In other words, if experience doesn’t match up to the ideal, toss out the ideal.
But should we give up on an ideal just because it hasn’t worked out for us personally? That might make sense if marriage were an ideal simply because the majority, the powerful, or forces such as evolution or economics made it so. The unique status of marriage, however, is timeless. God ordained it as the basic institution for ordering human relations.
To esteem that ideal is not to dismiss singleness as second rate. Kate Bolick’s hunch is right: Our current status isn’t “provisional.” We’ll gain a better perspective on our circumstances, though, not by downgrading marriage, but by taking a higher view of what God is doing both now and in the long run.
Good advice in this article for everyone. As a single lady at the far side of middle age, when asked if I’m married, I smile and say, “Not yet.”
Well-written and thoughtful article…
“Now a magazine editor as well as a writer, she walked away from a serious relationship in her late 20s after struggling with “wanting two incompatible states of being—autonomy and intimacy.”
Are those states truly incompatible? I don’t think so, and not if you are with the right person, and, as the author says here, working from a foundation of mutual respect.
It can be hard, though–marriage is about compromise, and many desires within it(both “autonomous” or shared) require negotiation. That’s where I believe a lot of people underestimate it or can’t/don’t want to “deal”–I can name three people off the top of my head; good people who appear to have a lot to offer someone, but deep down are probably too combative and/or set in their ways to ever work in tandem with someone else. That does not mean at all that they are “less” as singles; frankly as singles they can contribute a lot of things to the world, say, that I cannot contribute at this time, being married and a devoted, busy parent of small kids. There’s more than one cog in a wheel. 🙂 It’s not “less”, it’s just different–because, to my mind, said three people would most likely be uncompromising as partners in a circle of two, making the latter a mess, eventually.
And, I’ve said before that, even barring the gymnastics of a negotiated relationship with a good companion whom you dearly love, it is much better to be single than be with a dope or someone with whom you’re incompatible. If my spouse is reading this, he may rest assured that he falls into the former category; hopefully I do, too. 🙂
Heck, sometimes it’s simply people’s personal preferences. I can think of several lovely singles in our parish, both men and women. One in particular would make you wonder if all the single men in the world were either dead, dumb, or gay–but, it’s her choice that she never wanted to be married. Wonderful Christian person that contributes much to the community, but a wedding to anyone was not anything she wanted. Nothing wrong with people being respected and supported for what is a healthy choice for them; better that than a lady like her being married when she does not want to be married; it would probably end miserably for both partners, and what would be good about that?!!
Thank you, Bookworm, for that last, very gracious paragraph!
I don’t understand why the marrieds have to incessantly publish articles about us and can’t leave us be!
Signed,
A single lady who is currently nibbling on homemade banana bread and will return to her reading because she’s not behooved to cook dinner for anyone. 😀