Besides being rather exciting even for a grown-up girl (Nathaniel has been smirking at me over his coffee this morning while I watched parts of the ceremony), Prince William’s marriage to Kate Middleton provides a perfect opportunity for a little chatter about the state of marriage in America and the Western world.
The Christian Science Monitor put up an article titled “How Kate Middleton and Prince William could hurt marriage in the U.S.” It argues that, by glorifying “fairytale,” expensive weddings, their wedding will cause fewer people to marry because the trouble and expense is too great. Indeed, at an average of $30,000 per American wedding, the rising expense can really hurt young couples starting out by such an outlay on one day with nothing to show later for it but a few pictures rather than something durable like a house.
[expand title="Click the arrow to continue reading."]I think it’s unfair to blame this on a royal wedding. Kate and William, well, are having an actual royal wedding. It’s not pretense for them to spend a lot and make it a lavish celebration, because of their station and position within Britain. Plus, they can afford it. Plus, I like to watch it, and not enviously. It’s just fun and pretty and nice and :dreamy sigh:.
But while the new Duke and Duchess of Cambridge spin away in their beautiful carriage, the state of marriage in the United States and the Western world is in serious trouble. For most normal people, it’s not that easy to marry and stay married.
Of course, as with any social problem, this has myriad antecedents. But I’d like to talk about one today: finances. Why? Because outrageous spending on weddings is just one structural impediment to marriage among several in this category.
Young couples have been stymied by money for centuries. That’s where we get the “young, poor, and in love” meme. It takes time and effort to build up family wealth. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It binds couples together in shared need, pushes them to sacrifice for each other, and helps both know they love for the lover and love’s sake, not for material possessions.
But society can either encourage or discourage marriage, and there’s a definite trend towards discouragement right now. For one thing, the low-to-middle-class is not marrying, in horrifying numbers. For another, the bachelor’s-degree-as-new-high-school-diploma is saddling lots of would-be couples with huge debts. As the New York Times put it, “In some circles, student debt is known as the anti-dowry.” These are only some of several structural impediments, as well as the societal idolization of spendy weddings, that hurt marriage and, thus, society. When you add to it the decline of men in education and business, which is a real problem for families when women, at least biologically, have to bear the kids, you’ve got a perfect stew of trouble.
What can be done? Well, what do you think?
Image by Jens Rost.[/expand]
Oh my goodness did it take me awhile to find a wedding planning book that didn’t have a $20-30K sample budget! I blame Disney for the crippling princess culture and the decline of the role of fathers.
Wow, I hadn’t thought about student loans as obstacles to marriage– probably because one of us hadn’t any loans to speak of, and the other had under $18K, which was paid off within a year. But for people with larger amounts to pay, that could be a serious consideration.
I think we have a skewed idea of how much a college education is worth. It’s worth a lot in one sense, and we ought to sacrifice for for a good one– but I’m not sure it’s worth saddling yourself with lifelong debt. :/
No question that wedding norms are over the top in this country. Do you need hundreds of orchids, hand-stitched monogrammed napkins, and bread flown in from Paris? REALLY? (Those are some of the typical extravagances I recall from my wedding planning research.)
Hey Joy, I was just at a wedding this last weekend… where a lot of money was spent so things could be “just so”. And I’ve noticed this trend among some people my age. (Though thankfully, there is a refreshing handful that care more about getting married than the details of the wedding.) But in talking with a lot of the older/middle aged couples that got married 30 years ago, they ALL say that their wedding was not nearly as big of a deal.
And because their weddings weren’t a big deal, a bunch of other things were possible: 1) they could get married faster, 2) the wedding itself wasn’t as stressful, 3) they have really good memories of a not stressful, quick wedding.
I think that we need to rethink the point of a wedding. As much as we all tell the bride “This is your day!” the truth is that if it were just about the bride and groom, they might as well just make pinky-promises and go live together because _they_ know that they love each other and are married. But weddings are in place to have witnesses to the promise. So, in a since, it’s all about the audience and the _people_ that have been involved in the couple’s lives and would make proper witnesses for the covenant contract between them. And those people who are in a position to check up on them and make sure that they are living up to their promises.
So my solution is to refocus a wedding on the people that should be involved instead of a meaningless ideal that has somehow been stuck in our heads. And of course sometimes focusing on the people will make things expensive too. But I think that expense makes a lot more sense than having $100/plate dinners or specially imported flowers or designer candies at each table.
I think the “necessity” of having a college degree deters young people from marrying in another way besides student loans; they feel they need to have thier careers well established before they can marry. Now certaintly the man should be able to support his bride-to-be but that doesn’t mean they need to date for ten years so that they can have three degrees and a massive house either.