MOTHER EDDIE, WHAT'S THE BEST TIME TO MARRY?
The best time to marry is.....(drumroll!)...... in your early twenties! I know this runs counter to the common wisdom which says, "Enjoy life before you settle down! When you're finally ready, maybe in your early 30s, you'll have sown your wild oats and will be ready for a mature relationship." That's silly. If you wait that long you may not have any relationship at all. Here's why.
Let me digress and say that I came to this conclusion after watching Zeffirelli's "Romeo and Juliette" about a half dozen times in the span of a couple of weeks. When you see it that often it becomes clear that the play is not only about love but about youth. Only young people can love so passionately. Only young people would rather die than be seperated. Only young people can see each other through rose-colored glasses, ignoring each other's flaws and emphasizing each other's assets. Only young people are adaptive enough to change themselves to fit the requirements of the person they love. At this age nature is shouting at you through a bullhorn: "Get married!" "Have kids!" "This is the time!"
If you're still unmarried by the time you're 30 then you've been around the block. You know that life will continue even if you're jilted and that there's always other fish in the sea. You have standards the other person is expected to meet and if they don't...well, there's the door. You're guarded because you've had bad experiences with love. You always withold a little of yourself so you won't be devastated if the worst happens. You still want a romantic relationship but you've unwittingly removed the foundation that would make that possible.
By the time you're forty the list of attributes that you expect a lover to have is incredibly specific. If you like cats then he better like them too, in fact he better like the specific kind of cat that you like or else. I don't see a romance here but rather a legalistic negotiation.
I believe in romance. I want to be seen through rose-colored glasses and I want to see the person I'm attached to that way. Very few of us look good in the cold light of reality. I don't think romance is possible without a total commitment, without the belief that nothing will be right if you loose the other person. Since only young people can feel this way I conclude that all great romances must begin when the couples are young.
Are there exceptions? Yes, millions of them! So many that I hesitated to write what I did. I know people who met late in life and are as happy as it's possible to be. I also know people who've divorced because they married too early. Even so, I'll stick by romance and early marriage as the standard model from which there are many legitimate and happy variations.
BTW, Let me acknowledge the happy exception represented by two recently married friends, Kr. and Shv. These guys are perfect for each other and I don't think they could be any happier, even if they were teenagers like Romeo & Juliette.
24 comments:
Alright, that's it!
I'm proposing first thing in the damn morning!!! We'll see what happen from there...
By the way, what the hell is that grandma doll thing? A ventriloquist puppet?
Then, you hope and encourage your children to marry right now? Would you approve?
-that ventriloqist thing looks like Mrs. Bates from "Psycho"--the party version.
Maurice Gosfield (a.k.a. Doberman/Benny the Ball) was your mother??!! WOWWIE!! You're a celebrity, Uncle Eddie!!! Can I have your autograph? ;)
You never write about your wife, Eddie. How must she feel if you only write about other women? I'll bet she's the perfect woman since you would never settle for less than perfection, Uncle Eddie. Give us all pointers about being happily together over a million years, for we are a bunch of snotnosed fucks.
That may have been a good model in the early 20th century but now kids are not just encouraged but yelled, screamed at and pushed to "act older" and grow up way way before they're even out of their teens. That's a fact...there's virtually NO time for a real (presexual) childhood anymore, much less a stress-free adolescence.
I think it's a horrible idea, really: the kids will have young parents but also 8 out of 10 will be the kids of young, divorced , unhappy single parents...sad but true. I've seen it with everyone in my family who married at age 20 or so and immediately had kids-not one couple is still married. There are exceptions but I still say that NO ONE should marry under the age of 27 or so, at the youngest--AFTER they've had an education and a job, acquired some financial stability on their own, and mostly found out exactly who they are as an adult. You really think hormones should rule life decisions??! I think marrying carefully, without Romeo & Juliet sexual fireworks(that always fizzle, btw) at age 27 or later still leaves plenty of time to have a family--those are the relationships I've seen last.
That "grandma doll thing" is none other than Mrs. Smiff, Knucklehead's saintly mom! Show some respect.
Barb,Brian: Fascinating!
Anonymous: My wife and kids don't want me to write about them! I guess Warhol was wrong! Not everybody craves 15 minutes of fame!
Spizz: Unbelievable! how did you know that!? I meant the picture to represent an old maid but as Anonymous said, it comes off as Mrs. Bates.
Mad Max: Good for you!
Jorge: Nice! I'll use it!
I met a great woman on my thirtieth birthday.
That sounded so right that I married her.
I also believe people should marry while they are young. People who wait til they are older to propose often marry with ulterior motives...fear of dying alone (which is a concept I never understood...people die alone whether they are married or not), procreative reasons or financial motives. These reasons seem very selfish and inconsiderate of the spouse. Their are many good attributes that age provides...maturity, responsibility, a more defined personality, wisdom. However, maturity breeds distrust and bitterness. The partners in younger couples depend upon each other more because they do not have as many resources. When people marry when they are older, there is very little need to work together because both people have many of the resources already.
I think people are becoming too selfish, shallow and petty these days and that's why so many marriages end up in divorce. Parenting methods have become lazier too.
My parents married in their early 20s and are still together today. They always found ways to work through the hardest of times and did their best with me and my 2 sisters.
Too many marriages now are handled like trade-ins. Perhaps these days it really is better to wait so you can be sure you've truly found the one you plan to spend the next 50-60 years with.
Do you really think Romeo and Juliet would have stayed together if they hadn't offed themselves? I never thought it was the healthiest relationship anyway...
Blame feminism for what exactly, Jorge? *rolls eyes* The End of Marriage? I guess you're too young to realize how old you sound...nothing like a 20 year old conservative with zero life/relationship experience!
Anyway, I'm shocked by a lot of the attitudes here. Eric, your "ulterior motives" are in fact REALLY REALLY great reasons NOT to get married early; I don't see anything "selfish" in waiting to get married when you're financially or otherwise stable, for chrissakes. "Maturity breeds distrust and bitterness"??! WTF? On which planet? The 50 ft women world? Bizarre, man! On the earth I live on, maturity breeds wisdom, patience and a deeper sense of respect and caring for other people, one not simply based on physical attraction alone(which doesn't always last--see below). Sheesh.
Have any of you looked at the statistics of how many successful middle-aged men dump their wives of 35 years for a woman 20 years younger--the "trophy wife" syndrome? leaving the once-young "sweetheart" and usually mother of their grown up kids high & dry, assuming she hasn't had her own job or bank account(that's "feminism", isn't it Jorge? the horror!)
There's ample excuse for that behaviour from "Mother" Nature as well you all know...but regardless, it doesn't make it right.
I still say both men and women--but especially men--are too immature in their early 20s to be married. What's wrong with waiting? Or do you guys think you have to save your virginity for marriage? What squares cartoon fans are. lol.
; )
Hi Eddie
QUESTION:
Which of the following do you like more?
1. The Three Stooges
2. Laurel & Hardy
3. Abbott & Costello
maternity leave isn't a right, it's a luxury. Like stock options.
I say marry first for love and after the divorce, swear off marriage for a series of one night stands. Dude. Sweet.
Hey feministas, your knee-jerk reactions to Jorge's words are just dumb and unnecessarily sarcastic. You're engaging in Identity Politics and goodthink, and it stinks. Why don't you read a few books by intelligent people who have a different grasp on the situation than you and then come back to the table? Or can't an intelligent person believe that there's maybe something wrong with feminism as a doctrine? Back to Identity Politics...
Gimme a break.
As for Uncle Eddie's theory, yes! The kids should marry early and make with the babies. I don't know how the passage of time is supposed to make a half a person whole -- I mean, I've never seen experience alone account for wisdom. A calculated avoidance of pain, maybe, like you'd aquire if you "experienced" putting your hand on a burner, but not the CHAARACTER trait of wisdom.
A cousin of mine got pregnant by her boyfriend at age 16. 6 years later, she married that boyfrind and their daughter, then age 6, was the flower girl. They've had 3 other kids since then and they're still married today.
Basically, there's no mathematical equation for making a successful marriage. If a relationship is working, stick with it. If not, try to fix it or get out of it. It can't be put more simply or (at the same time) more complicated than that.
You're not making it easy to stay a commitment-phobe, Uncle Eddie.
But jorge, what exactly do you mean when you use the term "feminism" and please explain to all of us why it's such a bad thing?
To hell with Warhol. Everybody craves fifteen minutes of good sex.
sorry catching up on old stuff..
ya know what you just made me realize? im 24 and already at your 30 stage. i have never seen myself having a perfect wedding like all my girlie little friends and now look at me... freedom comes with a price no matter what type of freedom that is.
Jorge; John A here again. I'm not really satisfied with your answer.Taken too far, where? The differences between the genders are being erased? Where do you see this happening? Are women trying to be men when they want the same legal rights, or if they want to to be paid the same amount that men earn? Do you think that women should be barred from seeking the same kind of jobs men have, say in fields like animation or illustration, or do you think that 52 percent of the earth's population, because they were born with vaginas, are only fit to have babies and fix you dinner. I don't mean to pick on you, it just bothers me to hear young men parrot back the buzzwords they hear from a handful of bullies on talk radio and think that they are engaging in critical thought.
Yasamin, my god...
"ya know what you just made me realize? im 24 and already at your 30 stage. i have never seen myself having a perfect wedding like all my girlie little friends and now look at me... freedom comes with a price no matter what type of freedom that is."
Are you upset that you're [apparently] not in a relationship at age 24 or that you haven't had "a perfect wedding"? :-0
Yikes, kid--you're 20-fucking-FOUR! "Freedom comes at a price"? I've got a bombshell for you:
Getting married has zero to do with an absence of freedom. That's true only if you think you're going to totally blank out your own life after a big party-wedding, or that freedom means being alone.
It's about sharing your life with another person you like and love, for as long as you can, possibly, hopefully until one of you dies. It may or may not involve kids. Screw "the perfect wedding" BS!!
And there's no "perfect life" either.
Sorry to be so harsh but to have this attitude at 24 is frightening. And the litany of things that Uncle Eddie writes in the middle: "ONLY youth does this or that, only youth loves passionately"--wow, that's pure baloney. I don't think he really believes it. And this whopper: "Only young people are adaptive enough to change themselves to fit the requirements of the person they love."
You're not serious-are you?
I think the argument about after 30 being hopeless to sustain a reationship because of world-weariness...its absolutely the opposite that's true. It's the maturity and realization that people aren't perfect, that they don't meet you expectations...then maybe you'll change YOUR expectations, not show them "the door". It's YOUTH who flits from one "passionate love" to another, is heedless of anything ending or of mortality, and always thinks the grass is greener with the next girl or guy, so breaks up cavalierly--NOT older lovers. Just another schlub's two cents!
This is a great post!
I agree....
Love and infatuation is all about fantasy/instincts. Fantasy is at it's prime when someone is unexperienced, uneducated and innocent: young and filled with juicy hormones.
Fantasy is real to kids, becasue we don't know any better.
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