Do you feel society values weddings more than marriage?
We can spend thousands of dollars on a wedding but many couples (myself included) would be less willing to spend that money on things that make a marriage strong, like couples counselling. We automatically spend hundreds of hours preparing a wedding but how much do we willingly spend on attending relationship courses or reading books to make our marriage better?
The first stage of love, or "falling in love" as it has been described earlier, seems to be celebrated more than "growing in love."
I hesitate to even speak to what "society" wants anymore, man. I mean, do you see, you have in the world of most straight people trying to date, a camp of guys, yelling "Women want this, but then they want that, and it's so unfair!" and women over on the other side yelling, "Men want this, but then they also want that, and it's so unfair!" How we even manage to survive so well as a species, sometimes it baffles the mind. At least when you are standing in the forest, surrounded by the trees.
I mean from the perspective of a woman, I see men going through life phases. First when they're young, they want to get casual sex with as many women as they can. Then at some point, often coinciding with career stability and wanting to "nest"...they start questing for The One. Sometimes there is overlap, or there is an overwhelming preponderance of one motivation or the other that drives them. I've known teenage guys who thought they were looking for The One, and I've known men in advanced years who were still playing the field, and I've known some guys who can't seem to figure out what they are trying to do. These two drives can overlap and entwine and be confusing to the individual. But most men I have known have classed women in categories. "I would not have sex with her" or "I would have sex with her but not relationship with her" or "I want to have her for my own, provide, protect, nest, breed, etc."
So then you've got women, and men want women to be available when they need casual sex, but if you are a casual sex kind of girl, you should not expect to be loved. You exist to be used. You've soiled yourself permanently, according to "society." We are told to stay pure, but pressured HARD not to, but then told to accept all consequences (reproductive ones in particular) on our own heads if we give in to this pressure. It is my opinion that if a man has ever in his life tried to get a woman to give him casual sex, he has NO business thinking that contraceptive options for women should be restricted in any way. If you weren't ready to help make and raise a baby, then don't tell her she has to do it on her own, as though the act was ok for you but not for her. But here, is again, "society" we live in. And there are plenty of guys who feel tempted to do things they consider immoral and then hate women for presenting them with the desires in the first place, as though we have wronged them merely by existing and being seen.
So I guess marriage is the solution. Good ol' romance. The first guy who comes into a young gal's life who is willing to protect and provide, ought to be Miss Purity's Prince Charming, and of course she will fall in love and they'll live happily ever after. That's the package of BS we're sold growing up, isn't it? You would think Snow White had never encountered another man (besides the dwarves, and maybe her father) in her entire life. And wouldn't ya know it, the first one to come along for the princess is just perfect. The flipside being all the media fed to boys that the hero always gets the girl. As though, once you have made it to manhood, the universe will issue you a sexy woman to be your very own.
I have been giving a lot of thought to these social tropes, and the world we live in, and thinking, if I believe that there are very powerful and wealthy people at the top who are even far above our known leaders of government, religion and industry, if I contemplate the possibility of such shadowy pullers of strings...why would they want to institute these systems and encourage them to continue? I have a hard time believing that what feminists call "The Patriarchy" was mere accident. Well. You keep people chained to a dream like a carrot on a stick always dangling before your nose...if you just keep toiling, you will be rich and happy and loved...yes, work harder...keep going...don't give up...and please by all means make more babies, we need more fodder for the workforce... It all really starts to make sense.
I once read somewhere, "There are no poor Americans, just temporarily embarrassed millionaires." I laugh at this, but I agree with the sense of it. Even at my poorest I believed I was only in the middle of a temporary setback, one from which surely I would recover. That one day I will either live a comfortable but modest life within my means but doing art or something that I love...or I will make sacrifices and end up very rich. But the American dream just takes work and time, effort and patience, and it's there waiting for all of us if we just keep trudging forward to reach it.
Most of us will never reach it.
And we are also socialized to think that if/when we fail to get where we think we should, or those who fail to, well clearly you made poor choices. You succumbed to some addiction, or chose the wrong career, you wasted your money or your time. You chose badly in a mate and deserve a bad marriage, you ate delicious food and deserve to be fat, you spend your money frivolously and deserve to be poor, it is certainly your fault, but by all means feel guilty...and then keep doing it. As a woman, "society" seems to want me to feel guilty for every single speck of joy I've ever experienced. Even ten minutes of relaxing with a good book is idle time I could spend more productively, so when I don't get to where I think I should, I can tally up my every indulgence and know it was all my own fault.
But it is this illusory thinking of "the perfect life" that keeps us all toiling away and creating value to benefit the ones at the top, and new generations of human beings to do the same, all under the glorious illusion of "freedom."
Seen in this light, the wedding industry and institution is completely understandable, and at the same time, a tragic joke on the hapless fools who grew up imbibing Disney tropes and American dreams, like mother's milk.
