Sunday, November 09, 2008 Singlestalk: Fall street By Darwin John Moises and Michelle Mendez-Palmares Singlestalk
Michelle: As promised, here’s a continuation of the myths why marriage is sometimes viewed by some people as something that’s always headed towards fall street.
Marriage Myth 4: The more educated a woman becomes, the lower are her chances of getting married. This myth, I believe, goes back to the Dark Ages when women were kept like chattels. According to David Popenoe in Top 10 Marriage, a recent study, based on marriage rates in the mid-1990s, concluded that today’s women college graduates are more likely to marry than their non-college peers, despite their older age at first marriage. So go ahead, get that masters degree!
DJ: I think someone who is learned will have an edge in almost all things in life. No wonder it’s a myth!
Matters like global markets falling and prices rising are already cramped inside the head of every man with an IQ bigger than his shoe size.
And everyone also seems to be talking their heads-off. We have yelling television news anchors and game show hosts, AM radio announcers proclaiming doomsday and FM DJ’s babbling insipidly in phony American accents.
It helps if a man is with someone who can hear herself think and not make noise as a convenient cover-up that she can’t. Come on. There’s a constant pressure for man to earn a living while at the same time, be a good father and a caring husband. It’s nice to have an arm candy. If she’s long-legged, that’s already a bonus. And if she also likes jokes that aren’t always spelled out for her in brightly colored letters, wow, the best!
M: For those who believe in “trial marriage” there is Marriage Myth 5: Couples who live together before marriage, and are thus able to test how well suited they are for each other, have more satisfying and longer-lasting marriages than couples who do not.
The fact is many studies have found that those who live together before marriage have less satisfying marriages and a considerably higher chance of eventually breaking up.
One reason, the writer says is that people who cohabit may be more skittish of commitment and more likely to call it quits when problems arise. But in addition, the very act of living together may lead to attitudes that make happy marriages more difficult. The findings of one recent study, for example, suggest “there may be less motivation for cohabiting partners to develop their conflict resolution and support skills.”
DJ: This also sounds a bit off to me. Marriage is a slippery slope if one is going through it for the wrong reasons. And living together can’t significantly change that. A miracle perhaps. What’s essential is that a person is willing and ready to love another as himself or herself. Life will still be imperfect. But one can think less of the where, the when or even the how once one has the why to commit one’s self fully to another.
Never mind if small, medium, and large become medium-large and super-size. Rule out the option to cohabitate. Check on the readiness level. It won’t always be a walk in the park. But it surely is a walk to remember.
M: Marriage Myth 6: People can’t be expected to stay in a marriage for a lifetime as they did in the past because we live so much longer today.
Popenoe writes that unless our comparison goes back a hundred years, there is no basis for this belief. He says the enormous increase in longevity is due mainly to a steep reduction in infant mortality. And while adults today can expect to live a little longer than their grandparents, they also marry at a later age. It is also interesting to note that according to the article, half of all divorces take place by the seventh year of a marriage. I think that’s why they call it the seven-year itch.
DJ: Yup. An itch that should have been wiped out at birth. It’s the myth that makes marriage head towards fall street. I belong to the generation of men who wants to be a good provider and protector of his family, not because he is a product of a patriarchal society, but because he loves them. We’re not drippy romantics. But at least we believe that hookups are for amateurs.
To love and to hold, for better or for worse, is for the real players who mean business. (To be continued)
