ANYONE FAMILIAR WITH WEDDINGS knows the drill: for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part. But if New Jersey author and wedding expert Sharon Naylor has analyzed the current direction of marriage correctly, that phrase may soon pass from modern weddings faster than it has from modern marriages.
In her book, Your Special Wedding Vows, Naylor tells us that the whole notion of sticking around until someone dies has increasingly become passé. In fact, the entire notion of having to live up to that commitment causes nothing but grief and mental anguish, Naylor claimed to Fox News last week. “When people get divorced, they mourn the fact that they said ’til death do us part’–you didn’t keep your word in church (if they had a church wedding). Some people are in therapy because they promised ’til death do us part.'”
So what does Naylor propose for modern vows and modern marriages? Something a little less judgmental, non-binding. Here are a few suggestions for the blushing bride and her groom to consider when tying the ever-more-slippery knot:
Poetic: “For as long as our love shall last.”
Prosaic: “For as long as we continue to love each other.”
Clock watchers: “Until our time together is over.”
Notice how all of the above depend on completely subjective judgments, despite a desired escape from the judgment of failure when vowing to stay married until death. These judgments don’t depend on a mutually agreed finality, either; they all provide plenty of leeway for one partner to declare that the meter has run out. In fact, it takes the partnership out of marriage altogether and replaces it with a temporary commingling of shared transient interests, implicitly declaring that these interests will at some point diverge. None of them address children, families, or communities; they completely center on the fleeting gratification of the two people at the altar.
However, one other common thread runs through all of these new vows as well: an immature and overly romanticized view of love. This results from a culture that routinely sells infatuation and lust as love–that “magic moment” when all the dials go to red, the angels sing, and so on. Movies such as Moonstruck and Serendipity routinely have one fiancée leave another at the altar in favor of the True Love he or she has just discovered in the week before the nuptials. Most books and movies don’t treat spouses much better after the vows, either.
So what’s missing? Commitment, which forms the true basis of successful marriage. As anyone married for more than a few months can attest, the immature version of romantic love dissipates quite quickly after the wedding feast. Couples who believe that this silver-screen illusion is the pinnacle of a successful relationship understandably draw the conclusion that the marriage has failed if it doesn’t return. They withdraw, creating more stress and less romance, and begin to grow apart. That happens even with the most self-aware couples. However, those who understand marriage as a commitment first and foremost–especially those who see it as a commitment to God and their communities–can find strength to work at their marriages to bolster them, overcome the normal stresses of putting two different humans in close proximity, and create a bond of intimacy that will prove more reliable and powerful than the silliness of Hollywood romance.
NONE OF THIS COMES EASILY OR QUICKLY; as President Bush might say, about another type of commitment, it takes hard work over years and decades, and it never really stops. It takes a commitment to keep working at the relationship when it no longer feels fun or exciting, and it takes discipline to keep outside distractions from reducing the will to perform that hard work. Instead of recognizing commitment as the essential ingredient of marriage, however, these new trends specifically avoid the entire idea of commitment and effort.
As economist King Banaian puts it, it’s almost like game theory. When given an option to avoid conflict and work, people will almost always exercise that option; this holds true for both marriage and economics.
It’s no coincidence that marriage continues to struggle as a social structure in an age that devalues commitment and looks for exit strategies regardless of the endeavor.
After 9/11, America vowed to eradicate terrorism. We adopted a strategy of democratization in areas where terrible oppression had created the extremism. Within two years, we had liberated 50 million people from brutal tyrannies in Afghanistan and Iraq, and afterwards saw both countries hold successful democratic elections where none had taken place in decades, if ever. We lost over 1,700 good men and women in Iraq and that price may well buy us a transformed Middle East, one where liberal Islamic democracies like Turkey can offer hope and self-determination.
Do we hear about these successes from many of our nation’s leaders? No. What we continue to hear is that democratization is too hard, too much work, and isn’t worth the price we’ve paid thus far. The commitment to transform the region in order to discredit and eliminate terrorism has waned among a significant portion of our population despite the successes we’ve seen in Afghanistan and Iraq, and beyond in Lebanon, Libya, Egypt, Kuwait, and other nations.
No one claimed on 9/12 that these efforts would come painlessly and cost-free. President Bush warned us that the effort would take years, perhaps decades, and that it would require a tremendous will to fight for the principles in which we believe. He spoke of a commitment to the mission, and challenged Americans to rise to that commitment not just in the smoke of the World Trade Center, but for the duration.
Unfortunately, that challenge is proving difficult in a culture where people avoid commitment even in their marriage vows. If the American people have conditioned themselves to build exit strategies into their own marriages in tough times, why should we be surprised when our elected leaders demand exit strategies for our commitment to freedom, democracy, and security?
Edward Morrissey is a contributing writer to The Daily Standard and a contributor to the blog Captain’s Quarters.
