How Marriage Changes Nothing - and Everything
I married for the first time just over a year ago, and before doing so, I would listen with interest to many married friends and relatives who would tell me that, “…marriage changes everything.” This surprised me because the usual defense for not getting married was that a piece of paper doesn’t change how two people feel about each other. I have found this to be both true and false.
My husband and I plunged into marriage after knowing each other just one day short of a year, but not without careful preparation. I brought home books on strengthening and preparing for marriage, filled with questions to answer and topics to discuss. It took us many evenings after work and on weekends to get through all the questions we hadn’t covered while dating. I felt we were well prepared, and he agreed. We were focused on the marriage, not the wedding, and somehow managed to skip the planning stress that often afflicts couples. We congratulated ourselves on our ability to look at the big picture and the long haul. And so we got married.
My first clue that things were now different occurred at the reception. An older relative walked up to me and asked when we were planning on having children. I laughed, thinking she was kidding, but she wasn’t. I was able to shrug off the question, for after all, my marriage was merely a few hours old. Didn’t certain things have to occur before that was even a possibility? And hadn’t I been within eyesight all afternoon?
That question was just the beginning of the subtle change in people’s minds about our relationship and my role in particular. Now I was no longer “just me” but also “his wife.” That alteration in identity carried with it an expectation that I would want and do certain things. Despite the advance of the status of women in society and the choices available to us, the prevailing societal wisdom seems to be that I handle the domestic drudgery and my husband do the maintenance and yard work. A startled neighbor, upon seeing me using the push mower to cut our grass, inquired if my husband was ill. When I replied that he was not, I was asked why I was doing “his job.” I cheerfully replied that he was busy doing “my job” – the laundry.
It is this persistent perception that certain parts of a marriage or duties are best divided by traditional gender roles continues to baffle and amaze me. True, you’d never convince my husband that the toilet needs to be scrubbed every week, just like you can’t get me to see the value of purchasing a tile saw for a small, one-time remodeling project, but I’m inclined to believe it’s personality based rather than a gender thing. Eventually the toilet will be revolting enough for him to scrub it, and if I sit down and do the math on the hourly cost of a tile saw rental, I do see the sense in buying it.
At his male-dominated office, my husband is now included in the rounds of mild complaining about wives, and just before our wedding was given a bottle of Scotch with the comment, “You’ll need this.” He chose to perceive it as an indication he would need it at the office, which we both know is not what they meant. On some level I think they are in awe he continues to attend his weekly guys’ night with some old college buddies where they play video games and eat takeout. I’m usually out that night too, so why shouldn’t he be? And why is there this assumption that I’m letting him do it, rather than recognizing he’s still an autonomous, decision-making adult with same interests as before?
As the weeks and months have passed, I’ve become less sensitive to offhanded remarks about our duties as husband and wife. Questions of “How’s married life?” are answered with, “Just like living together but with better dishes.” This oversimplifies it. What marriage did for us was give us a deeper appreciation for one another and the true feeling that we were a team, devoted to each other above all others in our lives. Society recognizes and respects that we are a family in a way it doesn’t for couples who are not married, fair or not. Marriage changed the value that our society puts on our relationship, but not how we felt about each other. It opened us up to gender stereotypes of our roles as “husband” and “wife” but didn’t change the fact that we are partners to each other with no expectations about traditional roles. Our marriage is ours alone, but the actual formal commitment to one another changed everything around us.
I think this was the message that my friends and relatives were trying to convey when they said that marriage changed everything. It is difficult to articulate, because on the surface, everything is the same even as there are subtle differences in each of you and your relationship. And society’s expectations aren’t changing overnight. But in the spirit of advancing equality, I asked for a riding lawn mower, not jewelry, for our first anniversary. I can’t wear it to dinner, but it makes it easier to wave to the neighbors.
Copyright Kathleen O'Connor. Published 1 July 2008 in Editorials.
Reader comments
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I really enjoyed this article. Fun to read, easy to relate to, and quite true!
permalink — 2 July 2008, 18:26
Kathleen manages to put into words what a lot of people feel and can’t articulate. Great job!
permalink — 4 July 2008, 13:20
I’ve been married for almost a year, and my experience has been rather different from that in the article. No one seems to have any expectations of us that have changed since we got married. I made it quite clear to friends and family that we aren’t having kids and that it’s not up for discussion, and then I moved 500 miles away from home and have very little contact with my family. My friends still treat me the same way—if they didn’t, I wouldn’t still be friends with them.
If other people are expecting us to act in certain ways because we’re married now, I’m quite unaware of it, because I don’t solicit others’ opinions and if they dare give them to me unsolicited, I tell them exactly where they can shove their ignorant opinions, which generally ends the conversation.
I also don’t really feel any different towards my husband now than I did a year ago. Before getting married, we’d been dating for over 7 years and engaged for 3. There have been no surprises, no change in the way we relate. I can honestly say that nothing has changed, and I’m happier for it. After all, if I liked the way it was before, why would I want it to change now?
permalink — 7 July 2008, 22:28
I wish Kathleen and Alex lived next door to me – you sound so sensible and calm about what makes so many people freak out.
Two things – I followed a link here from a feminist blog without even realizing I was on a childfree site at first. And my response? YAY! My partner and I are getting married in two months but kids are NOT on the agenda, ever. Period. I guess people here get that, but I’m always so pleased to find a validating space for a decision I’ve known was right for me since I was seven years old (no joke).
I’m also moving out of the country with my partner (he’s from another country, so we’ll go there for now – yay social welfare, can anyone say free healthcare and being gainfully employed while living a mile from the beach?). I’m looking very forward to getting away from the nosy, weird questions my relatives will surely lob at me – this way, they just can’t. I won’t be within reach. My partner and I have known each other for several years but only been together for one, but when you know, you know. But as a radical feminist who has been grossly misunderstood by my family for my entire life, why would I stick around for them to second guess my decisions one more time? I suspect that like Kathleen, I’ll get a lot of dumb questions that will make me more insecure than I previously was, and I’m not interested in that. As a radical feminist, choosing to get married was complicated enough. I need some space to be happy in my choice without explanations.
Thanks for this post. It sure made me feel better today.
permalink — 10 July 2008, 17:46
What a great article!! Change “better dishes” to “more pancakes” and that’s pretty much been my marriage experience of these past 3 months. I knew my husband for 8 years before we got married, and every one should know by now that we aren’t procreating. Unfortunately, our marriage did briefly open the “when are you having children?” can of worms, but I think I’ve managed to re-seal that one by reminding people “Please remind me when I’d ever said I wanted children”
permalink — 18 July 2008, 14:17