Template for life

THE spate of year-end weddings ensures no escapes from marriage, both as a theme and as a template for life.

While waiting for dinner to be served at a wedding earlier this month, I unexpectedly found myself facing a microphone; with a hungry audience expecting advice on marriage. In my attempt at tongue-in-cheek yet pithy wisdom, I addressed the young bride and groom, "You do know" – pregnant pause – "that the best thing about marriage is the wedding. After that it all goes downhill."

I added, for good measure, that "the best marriages are made of compromises and ... separate bathrooms!" The room remained silent and my joke fell flat. Perhaps tongue-in-cheek doesn't play at modern weddings.

Yet, in an age where divorce and separation are rife, you'd think that humour would help newly-weds traverse a path riddled with surprises, both good and bad. Even as they continue to seal their nuptials with long religious ceremonies, drawn-out dinners for hundreds of people, and the same old meringue-style wedding gowns.

It is only after the champagne corks pop and the honeymoon laundry is done that the real job begins. There is no doubt that marriage takes a lot of work and foresight.

The morning before the pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart married her publicist in 1931, she wrote him a resolute letter stating exactly what she did and didn't want in their marriage. Her reluctance to marry, even after he had proposed six times, derived from her perceived impact of the act of marriage.

It was her work that meant the most to her. Her independent spirit and forthright nature were further spelled out via caveats on careers, fidelity and honesty. She also wrote that she would need to keep a place where she could go to be herself. Moreover, she extracted a promise from her husband-to-be that he would let her go within a year if they found no happiness together. As it turned out, they were together for six years before her tragic 1937 disappearance.

At a recent school reunion, among company where most have been married for more than a decade (with a couple on to their second marriage), I decided to broach this subject. The variety of opinions at the dinner was certainly surprising, adding much figurative food for thought.

MK, who wed a month after meeting his wife of 15 years, is not ashamed to admit that he enjoys his marriage. "Although marriage is an old-fashioned institution, it demands the respect it deserves." He says the bond created by his union with his wife, children, in-laws and extended family make up a community in which he thrives. "This is what makes society," he states, revelling in the incomparable companionship that his wife offers.

Then there's the friend of a friend, who has been divorced for seven years after a 12-year marriage. He and his then wife, he admits, had not only grown apart but were also growing in separate ways.

"Marriage must be a symbiotic relationship," he claims, citing the last line of Khalil Gibran's poem, On Marriage, as the ultimate rationale: "And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow."

He fears he married too early and, like many others, including his mother and sister, stayed too long in the marriage. And not for the right reasons.

"People should only stay in this archaic institution when both parties really want to. And only when your partner completes you and not because of a myriad other reasons like children, home."

On the other hand, KK doesn't believe in marriage. According to him, once the marriage is solemnised, love naturally dies. "We begin to take each other for granted and spend the rest of the intervening years solving life's problems. If I lived together with a partner, I would appreciate and perform better as a mate, much aware of the impermanent arrangement."

His wife feels the same way. He often advises his two teenage children not to go down the same path, telling them marriage becomes an option only when the person they choose to spend the rest of their lives with becomes their whole world, when he or she is their life.

Moreover, KK thinks in the past, women needed the support of marriage and a husband as a provider. But all that has changed. "We are of the last generation that carries a part of our old tradition and culture as instilled by our parents." For him, life is freedom. So how we can consciously jeopardise that with just one knot or two?

Two nights ago, Mr and Mrs P celebrated their golden wedding anniversary, each happy to have reached this phase of their life together. Their early years were fraught – earning a living, raising four children and building a home to share.

Now, they are finally enjoying their time together, and they realise they're lucky to have each other. Says Mr P: "Everyone needs a partner, so the young people today must choose the right one. But it is harder now because everything is about money."

Mrs P has no regrets as she looks back on 50 years of marriage, which she entered into without any expectations. For her, love and patience – with lots of giving and taking – have made the marriage work despite its many ups and downs.

They live together in mutual support, holding hands to steady each other, accompanying each other on market trips and hospital visits. Most importantly, each relies on the other implicitly.

Mrs P feels the reason married couples find it harder to stay together these days is because everyone is more informed, educated, wealthy and independent. Thus, paradoxically, there is less respect for each other.

Now respect should perhaps be the theme for marriage. And, as we enter 2013, a template for life. Happy New Year to you, whether married or single.

>Delighting in dead ends, Jacqueline Pereira seeks unexpected encounters to counter the outmoded. Find her on Facebook at Jacqueline-Pereira-Writing-on.

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