A Letter Sent

Here is a letter that I sent earlier today to my dear friend. It reflects my thoughts properly.

"Bryan,

This isn't truly a response to your last letter, just a sort of snippet, perhaps the beginning of a discussion.

Today, I got, in the mail, a complimentary wedding catalog. (Of course, they were trying to sell me a subscription, and to be frank, I don't have the money, so I am not interested.) Looking through it, however, it brought up many memories.

I have probably been planning my wedding since before I knew what a wedding really meant. My mother has collected Martha Stewart Weddings magazines for as long as I can remember. We've always been too poor to even consider any of the things advertised in the magazines, but it was more of an interest, than an intent. Even the once when my mother was going to be married, the magazines did little to that end. But even when she was single, or when marriage was nothing more than a drunken dinner joke, we looked through the magazines, pointing out the things that we liked, and didn't.

A few years ago, after my mother married my step-father (It was a courthouse wedding.) she threw away all of the magazines, and I remember her saying very clearly, "I'm never going to have a real wedding, why keep these around?" (One day I may tell you all the wonderful and sad things about my mother. She is an angel.)

Crushed, I coveted as many of the magazines as I could, not wanting them to become mulch, or coffee-stained heaviness in a land fill. They had the smell of years of our hands turning the pages, and the aura of our little princess dreams smothered into the pictures. Unfortunately, I only saved a few.

Since then, however, I had forgotten of my hobby. I think my saved magazines are still in my room, somewhere.

That's not the point of this story, however. Today's musing is about marriage. Being a married man yourself, I was hoping to gain some enlightenment from you.

While flipping through the wedding magazine in my lap, I realized that my generation has made the practice a taboo. There was once a time, as I've been told, that men and women WANTED to get married. Now, the mention of the word, or even the passing compliment of a white dress is grounds to end a perfectly healthy relationship.

I also briefly evaluated my own relationship. Some day, I want to be married. Perhaps later on, I may want children. (That one is still not for sure.) But with W, it is not a possibility. (He has said once that IF he ever got married, it would be at LEAST seven years down the line.) This, however, does not convince me. He doesn't want to get married. Ever.

When did women with marriage on the mind change from practical, normal women to crazy, ostracized shrews?

And I suppose I understand the train of thought. With divorce rates on the rise, society's response to "fix" the problem is to avoid it entirely, rather than to cure the true issue. People now-a-days assume that marriage is just plain bad, and that it will NEVER work, and if it does, the best way to go about it is after years and years of non-commitment.

But think about the baby-boomers. They met, and were married weeks later. Most of those relationships have survived even to today, and into their death. What is the difference here?

I'm not saying that everyone needs to get married on a whim. In fact, I generally think that's a bad idea. But now the very thought is considered dirty, the way homosexuality used to be viewed. If a woman wants to get married, she's a bad fruit. Throw it away, before it spoils the rest.

I think it's a sign that the feminist movement has come full circle. We have come so far around, that men have come to expect women to be un-emotional, passionate, successful and easy. Wham-bam has never been easier, and men don't want that to change. (Don't take this as man-hate, or anything like that. I'm a moderate feminist, not the buzz-cut man killer type.) Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but I think with women's new status in society, (The majority of college graduates, very recently, has just shifted to the female side.) they should start having standards. We should make our partners work for us, truly show some sort of devotion, just as we have to them, for the great majority of history.

Who buys flowers anymore, really? Out of the blue, no holiday, who was the last person that you knew to send or receive a sweet gift? In my own relationship, eight months in, verbal affection is strictly off limits. There has been no "L-bomb," or even "I care about you"s. Because we're afraid.

What is your experience with marriage? As a generation or two before me, perhaps you can tell me some things that I'm missing. Was is this bad for you? Were you looking for it when it came to you, or was it something that you really didn't want to happen, throughout your bachelor-dom?

I just need a little hope that the whole male of world isn't the wham-bam sort, afraid of a silly little white dress..."

What do you think, my dearlings? What is your opinion?