The thing about being young is that nobody really expects much serious of you. Perhaps this wasnt the case in the past; if you cast me back into the 18th century, or the world of Jane Austen, I would probably be merrily advertising my marriageable status to the men around me. I can cook, I can clean, and just look at these birthing hips! Today, however, in the 21st century, much like many other things relationships have become a little more disposable. I know that people fall in love. It’s an incredible, enlightening, life affirming experience. But today it seems to me that falling in love at the age of 17 or 18 of 23 or 45 even isn’t really a BIG DEAL. Perhaps because there is no expectation that a deal, a marriage, might happen. I could happily float around through the next decade of my life, meeting along the way a wild assortment of eligible and interesting men, but never along that journey might I meet someone who wanted to marry.
I think perhaps I think this because there is a part of me that is wary of the institution of marriage altogether. I was fortunate to have a very loving family as I grew up, but it was by no means one which might be considered traditionally intact. My parents divorced messily and still regrettably unhappily when I was 9. I think perhaps one sees marriage as a little less holy when they have witnessed it reduced to wasted promises and expensively orchestrated arguments arranged by mediators and solicitors. To be in love is a wonderful thing, there can be no doubt about it, but in an age where you are aware so acutely that your phone or outfit or mode of dress is being constantly replaced, it seems difficult to commit to one person for the rest of your life.
Another problem, aside from constantly lusting after a new model, is that marriages create mass attention in the press only when they are unhappy. The ‘conscious uncoupling’ of Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin, the strangling and cocaine that surrounded the demise of Nigella Lawson and Charles Saatchi, the day-to-day break ups and make ups of z-list celebrities, all seem to diminish the promise that marriage holds. There are true tragedies too – the recent death of Peaches Geldof, a woman so recently finding her feet as a mother, with so much happiness to look forward to, strikes a deeply unhappy chord. What if you should be lucky and find happiness only for it to so suddenly disappear?
This may seem rather bleak and miserable, but somehow I think that a shift in thinking is due. Our awareness of our material culture as throwaway (near on half of marriages end in divorce) seems to be leading to a slight shift in the paradigm, that somehow we are beginning to be aware that nothing is truly disposable: the pile of out of date phones in that drawer of “stuff” we all have is testament to that. We as a society have to learn to “reduce, reuse, recycle”. I think this is true of people too. Although there are many millions of people on the planet, enough to facilitate a short-term and disengaged relationship every month for the rest of anyone’s life, I think it is worth taking a step back and allowing oneself to appreciate people for their entire worth.
I wear a ring handed down to me by my grandmother. In the grand scheme of the world, it is nothing special. Its design has been replicated many times over, and I have seen many other people wear rings which are very much the same. However this ring has been in my family since my grandfather gave it to my grandmother a long, long time ago. They have been married nearly sixty years, during which time they have raised my mother and her two siblings. They perhaps come from an age where one person was enough to see you through your entire life. Like the ring I wear, this person may not start out as being necessarily special or unique or rated above others, in fact there are human equivalents of diamond spangled bands readily available. What makes this person special, though, is shared history and experience. I don’t mean an Instagram photo from a night out, or the Facebook pictures rom that holiday to Cambodia. I mean the time you laughed hysterically together at not much at all, or having one person there at a time of need: the things not shared in the public sphere.
These are the people worth keeping around. Those who do not become less exciting with familiarity, but become firmly ensconced in the highest echelons of friendship. They may not even be romantically involved, but they are the friends which you wear with you not because they’re flashy or impressive, not because of complacency and unwillingness to change, but because these are the people with whom you want to share your life.
In Search of Euphoria 