Sad State of Marriage
July 9, 2009 by blackgirlgrown
Filed under life, relationships
As someone who eventually wants to get married, the constant barrage of infidelity news is depressing.
Politicians risk their careers for simple dalliances with their own staffers, random chicks from Argentina, and strange women filming “documentaries.” They have such disregard for their wives that they have unprotected sex with their mistresses, and in some instances fathering children.
Professional athletes are no different. The Steve McNair murder-suicide is sad and infuriating. Imagine what Mechelle McNair is going through. You lose your husband and father to your children to a nutty chick working at Dave and Busters who isn’t even old enough to buy her own drink. And this wasn’t a one night stand. McNair bought this suicidal chick an Escalade and a condo. Chick goes nuts and Mechelle McNair’s world is destroyed. Not only is she trying not to hate this man she has loved and now lost. But she also has to hold it together and hold in her resentment as she consoles their boys.
Breathe.
A dear girlfriend (and cynic) often reminds me, “Silly girl, men don’t sleep with their wives.” The first time she said it, it was funny. Recently, it seems to be the rule.
So is infidelity the norm and should we all just agree that it happens and continue drinking?
Apparently so judging by the statements in the media by those defending the adulterers.
For politicians, the constant refrain is that it’s a “private matter” as if that ends the conversation.
For professional athletes (most of which are African American men), the defense is a stereotypical mix of “what do you expect?” or “it’s hard with so many women coming at them.”
And we are always asked to consider their overall accomplishments and contributions instead of their minor indiscretion….and of course, “we don’t know the whole story.”
Lastly, we get the “let him without sin cast the first stone” sermon.
Sad really. It begs the question, what’s the point of getting married anyway then
The fundamental question we must ask ourselves at the beginning of the century is this: What is the purpose of marriage? Is it — given the game-changing realities of birth control, female equality and the fact that motherhood outside of marriage is no longer stigmatized — simply an institution that has the capacity to increase the pleasure of the adults who enter into it? If so, we might as well hold the wake now: there probably aren’t many people whose idea of 24-hour-a-day good times consists of being yoked to the same romantic partner, through bouts of stomach flu and depression, financial setbacks and emotional upsets, until after many a long decade, one or the other eventually dies in harness.
Or is marriage an institution that still hews to its old intention and function — to raise the next generation, to protect and teach it, to instill in it the habits of conduct and character that will ensure the generation’s own safe passage into adulthood? Think of it this way: the current generation of children, the one watching commitments between adults snap like dry twigs and observing parents who simply can’t be bothered to marry each other and who hence drift in and out of their children’s lives — that’s the generation who will be taking care of us when we are old.
What is the purpose of marriage for you?
blackgirlgrown
