marriage – Treehouse Writers

Last weekend at a wedding, my partner leaned toward me and, with tears in his eyes, said, “We are seeing the future.”

And it’s a good future. Or, as some of us old folks like to say, “The kids are all right.”

Earlier at the wedding, I found myself thinking, “Fuck those people who want to destroy all this.” Because this wedding was the antithesis of all the horrific violence that is being done to our country (and in the name of our country) right now.

This was a wedding for our times. It was a queer wedding. The people in attendance were quite diverse — a mix of genders, races, ethnicities, ages, backgrounds, and home locations.

The couple – one woman, one nonbinary person – met at the orientation for the graduate program in public health at U.C. Berkeley in 2021. I mean, these are folks who chose to study public health during a pandemic, so you know already they are people who are out to make good trouble in the world.

As a rule, I’m a bit skeptical about marriage. I’ve spent most of my life single and while I’m now in a committed relationship, we aren’t planning to get married for reasons that range from philosophical to practical.

But I do like celebrations and I also like the people who got married, who are neighbors of ours. Their joy in each other is wonderful.

The wedding ceremony reflected that individual joy, the political awareness of the complexity of the times, and the vital importance of ritual in our lives, not to mention the joy that comes from gathering. Continue reading “Some Thoughts From a Wedding”…

The Washington Post editorial board published a ridiculous editorial last week on the fate of marriage given that young women are much more liberal than young men, some of whom are distressingly right wing. The article implied that women should compromise their political beliefs to get married.

My initial reaction to this silly article is best summed up in a saying from second-wave feminism:

A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.

According to Wikipedia, Australian filmmaker, politician, and activist Irina Dunn said that.

My second reaction is to ask why are we still getting articles like this in 2023. This one’s not quite as bad as the one Newsweek did in the 1990s about women over 40 being more likely to be killed by terrorists than get married — which wasn’t remotely true as well as being stupid — but it’s pretty bad.

I mean, why all this emphasis on getting married?

The Post seems to think married people are happier, but their source for that data is from a right wing organization. There is some data that married men are happier, but ….

Based on my in-no-way-scientific observation of people, single women are as happy as anybody else, and the women I’ve known who were the unhappiest tended to be married women in complicated marriages.

I’ve been in a committed relationship for the past ten years (we’ve lived together for nine). Before that I was single for many years. I’ve never been married and never had a long ongoing relationship before this one. I was happy being single and I’m happy being in this particular relationship.

The things that make me unhappy have nothing to do with my relationships.

It should go without saying that my partner and I share similar political views. There is absolutely no way I could be seriously involved with a partner who didn’t share my politics. In fact, one of the reasons this relationship is successful is that we share deep values.

There’s an implication in this discussion that political views don’t matter, even though The Post also constantly writes about polarization. It’s as if politics is like rooting for a baseball team.

But politics, especially in these times, is a window into values. If my values incorporate feminism, antiracism, addressing climate change, doing something about wealth inequality, and related issues, how can I possibly get involved with someone who embraces authoritarianism and white supremacy? Continue reading “Relationships and Values”…