The Marriage Question

A generation and a half ago in America, the moment at which most people decided to marry often roughly coincided with their finishing college. Today, the same overlap--between the uncertainty of facing life after school and the reassurance of doing it with a spouse--applies only to a small minority of us.

Why? Why is it that getting married this June, after I graduate, seems an outlandish proposition to me, when many members of my family and the parents of many of my friends did just that--signed on for life shortly after receiving their diploma?

The fact is, leaving college with no permanent strings attached is a frightening and exhilarating idea; but we aren't simply more adventurous than our parents were. No, there have been fundamental differences in the last 40-odd years that, I think, have led to a reconceptualization of the institution of marriage.

I don't pretend to know exactly what they are, but at least three changes seem evident. Twenty-two-year-olds today have more opportunities than their parents and grandparents did and in a wider variety of locations; intra-and international travel are so commonplace that little but familial ties inhibits us from ending up in San Francisco, Nairobi, Paris or Bucharest.

In addition to our increased accessibility to the world, the terms of marriage have been redefined for us, mostly by our parents. Thanks to them, we, unlike any generation before us, can actually expect to get divorced. Even though none of us, of course, thinks it will happen to us, "until death do us part" will be an empty phrase for over half of those who utter it.

But by far the biggest difference in the last generation concerning marriage has been the shift in our conception of the role men and women play in society and, by extension, in a life-long partnership. Where marriage used only to necessitate the determination of one life plan (the man's), it now requires the coordination of two life plans. When a woman's career took a back seat to her husband's, a permanent commitment was easier to make at the age of 22 than it is now, for the simple reason that a man would go where his life took him and his wife would follow. Today, with both partners free to pursue the opportunities which come their way, the chance that their two paths will coincide is considerably diminished.

Bill and Hillary Clinton's generation represents the transition between the traditional patriarchal family and us, the first truly "equal partnership" generation. Born in 1947, Hillary Rodham grew up and went to college during the heart of the women's movement. She pursued a career after attending Wellesley, not marrying until she had established her credentials. Nevertheless, the First Lady has become the prototypical "stand by your man" woman, occupying an awkward space between professional female and dependent, serving wife.

But Chelsea Clinton's generation--our generation--is operating under a different set of rules than her parents did. It will only be a matter of time, for example, before women altogether stop taking their husbands' last name, for this mostly symbolic practice will have no basis in a world in which men and women are--and are considered to be--equal.

Conceptually, marriage may be evolving from "out of two, one" into "out of two, two." This means we will be getting married later in life, when careers and personalities are already determined, and it could mean we will divorce at very high rates. Alternatively, it could just mean fewer marriages, or, as seems the most likely, a redefinition of what it means to be married.

At this moment, exactly seven months before I graduate, marriage is not the farthest thing from my mind. But actually getting married is an even more frightening prospect to me than facing the real world, and one which my peers and I, for good reason, I think, are not rushing into. Daniel M. Suleiman '99 is a social studies concentrator in Leverett House. His column appears on alternate Tuesdays.