciding themselves… Two people deciding is not “God putting together”… if that were so, even fornicators can do that, and by God’s Word that is considered a sin. So what about two people saying vows in a Catholic ceremony - is that “God putting together”? Is the sacrament vows/ceremony itself acting as God or is there something more that needs to be going on? I would think so, otherwise we would not have this problem with annulments… a.k.a. “people marrying for wrong reasons”.

There is so much controversy over some things regarding marriage currently with the Pope and some councils lately (annulments/remarriage/communicates). I’m wondering if we’ve lost touch with something because of abuses over the years- as that happens when pastors get lax and more and more people slip away from a sacrament’s true meaning- it almost becomes common place and the original meaning gets lost and the masses of people make mistakes they don’t understand are mistakes. What does “what God put together” mean? What does that look like, and how would you know? These are actual words that are said at a wedding ceremony. Its also a warning! So I think its something that should be taken heed of… both when planning to marry and also when speaking against a marriage or trying to come between two people who are. Seems also by that statement that the notion of love is a true mystery, and one that,*** if truly sent by God,*** God would be most un-pleased if we did not hold it on the level of sacredness.

Also, there is the legal side to marriage, but is that pleasing to God? Is that what He meant for people?

Xantippe brought up two people wanting to marry for stable finances…I have concerns over that too… sure that is good and smart, but even Mary and St. Joseph did not have that… stable finances that is, they were poor as the legends say. However, I concur that they married to help each other out and I’m sure financially they helped each other, … and *that *marriage was by God’s decree.

 

[Padres1969]

I thank you for this honest assessment!

I know you implied which ones, but I wasn’t exactly clear on which couples you mentioned stayed together and I’d like to know more about what happened in those relationships. When you say those aspects "trumped’ deep abiding love, respect… etc… When you said ‘trumping’ did you mean that those are the ones that lasted? Do you mean to say lust, parental spite, out of wedlock pregnancy…etc… are the marriages that lasted? While the traditional ‘right reasons’ failed?

I sometimes wonder if the notion of ‘right reasons’ is a set up for failure due to pride. They say pride comes before the fall, and people can be fooled by their piety to think its not actually pride, when its a false lull to security. If one thinks they’ve ‘made it’ they usually don’t do the work it takes, the upkeep. Things backslide or fade/weaken.

Congrats on the upcoming birth of your first child! How exciting! May God bless you all.

The two couples who married for the traditionally considered “right reasons” in what would be considered good valid Catholic weddings in the baby boomer generation are the two I was implying failed. And in the worst way too with multiple instances of adultery. But both unraveled over an extended period of time, with one being an entirely loveless marriage at the end that they tried to keep going simply for the sake of one of their children until even that wasn’t possible. The two couples still together in long lasting loving marriages from the baby boomer generation were the two that were undertaken in some respects for what would be considered the “wrong reasons”, namely parental spite and lust. Same with the previous generation where the marriage was undertaken for out of wedlock pregnancy reasons. I’ve probably never met a more loving and committed couple than my now deceased grandparents. Those and the other traditionally viewed as “wrong reasons” marriages were the ones I meant that trumped the typical “right reasons” to marry as they’re the ones that lasted and were loving marriages.

Now that’s not to say they succeeded long term because of the “wrong reasons” they were formed per se, but I sometimes wonder if that doesn’t play into why they succeed. Because they weren’t perfect from the outset and certainly weren’t treated as perfect by those around them. They had outside forces willing them to fail. I mean looking at them, keeping the secret of an out of wedlock pregnancy in the 1940’s had to be a minor hell. An interracial marriage between a white man and an “Indian” in the late 1800’s even more so. A marriage between a guy from a staunchly insular Armenian family and a Catholic girl where neither set of parents approved. A marriage where his mother saw her as this young interloper who was not good enough for her son, and her mother saw him as this lazy layabout who had no business marrying her daughter. And a marriage where a the guy’s parents early reaction before they married was that he should “really sample the ‘buffet’ more” before settling on a slightly older nerd girl…

Sometimes it makes me wonder if one of the keys to a successful marriage, is having people at the outset be against you, so that you learn to work together as a more cohesive unit in part against those forces against you, while also building an abiding love of each other to compensate for a perceived lack of love from those same outside sources. Not that I’d recommend everyone immediately start criticizing your loved ones choice of mate, but I can’t help but find it happening time and again, generation after generation, at the outset of marriages in my own family to be startling. And luckily so far, that outset and perhaps even beneficial hardship criticism, fades and is replaced by love and support from outside as well.

 

[Xantippe]

I thank you for this honest assessment!

I know you implied which ones, but I wasn’t exactly clear on which couples you mentioned stayed together and I’d like to know more about what happened in those relationships. When you say those aspects "trumped’ deep abiding love, respect… etc… When you said ‘trumping’ did you mean that those are the ones that lasted? Do you mean to say lust, parental spite, out of wedlock pregnancy…etc… are the marriages that lasted? While the traditional ‘right reasons’ failed?

**I sometimes wonder if the notion of ‘right reasons’ is a set up for failure due to pride. They say pride comes before the fall, and people can be fooled by their piety to think its not actually pride, when its a false lull to security. If one thinks they’ve ‘made it’ they usually don’t do the work it takes, the upkeep. Things backslide or fade/weaken. **

Congrats on the upcoming birth of your first child! How exciting! May God bless you all.

That is a very good point.

I try to point out from time to time on CAF that not having sex before marriage is not all there is to having a happy marriage.

 

[Xantippe]

I wish Xantippe’s quote was in your quoted box too because what I’m going to say has something to do with what she said as well…

I answered your question to me in a post above, so please see that before reading the rest here…

Part of why I’m asking this is because when I was studying God’s Word, it is said “what God put together may no man tear asunder” when it comes to marriage… I’m wondering what is that makes marriage something ‘that God put together"… is it just two people making an arrangement? Just the ‘love’ itself they share? Remember even that can fade in time. Who knows who is here in one’s life for a season, a reason or a lifetime? Who could know the distinction? How is any of that "what God put together’ as it is said? That phrase just seems to denote something of a more significant event or notion than just two people deciding themselves… Two people deciding is not “God putting together”… if that were so, even fornicators can do that, and by God’s Word that is considered a sin. So what about two people saying vows in a Catholic ceremony - is that “God putting together”? Is the sacrament vows/ceremony itself acting as God or is there something more that needs to be going on? I would think so, otherwise we would not have this problem with annulments… a.k.a. “people marrying for wrong reasons”.

There is so much controversy over some things regarding marriage currently with the Pope and some councils lately (annulments/remarriage/communicates). I’m wondering if we’ve lost touch with something because of abuses over the years- as that happens when pastors get lax and more and more people slip away from a sacrament’s true meaning- it almost becomes common place and the original meaning gets lost and the masses of people make mistakes they don’t understand are mistakes. What does “what God put together” mean? What does that look like, and how would you know? These are actual words that are said at a wedding ceremony. Its also a warning! So I think its something that should be taken heed of… both when planning to marry and also when speaking against a marriage or trying to come between two people who are. Seems also by that statement that the notion of love is a true mystery, and one that,*** if truly sent by God,*** God would be most un-pleased if we did not hold it on the level of sacredness.

Also, there is the legal side to marriage, but is that pleasing to God? Is that what He meant for people?

Xantippe brought up two people wanting to marry for stable finances…I have concerns over that too… sure that is good and smart, but even Mary and St. Joseph did not have that… stable finances that is, they were poor as the legends say. However, I concur that they married to help each other out and I’m sure financially they helped each other, … and *that *marriage was by God’s decree.

Mary and Joseph had only one (1.00) child and Joseph was a craftsman.

I suspect they weren’t that poor by their local standards. Even from the Gospels, you can see that there were many socioeconomic rungs lower than them–for instance the agricultural day laborers that are mentioned in the Gospels or slaves.

 

[AnneElizabeth]

The two couples who married for the traditionally considered “right reasons” in what would be considered good valid Catholic weddings in the baby boomer generation are the two I was implying failed. And in the worst way too with multiple instances of adultery. But both unraveled over an extended period of time, with one being an entirely loveless marriage at the end that they tried to keep going simply for the sake of one of their children until even that wasn’t possible. The two couples still together in long lasting loving marriages from the baby boomer generation were the two that were undertaken in some respects for what would be considered the “wrong reasons”, namely parental spite and lust. Same with the previous generation where the marriage was undertaken for out of wedlock pregnancy reasons. I’ve probably never met a more loving and committed couple than my now deceased grandparents. …

Hey, thanks again for your honest assessment. I appreciate to know more about those scenarios too, so thank you for clearing that up for me. I can say too some of the happiest loveliest couples I knew who stayed married to the end which were not conventional relationships.

I think its true too that adversity helps build strength, and yes, like as you said, its not like you’d go and make adversity for a couple to make them stronger, but that the situation they had found themselves in, the battle they had to fight to keep their love alive, some what saved them from failing, and crafted them to be close to one another… to strive to work for that relationship. Or was it that their love was true to begin with?!

 

[AnneElizabeth]

Mary and Joseph had only one (1.00) child and Joseph was a craftsman.

I suspect they weren’t that poor by their local standards. Even from the Gospels, you can see that there were many socioeconomic rungs lower than them–for instance the agricultural day laborers that are mentioned in the Gospels or slaves.

Oh, Xantippe, not to knock what you believe here but I found this:

catholic.com/quickquestions/was-the-holy-family-really-poor

It says that by Scripture, we can deduce that the Holy Family was indeed poor.

 

[djames99]

Quick question…

Do you think people are marrying for the wrong reasons these days? If so, please state the reasons…

I’m really curious to hear everyone’s replies. Thanks in advance!

If they were brought up in a practicing Catholic family and were schooled in the Catholic Faith I would not be overly concerned, but sadly that is rare today. But generally chaperones and engagement periods all lent to ensure a period of familiarity between couples and to expose these potential problems.