<p>I’m not totally sure that I want to get married, but I do hope to settle down with someone someday, and have kids with them.
And if I do get married it won’t be anything big, it will not be in a church, I will not be wearing some giant white dress, and I will not be changing my last name.
Marriage just isn’t that important to me. I don’t think it really means much either. It doesn’t bind you for life either.
But this isn’t to say I don’t believe in love.</p>
<p>(My mom is going to die on the inside when she learns all of this…)</p>
<p>You guys are going to want kids once you’ve realized you’re going to die, and likely in just a few decades (that go by all too quickly). Kids are a way of insuring your life had “purpose,” at least in a superficial way. </p>
<p>Also, I would love to get married, because to me, marriage means a pretty good guarantee of having a companion that loves you back, and is yours forever. It’s so nice to read in movie star biographies that certain cast members have loving wives they return to everyday in Bel Air, living the quiet life. I absolutely cannot stand this new strain of thinking that marriage is useless. THIS IS THE PHILOSOPHY OF PEOPLE WHO DO NOT WANT TO PUT A RING ON IT.</p>
<p>And that is a very bad thing. If a long term boyfriend/girlfriend does not propose to you (barring illegality of marriage, damn homophobes), there’s something wrong. After all, why wouldn’t they want to marry you? It’s just a legal certificate that allows you to share financial woes etc. , and socially marriage means that neither partner will be cheating (or at least, not without major consequence). Either they want to be “free,” aka they’re not really sure they love you, or they don’t want to share their money, which isn’t fair.</p>
<p>Notice the quotes. And it’s true, if one had kids, it’d be easier to cope with you yourself dying, because you wouldn’t exactly be completely gone from the world. Perhaps purpose wasn’t the best word.</p>
That’s… That’s just wonderful. I must remember it.</p>
<p>Lots of young people (and apparently at least one old person) generally don’t want to get married, for the exact reasons listed on here. It’s nothing unique or new. What’s also not unique or new is that most people like that change their minds as they get older, for a variety of reasons. Marriage ages have stabilized at a higher age lately because of the lack of societal and family pressure to get married young that was once more widespread (and still is outside of Western culture).</p>
<p>Edit- Just got hit with a visual of the bishop from the Princess Bride: “Mawwiage”</p>
<p>Be it pathetic or not Platts, it’s what people do to cope. How many twenty year olds are there that say, “Oh, I’m just gonna fly solo and not have kids to tie me down?” Then 30-40 hits and you see lots of people having children. </p>
<p>@amorestare
IMO people who love each other should get married. Those people didn’t make very good choices. Even if one day they just fell out of love with each other, you’ve got a better bet of having someone to be with you for a longer time than if you’re just gf/bf or ****buddies. What’s the insurance in that? Your bf/gf can up and leave you in the middle of the night without legal repercussions. If you marry someone, you’re committing to them that you’re not going to do that, pointing people in the direction that you do love your bride/husband enough to abstain from that kind of thing.</p>
<p>edit:
Can you list some reasons why, if you loved someone, you wouldn’t get married?</p>
<p>Because people nowadays fail at commitment. Which is truly a shame. My parents just recently got through a rough divorce, but I still intend to get married someday. They got married because of the sex and weren’t compatible at all, so it fell through after 17 years. Just don’t make mistakes when choosing a life partner, or rush into marriage out of infatuation, and divorce rates wouldn’t be so high.</p>
<p>There’s nothing wrong with wanting to get married but you shouldn’t feel like a failure if you don’t. There’s more to you and your life than a wedding ring, you know?</p>
<p>However, I’ve made peace with the fact that I will probably be either a spinster who throws cats at small children–or a senior citizen whore. I mean, I’ll seriously be the slut of the retirement home, haha.</p>
<p>I think I’ll get married and raise a family eventually. I don’t mind tying myself down, but only after I’ve done everything that requires my complete and undivided attention. Not because I’m selfish, but because otherwise both aspects of my life would just suffer if I tried to juggle both at the same time.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Lol, I had this mental picture of some old lady dropping angry cats from a window ledge on school children passing by underneath.</p>
<p>Hm, my issue with having kids is that I sort of think that good parents should devote themselves 100% to the kid… to the point of changing their schedules to accommodate the kid and putting the interests of the kid first. And I don’t think I could do that. I’ll probably care too much about my career or something and I don’t like the idea of having nannies raise my hypothetical kids.</p>
<p>Also, I’m worried that, despite my best intentions, I’ll become like my parents. I mean, I love them and all, but most of the reasons why people think I’m completely neurotic can be attributed to them… >.<</p>
<p>I don’t see why your standards should apply universally, unless of course you are arguing for some sort of absolutism (which I embrace, by the way).</p>
<p>But if someone feels that their worth is determined by marriage, then that is the case. I don’t see a single reason why it’s less reasonable than assigning value to anything else, to mere existence, to nothing, and so forth.</p>
Granted, people still get civil divorces, but they hold no weight.</p>
As pathetic as it may sound I would feel extremely bad if I wasn’t married. I don’t want to end up being a spinster :(</p>