Life Choices: Partnering
Rev. Amy Russell
September 17 , 2006

Historically, marriage was an economic and tribal institution that supported societal structures.  Decision about marriage were made by parents and extended family because the familial ties affected everyone in terms of economic impact, relationships, and place in society.  In terms of choice of marriage partner- there was none.
                
The Sunday Services Committee asked me to begin a series of sermons themed around the kinds of critical life choices that we all are faced with during our lifetimes.  Life decisions that today in our Western democratic society are basically individual choices- choices about education, career, partnering, parenting, and health.  Living in a society where men and women have increasingly more equality, where partnering decisions are basically made by the people involved, where with advanced technology there are more options for increasing the chances of having children, and the decision not to have children is recognized as a valid lifestyle choice.  All of these decisions are generally supported by society and by law.  That is except for one major exception to that- that same sex partners have not been given the legal option to marry.  This remains the single remaining legal challenge to having all people in our country have equal access to making their own life choices.  But for most of our human history, choices about life decisions were not in the hands of the individual.

In Roman days, the marital pledges in a wedding ceremony were performed between the groom and the bride’s father.  The groom would ask the potential father in law “Do you promise to give your daughter to me to be my wedded wife?  And how much dowry are you offering?”

And the father could answer “Three sheep and a cow, may the gods bring you luck!”

 The bride said nothing.  She was not asked her opinion. 

This was society’s way of ensuring economic and political alliances for the distribution of wealth and power.  Even a son’s consent to the arrangement was assumed by the parents since he was supposed to accept what was best for the family.

Of course, as a Roman free male, the son could be free to have sexual relations with anyone placed in his household, his servants, female or male, or even the cow.  Monogamy in sexual relations were not seen as important, just that the official wife provide some offspring that could inherit the estate.

Two thousand years later in 1000 AD, a powerful French nobleman, Jourdain married his daughter to a man against her wishes.  The Pope intervened and began a Church tradition of sanctifying marriage between two consenting adults as opposed two consenting families.  There began to be the idea that marriage was more than just an economic unit, that perhaps there was an emotional and spiritual element to this institution. 

Throughout the middle ages, however, arranged marriages continued to be the rule, not the exception.  Even in the sixteenth century when the Protestants began to define marriage differently as “holy matrimony” there was still parental consent required for people to marry until about age 25.  Romantic love was not considered a reasonable basis for a solid marriage which was to affect the entire extended family. 

When the consent to marry was given to the individual  in Western society is hard to pinpoint, it changed so gradually.  Romantic love being related to marriage wasn’t really popularized until the late eighteenth century when it became evident in romantic novels.  But it wasn’t really until the late nineteenth century when courting a bride to win her love became accepted practice for young men.  Parents still must give their permission, but it began slowly to become a choice that individuals, at least men, were allowed to make on their own.

It’s only been a short time however, that women have been given much choice in whether or not to marry or to choose a marriage partner.  The factor that limited women’s choices in this matter primarily was the child-bearing function which until the availability and legality of birth control in the seventies limited women’s choices severely.  When a woman became pregnant out of wedlock, until very recently, there were few choices for her but to marry. 

It wasn’t until 1966, in a decision called Griswold vs. Connecticut, that contraceptive devices for birth control became legalized due in large part to Margaret Sanger’s continued efforts to educate and inform people about birth control.  Making birth control available to women meant that decisions regarding marriage and career could be made without the added burden of unwanted pregnancies.  Up until this, women felt they needed to be protected by the institution of marriage both economically and from the approbation of society for unwedded mothers.  Once women had more control over decisions about procreation, they began to have more control over their decision to marry or not to marry.  Societal acceptance of single parenting has also changed and many single people, both male or female decide to parent by themselves.

The rising rate of divorce and the increasing acceptance of it has also given both men and women more control over their own lives, allowing them to leave marriages which did not allow them satisfaction or personal fulfillment.  Divorce gives us more freedom, but of course, with that more responsibility.

The movie, Mona Lisa Smile, shows girls attending Wellesley College in the 1950’s being taught that their primary goal in life was to marry and produce babies.  Getting married was seen as their pivotal goal- nothing else was important.  The movie shows classes being taught in helping your husband get ahead in business by providing appropriate social occasions in which your husband could shine.  Julia Roberts played an instructor with views about women’s lives that are very avant garde for the times and get her into trouble with the college administration.  She taught her female students that they didn’t have to see their lives as being totally controlled by the confines of marriage.  She tried to instill in them independent goals such as career or personal fufillment.  She was of course, fired for these views, but she was shown as having significant impact on her students’ lives.

I attended college in the early 1970’s.  I think I received mixed messages from my family and from the larger society.  My family seemed to expect that I would marry and that part of my goal in college was to meet an “appropriate mate”.  But they also expected me to succeed in a career, I think because society had made it appropriate for women to do this by this time.  It seemed at times that I was expected to follow both my mother’s and my father’s footsteps.  And as many of us did, I acquiesed to those expectations.  I married at 21, before I had even graduated from college.  I married a young man who met my parent’s expectations, he was smart, he came from an upper middle class family, and he was an engineer who was sure to succeed in providing for a family. 

We both began our careers as we began our marriage.  I discovered very early in my marriage that while we had similar values and interests, we were not very compatible emotionally.  I often felt lonely in my marriage. 

I had made a choice to marry for the wrong reasons.  I married because I keenly felt my parent’s expectations that I would marry and that I would have children and if I wanted a career in addition to that, then that was okay, too.  But the marriage and the children were certainly higher priorities to what they saw as my life’s direction. 

Marriage for me in the seventies, was still not a free choice I made, although it certainly was my decision to make.  But there were still so many pressures on me to make this decision to marry that I didn’t see clearly that I should have asked by boyfriend to wait when he asked me to marry before I had finished college and started working.  I went from my parent’s home, to  living with a roommate in a college dorm,  to living with a husband.  I had no time to live alone and get to know myself and what I wanted in life.

Decisions to partner or to marry often are influenced by many things- pressure from family, economic need, sexual need, loneliness, desire to reach a societal accepted status.  Many young people marry for these reasons despite the removal of so many of the social stigmas of not being married.  When people marry primarily for one of these reasons, it later leads to divorce. 

Creating a life partnership is one of the most difficult things to achieve in life.  That and parenting, I consider the most difficult life issues.  Most difficult and two of the most rewarding.  When two people of whatever sex, decide to create a partnership because they feel a deep emotional, physical, and spiritual union with one another, then the chances that this partnership can last are much better.  Having this kind of union to start and then making the commitment to work on this partnership daily- those are the necessary ingredients in a successful partnership. 

Many obstacles to choosing who you want to marry have been lessened in Western democratic society, obstacles such as economic need, or societal expectation to remain in a certain class and ethnic tribe, and the need to procreate.  So many of these obstacles - may not have been removed, but have been lessened.  So for many, whether to partner or not, has become an individual choice, not a pressured necessity.

In the past the definitions of marriage included lifelong commitment, economic unity, and a union between a man and a woman.  E. J. Graff speaks about a new definition of marriage in her book, What is Marriage For?  She defines marriage as a “commitment to live up to the rigorous demands of love, to care for each other as best as you humanly can, then all these possibilities- divorce, contraception, feminism, marriage between two women or two men- are necessary to respect the human spirit.”

For many seeking a lifelong partner is a journey toward self transformation.  Some might sense that you must transform yourself when you are in the context of a loving, developing relationship.  You have no choice but to grow.  Well, you do have a choice.  You can remain self centered and expect the relationship to simply provide for your needs.  But if that’s where you stay in a relationship, you will be miserable and you will make your partner miserable and the relationship will not last.

There are many other ways to be in relationship to others, other than choosing to live with a life partner.  One can challenge oneself to grow in relationship with others in one’s work, one’s extended family, with one’s friends, and here in this loving community.  Those are certainly valid ways to grow one’s ability to relate to others. 

But the journey toward partnership will change a person, unlike any other relationship.  Being in a committed partnership means that it’s not just becoming the best you can become- you are becoming the best you can be with the support and energy of someone who loves you beyond any one else.

What does it mean to be in partnership?  How do you make it work?  What makes some partnerships work and others fall apart? 

I see a marriage as a difficult balance between seeking one’s own life development while supporting your partners’.  And that means that sometimes those two goals are seemingly at odds.  You may see your partner going through a difficult time, and sometimes you find yourself as the scapegoat to your partner’s difficulty. But you might also see that your partner just needs some room to get through this.  So you try to support while pointing out that you are not available as a “whipping post”.  Saying that you are supportive, while protecting yourself is not always an easy balance to assume.

It’s a little like being on a seesaw.  The seat with your partner goes up and you find yourself bumped against the hard ground.  You give a little push to boost yourself up and you may find yourself rising to great heights, while at the same time you notice that your partner is now bumping the dirt.  In partnership, you find yourself being both needy and giving- but it’s sure difficult to figure out when you can exert your needs and when you need to take a back seat.

Certainly, it’s true that there are times when both partners give to each other and by doing so, both partners grow and develop and find what they need.  These are the soaring highs to relationships.  And sometimes you can enjoy that for a long time.  But there are also going to be times when you’re both scraping the ground and you don’t have anything left over for anyone. So, being in a committed relationship can be both a delicate balance and a solid foundation to hold you both to grow and become the best you both can be.