Greetings to my relationship-curious friends! May this correspondence find you aligned with your purpose, gracious for the gift of the PRESENT moment, and in divine and radiant health. I’m glad you’re here. My relationship content gets the most views, so I know that we're generally curious about relationship content in general because we're participating in some type of relationship every day! So, let's dive into what you came to read about.
In September 2022, I posted a blog with the affirmative version of the title. You can read that here. And if the title doesn't unlock a core memory, you might have to go check out a certain 90s TV classic!
After reflecting for over a year, I wanted to share my rebuttal to my own piece. I have a completely different view of it all. Not because there’s trouble in my paradise, but in the spirit of authenticity and being Team #factsoverfeelings, I want to make sure that I don't contribute to the rhetoric of the fairytale wedding and a happily-ever-after story surrounding conversations of marriage. As I move into my evolved self, I’m getting better, growing in authenticity, keeping it real with myself and others, and reflecting on the half-truths I may have told myself. Therefore, I had to run this one back.
Before I continue, as of today, my life partner Raymond and I are in the deepest relationship, and every day we CHOOSE to be together, I’m physically, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally intertwined into his universe. Unlike other internet faux-therapists, I feel qualified to speak on the topic of marriage and relationships because I’ve actually experienced these dynamics personally through a primary AND secondary lens. Hell, I’ve even been through a divorce process in this relationship… like standing in front of the judge, parenting classes, ALLUH DAT!
I have been married since June 2010, but our souls first collided in February 2005. We were little kids when we met (20 and 23), and there were not and still are not any manuals telling us how to exist as adult humans, let alone how to function in a romantic relationship...and for none of us, actually! We literally make adulting up every day. We make up romantically relating every day. We literally grew up together. He’s the embodiment of a life partner. Almost 19 years later, we’re still here.
Our relationship has not been easy, and we don't always get it right. But, we try every day to do so. Despite the fact that my amygdala puts me in flight mode every time we fight, I know that if I actually chose to run, I'd be running to singledom because he'd be incredibly hard to replace for a myriad of reasons.
Please note: with this piece, I’m not trying to discourage anyone from getting married. YOU do YOU, always, and point blank period! But, I think it’s important to denote what marriage is and what it’s not. I’m not bitter. I’m not a hater. I'm just trying to abolish this magical thinking that's sold to little girls that their husbands are a prince who comes to save them...a story I fell victim to all those years ago.
And in the name of authenticity, I’m just stating the facts based on facts. Everything I’m going to say is a Google search away unless I denote that it’s an opinion.
Now to address the topic at hand: Love and Marriage DO NOT Go Together Like A Horse and Carriage…I LIED. I said what I said.
You know I love a good definition, so let me clarify the following terms:
Love
This one is tricky. According to the Oxford Dictionary, love is an intense feeling of deep affection or a great interest and pleasure in something. It can function as a noun and verb and is often used interchangeably. Before the Old English definition of love existed, the Kemetic hieroglyph for "love" depicts a man cultivating land with a hoe, contrasting with our Westernized romantic love. This concept emphasizes the labor, effort, and effort involved in love, rather than just initial feelings. Source
One fact that I don’t have to look up because we already know it despite its definition: people feel love in different ways. Love is such an abstract ideal, so it’s wild to try to concretely define it. All I can say is that you know it when you sense it.
Marriage
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, marriage is “the state of being united as spouses in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law.” It also is defined as “the institution (establishment) whereby individuals are joined in a marriage” or “an intimate or close union”. All these definitions are nouns.
The action “to marry” means to join in marriage or to unite in close relation. (Side note but totally relevant tangent: if sex is defined as sexual relations, wouldn’t you “marry” someone every time you engage in relations with others? I mean, you are uniting in close relation…)
The words ‘marriage’ and ‘relationship’ are not being used synonymously as they generally are in society.
My definition of marriage is as follows: marriage is a type of relationship that involves the legal and financial facets of two individuals.
What I’m really saying when I say Love and Marriage DO NOT Go Together Like A Horse and Carriage is that while it's beautiful that you have feelings of love toward someone, you can love them in all the ways to love them without wanting or needing to enter the institution of marriage to prove anything to others or yourselves. There are certainly legal and financial benefits to being married, but if you refute the history of marriage and don’t want to ascribe to the idea of patriarchal ownership, you can get all your legal paperwork together so that all of your earthly possessions can go to your partner and you can still maintain being in a committed relationship (if that’s what you choose to do) without the legalities of marriage.
The act of marriage intertwines all of the legal and financial parts of each individual. In other words, when you choose to marry someone, if you don’t have a prenuptial agreement, then everything that composes the legal and financial part of you gets intertwined with your partner. Every purchase made in or before the marriage no longer belongs to just one person… it belongs to both of you. It doesn’t matter whose money was used to purchase it. If you inherit money from a family member not tied to a trust during the marriage, it's community property. Your lover's astronomical student loan debt, horrible credit score, back taxes, and other financial discretions that your partner has can also be legally and financially tied to you through the act of marriage. What’s love got to do with THAT?
We put the labels of husband (etymology (origin) of ‘husband’ means ‘master of the house’) and wife (the etymology of ‘wife’ means ‘woman’) to glamorize and set the institution of marriage apart from a committed relationship when the level of relational commitment is not greater or less in any dynamic of relationship because the level of relational commitment depends on the agreement of the people involved in the partnership. Marriage does increase the level of legal and financial commitment couples make to each other, but as we all know, all of that can be absolved through a prenuptial agreement or a divorce, which the latter can cause legal and financial strain to both parties involved.
Here are some more facts about marriage:
*Historically, marriages predate recorded history but its intent has always been to create an alliance between families. Stephanie Coontz, the author of Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage, says “In some cultures, parents even married one child to the spirit of a deceased child in order to strengthen familial bonds.” Source
*Cousin marriages are still common around the world.
*Monogamy is assumed in Western marriage, but polygamy and polygyny have been common throughout history.
*Men could dissolve a marriage and take another wife if their currently betrothed was infertile.
*When the church intervened between the 6th and 9th centuries, monogamy became a guiding principle (not a requirement) of Western marriages, and it was not in the way that we think of monogamy. When men were promiscuous outside of their marriage, and because of the laws of that time, there were no repercussions for the man. Yet, the woman was tainted, outcasted, and censured, and the baby was considered a bastard. Any period drama like Bridgerton portrays this very thing.
*The law and church were not originally a part of marriages. At least until 1500, the church just accepted a couple’s word that they said marriage vows to each other. No one needed to witness it.
*By the 19th century, marriage licenses became common in the United States.
*Marriage equality didn’t become a topic of discussion until the 1970s. Women were still fighting for the right to even have a bank account or credit card in their name. They couldn’t really function without being married to a man. In fact, marital rape was legal in many states until 1970, and only in 1993 was it outlawed in every state. There are still states that have loopholes that protect husbands who rape their wives.
*As of 2024, 80% of states still allow child marriage. It was legal in ALL 50 states as recently as 2018. And the parents aren’t marrying off their little boys. Source
Outside of these facts, I went to my marriage license which I had to pay for and obtain within 30 days of my marriage. Didn’t see the word 'love' on it. (Also, gotta block out some stuff on this picture of my marriage license so y’all don’t steal it for yourself...)
I went to the county website to see what the requirements were for marriage. The picture is below. Looked and…whelp… no love there.
I went to search for standard marriage vows that I said when I got married (and vaguely remember and did not realize how serious they were) in the Christian church, and I don’t even remember the exact ones we said nor did we have anyone record them.
But, according to The Knot website, “love and cherish” are a part of all of the Protestant Christian vows, and not a part of the Muslim and Buddhist vows. I wonder when it was added to the vows because of the previously stated facts of the original intent of marriage.
And it’s clear that the law does not have love in it, and if marriage is dictated by laws, and we know there’s certainly no love in the law, then it doesn’t exist in the institution of marriage. Since it's Black History Month, and I'm in a Black marriage, I must acknowledge the fact that marriage in America was only for white men getting married to white women. Marriage was illegal for enslaved people because Black people weren't considered people... by law, they were just farm equipment and under the United States Constitution, just 3/5ths of a person. (WTF is 3/5ths of a person?) Marriage for enslaved people was just a license to breed, as it was only approved by the plantation owner. With the 1867 Dred Scott decision that denied Scott and any other enslaved human the right to buy his freedom, Black families had to fight for their relationships and were not protected by law if they were married. In the name of White wealth, Black husbands and wives were still being ripped apart and Black women were still being raped by the plantation owners despite their marital status. Source/Source
Ultimately, the Black community has so much relationship trauma to contend with, yet society blames and shames us when we struggle instead of guiding and uplifting us. Black families need deep spiritual healing because of the trauma that's still attached to our DNA.
Let it also be known that interracial marriage just became legal in 1967. Y'all, that's only 57 years ago. And I've had White ancestors in my family before 1967, so there's that...
And I'd be remiss not to acknowledge that same-sex marriage just became legal in 2015. Y'all, that's nine years ago. Yet, the LGBTQIA2S++ community has really existed since the beginning of time, and in my opinion, if you deny that, then you choose to live in your own ignorance. I know what it feels like to not be able to live in my authentic self, so to not be able to express myself authentically, AND to not be able to take advantage of the legal and financial benefits of marriage is WILD.
Imagine living, loving, and creating a life with someone, then they get sick, you're the only one that can take care of them, and your work FMLA doesn't protect you from losing your job to take care of them because you're not married to them and can't get married to them. Furthermore, they can't take advantage of your great health insurance because you're not married to them, so the medical bills stack up along with other bills because you just lost your job because you had to take care of your partner. And at the hospital, your partner becomes incapacitated and since you're not considered their next of kin, you can't make medical decisions on their behalf anyway. If they died, you were not directly entitled to the materialism you built together or even entitled to bereavement days at your job...all because you and your partner can't get married BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE SAME GENITALIA? It's wild that we lived like this less than ten years ago.
Like I mentioned before: not only am I a child of divorce, but also I’ve been through the divorce process…all the way to standing in front of the judge with her saying, “You both can get divorced TODAY if you want to!” Ultimately, we both said no and had the case dismissed, but in both instances of divorce, I can tell you THE LOVE DIMINSHED QUICKLY IN BOTH SITUATIONS. As Cardi B said, it was UP and it was stuck! There's no love in divorce. Only really big egos. If there's love in divorce, it's sure not in the paperwork. Even the reason for divorce is never because "they no longer LOVE each other". "Irreconcilable differences" is as close as you're going to get.
So what I’m telling you is that we PUT love in marriage and made it a part of marriage. But love and marriage are not the same thing. From a young age, Western society signs us up for all this magical thinking: Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, Fairytale Love Stories, and we just end up disappointed because THE LIE DETECTOR TEST DETERMINED WE WERE LIED TO!
That’s why marriage is hard. You have to grow a relationship AND maintain the BUSINESS of marriage while trying to align it with the love part of the relationship… ALL AT THE SAME TIME? Mind you, life doesn't really prepare you or give insight into the skills and strategies to do any of these things. Then, throw careers, self-care, paying bills, learning how to adult and CHILDREN in the mix… all while trying to grow yourself...then WHAT?!?!?! It’s WILD out here. They really duped us.
Alexa, there's no other song you need to play today but “What’s Love Got To Do With It” by Tina Turner. Clearly, she already knew.
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