November 15, 2005
Kamloops Daily News


While gays and lesbians are taking their first steps through
the front door of marriage, heterosexuals are leaving
through the back door in droves.

For every ten marriages, four end up in divorce after 30
years according to Statistics Canada.  Most of those
marriages fail within three years.

They start off with great expectations.  Thousands of
dollars are spent on fairytale weddings.  The bride and
groom solemnly declare their everlasting love.

But fantasy withers in the light of reality.  One day, one
or both partners wake up to the sober realization that their
eternal union is unraveling.   

Romantic love is the problem with many marriages, says
author Laura Kipnis.  Physical attraction and sexual
gratification are not the ties that bind.

Romantic love hasn't always been a major factor in marriage,
and it's certainly not global.  Romantic love took hold in
the late eighteenth century in Western Europe and North
America.  In most of the world, arranged marriages are still
the norm; sacrifice and duty surpass romance.   Modern
western society regards these old values as backwards.

The growth of romantic marriage coincided with emerging
social trends, such as individualism.  That led to
self-centered expectations of marriage.  Soon, the hallmarks
of modern society - - courtship, personal fulfillment, the
expression of free will - - became integrated into marriage.

The romantic love complex is intrinsically flawed.  Lofty
expectations of sexual bliss and personal fulfillment set up
marriage for failure.  A union is no more than the sum of
its parts.  If both partners are taking, who is giving?

Once unhappy couples stop fighting long enough to notice how
miserable they are with their supposed soul-mates, a sinking
feeling starts to set in.

Divorced couples are not only fleeing the broken dreams of
matrimonial bliss.  They are also escaping the tyranny of
authority.

The rise of individualism and romanticism in the eighteenth
century was a threat to the church and state.  During times
of shifting beliefs and novel social ideologies, religions
struggled to assert control over the wandering flock. 

That's why the eighteenth century church got into the
marriage business with rules, licenses, and prohibitions of
divorce.  The Catholic Church, along with the backing of
monarchs, started to regulate marriage.  Divorce became
virtually impossible.

Before the eighteenth century, couples would marry and
divorce as they pleased.  Many couples married only after
children were born.

Religious conservatives still want to control who can or
can't get married. Yet those very conservatives have sown
the seeds of discontent in marriage.  It all started in the
1970s when worker's wages began to decline relative to
inflation, a trend that hasn't reversed since. 

Conservatives argued that in order to remain competitive
internationally, workers should not expect wage increase. 
If workers didn't accept pay concessions, jobs would be
transferred to countries.

With just one wage-earner, families could no longer make
end's meet.  Women were forced into the workplace, often
with no reduction in the work they did at home.

Feminists encouraged women to escape the shackles of
drudgery.  At a time when men's wages were dropping, women's
rights were rising.

For many women the freedom to work was liberating, even if
it meant less wages than men.  Women no longer had to suffer
abusive relationships or to be treated like property.

Some alarmists take the disintegration of marriage as a sign
of moral decay.  Couples are uncoupling at a rate that
hasn't been seen for centuries.

Some considerations remain as in medieval times.  Even happy
couples, giddy with romance, are thinking in practical
terms.

Look beyond the notions of romantic love and you will find
that the status and wealth of mates remains an unspoken
factor.  Rich, ugly men marry beautiful women and women of
high social ranking marry younger handsome men.

Although we don't like to admit it, economics still plays a
big role.  Expressions mask true motives.  Instead of saying
that we are motivated by "economics and social ranking," we
use vague terms like "chemistry," or "clicking."  

Many marriages fail because of money, or the lack of it. 
Romance is fleeting but financial standing and social
ranking can be forever.  Economics may be unromantic but
it's as big a factor as it ever was.  The difference now is
that it's romantically taboo.

Heterosexual coupling is back to what it has always been
about - - genuine love, progeneration, social status, and
the accumulation of wealth.

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