After attending the wedding of a friend I began to think about some different concepts of marriage and misconceptions from society. I also began to think about the close friends that the bride and groom have in their lives.
The groom had one of his long time friends as his best man. I didn’t ask, but it may be his longest relationship with anyone outside of family. From what I remember, his relationship with his best man has lasted more than a decade. His friend has been there in his life since they were kids, and they have been close ever since. The bride had one of her family members as her maid of honor. This has been a lifelong relationship with lots of ups and downs. They have travelled together and comforted each other in times of need. They have taken care of each other for around two decades! That’s a long relationship and nearly all of their lives. Both the bride and groom have very close friends, which is awesome and will help them for the rest of their lives.
Legal Matters
Marriage, from a legal sense, is a binding contract tying people together. When we got married we went down to the court house and obtained a marriage license. We could have been married on the spot as long as we had a witness and person licensed to marry us. That would have been a lot cheaper, but not as fun as getting married surrounded by friends and family for a ceremony. When the paperwork is completed (and the marriage is consummated) both persons are tied together for life. That is the case unless it is annulled, divorce occurs, or one person dies.
Silk Sheets
When I got married I did not feel as if I had as tight of a friend group as my friends who got married recently. It was awesome seeing how both of them, the bride and groom, have had friends for all or nearly their entire lives. I’m not exactly sure of the cause, but I had a hard time with friends during my childhood. I had more friends while I was younger and that quantity reduced as I neared college. This seems to be normal for most everybody, but it caused me some issues when I was trying to choose groomsmen for my wedding.
Leading up to my wedding I struggled to find people to fill my spots for groomsmen because I didn’t have a lot of friends. I made my best man my older brother, and another groomsmen my younger brother. I had two spots to fill, and was left trying to decide who to choose. I ended up picking a couple great guys that I competed with in track. This worked out good for our ceremony, but I don’t talk to either of them today. We just weren’t that close. My wife chose her best friend at the time to be her maid of honor, and she still talks to her and hangs out with her on occasion. Some of her other bridesmaids were my sister and a couple other friends.
I am amazed and impressed by how close our friends are to their friends and family. They have people investing deeply into their lives, and have people they can talk to or help when they need it. As the header suggests, have a wedding party like “silk sheets.” Show those closest to you that you appreciate them and they are big in your life. They are almost, or are, like family to you. Keep it tightly knit.
Name Changing Game
Traditionally the woman will change her name to take the man’s name when getting married. This isn’t a requirement for marriage, but I am appreciative that my wife chose this route. In recent times people have contributed the name change (and marriage in general) to being a form of ownership over your spouse. I’m not really sure how people arrive at this, because to me this is not the case. We changed her last name and fulfilled the long time running name changing tradition. If it were traditional to change my name to match hers, I would in a heartbeat. For me, the change takes the cohesiveness of the relationship to another level. Here are some of the things I think about when looking at name changing after marriage.
- When your names match, people can say things like: Oh look, the Brown’s are here!
- Having the same last name shows unity and trust.
- Having the same name includes everyone in the family. An example is if my wife and I had 4 kids, more than likely they would have my last name. My wife would be singled out with a different last name.
Keep in mind there aren’t any rules, so it doesn’t really matter. It’s all personal preference. Personally I enjoy having the same last name, but that doesn’t work for everybody depending on their view or place in life.
Unifying Tendencies
The average age that people are getting married is becoming later in life. So why is this? Are people too busy? Have they not met the right person? Marriage isn’t for everybody. There isn’t anything that says people have to get married in order to live a happy and fulfilling life. That would be crazy! It is interesting to me many people are putting it off until later in life.
I think one big influence is a societal acceptance of common marriage benefits. These have been pushed to become “normal dating relationship” benefits. Understand my use of “normal relationship benefits” means they are expected or at least are not looked down upon as much anymore in our society. This doesn’t mean that the different practices are beneficial, but they are more accepted.
- People used to, and still do, wait until marriage before having sex. This has grown to become a benefit of dating in a lot of circles and is almost expected.
- People have begun getting joint bank accounts together while dating. This did not used to be a common practice, and appears to have risen recently.
- People move in together before marriage. This used to be a taboo practice, and has now become normal and is widely accepted.
- We have a movement of people becoming single parents. We used to hold both parties more accountable and expect them to be there for their child or children.
The list above is comprised of things that I have noticed. Most, if not all of them, have factual evidence to prove that a relationship started in that manner will not be as successful when compared to couples that can abstain. It can be difficult to keep ourselves living separate lives when we want to be close, but it can make or break the relationship in the long run.
Final Thought
To finish out this post I would like to leave the idea that marriage works best as a selfless act. Yes we should look at the other person from what they can provide to our lives and relationship leading into marriage, but we should work in our relationships to benefit the other person. This is probably one of the most difficult concepts to practice, and to me one of the most important.