THE SONIC BOOMER
Sept. 6 is Mark’s and my anniversary. We will have been married 28 years — or maybe it’s 27, I’m not sure.
Yeah, I know. Most women can tell you to the hour how long they’ve been married. But I always wonder whether they’re keeping such close tabs on the date for celebratory reasons or to brag about how long they’ve endured married life.
Things are changing, for sure, but married life has not always been kind to women. Cooking, cleaning and having babies was its definition for centuries. Any woman who balked at this arrangement was viewed as broken in some way.
“I was trying to catch the eye of a certain guy at the pub, but Dale was seated between us. He thought I was flirting with him,” recounted one of my friends, an Englishwoman. “One thing led to another, and I found myself pregnant. I didn’t want to marry Dale, but the vicar told me my child would be known as a bastard if I didn’t. I couldn’t put that on my child.”
Marriage by threat — it’s more common than we’d care to believe. In pioneer times, “shotgun weddings” took place when a father found out a man had sullied his daughter’s reputation. Could have been sullying by mutual agreement, but that didn’t matter. To preserve the family’s honor, she had to marry the guy.
We think we’re much more civilized today, but we still have the good ol’ “biological clock” looming over our heads. If a woman doesn’t want to freeze her eggs and/or use a surrogate to carry her fetus to term, I can’t think of a more effective threat than “get married now or you will never have children.” Women in their 20s and 30s — women whose careers are just hitting their stride, women who are finally making some real money — have to make some serious choices. Put all that on hold, maybe forever, or forego having children.
By 2026, you’d think all that would’ve been put behind us. Medical miracles happen every day. Society is much more accepting of single parents or same-sex parents. You’d think that, by now, marriage and having children would be two completely separate decisions. But I read. I watch TV. I dabble in social media. And I see that young women are still grappling with these same issues. To have a “traditional” lifestyle, they must at least consider marriage before talking about having children.
I’m not saying marriage is bad. In addition to procreation, there are tons of benefits to it — even if you look past the benefits put in place by religious institutions, governments, loan officers, mortgage brokers, insurance companies, hospitals, banks, wedding planners and retailers to keep the idea alive.
For instance, if it weren’t for my husband, I wouldn’t have the time to write — I’d be out mowing the lawn. If it weren’t for me, my husband wouldn’t need to flee the house and ride around the yard on a lawn mower.
See? Mutually beneficial.
