A Globe and Mail article by Sarah Hampson caught my eye the other day. The first line read: “What is a wife? A dead girl.” It goes on to describe how marriage can effectively kill aspects of both the wife’s and husband’s personalities. My official reaction to the article is: Oh, please.

At first glance, the examples of marriage breakdowns that Hampson provides and the reasons forthwith seem very complex. In the article she quotes recently separated Alan Harding as stating, “I had to wear so many hats. I had to be the daddy. I had to bring home money. I had to be the husband and I had to be the best friend. I wasn´t ready for that.” By “hats,” he means roles, and while it might ring true that married life brings with it greater responsibilities, we soon learn that Harding had lived together with his wife happily for years before marrying, and their first son was born years out of wedlock. So, in other words, his responsibilities before and after his wedding were the same, except for this new collection of intolerable, abstract hats.

This is what I call over-complicating things. People tend to do this as adults – especially in marriage – because as grown-ups we worry that reasons like “she isn´t what she used to be” or “he never puts the toilet seat down” might sound a little trite to our loved ones, and wouldn’t justify a long and bitter legal battle.

Newlywed Rebecca Addelman, in a previous article for TORO, claims marriage is “a useless, outdated institution.” But in light of Alan Harding’s over-rationalization, I ask Addelman: who or what would we have to blame, if not for overbearing institutions like marriage, banks and the Canadian publishing industry? How could husbands make martyrs of themselves for the want of a sport car, and wives do the same for the want of a colour scheme of their choosing? As long as these institutions exist, there will always be that needed supply of drinking glasses in which to drown.

When people complain about the crushing social pressures of marital “hats,” it’s as if they have never been to junior high school. When it comes to finances, they act as if only married couples buy condos and worry about variable interest rates. The fact is we face and deal with social pressures our entire lives, married or unmarried, and the idea that putting on a wedding band makes these pressures more acute is imaginary. And what of the outside pressure to stay in an unhappy marriage? I suggest dealing with it in the same way you did in high school when you broke up with a boyfriend or girlfriend that everyone liked.

In divorcing, the husband isn’t breaking free of the shackles of matrimony and the wife isn’t breaking the bonds of a conspiring patriarchy. Generally, it’s just two people who are sick of each others peculiarities and habits.

Although I’ve been married only a short while, I think I have some advice that may slim the chances of a breakdown. Firstly, you should live together beforehand, long enough to learn your partner’s quirks. I’d say at least a year. (That’s also long enough to find out if your boyfriend spends a little too much time and money at strip bars, and if your girlfriend is using one credit card to pay off the interest on three others.) Secondly, once you’ve learned your partner’s habits and behaviour, understand that this is it. Over the years, they may soften around the edges, but you should prepare for the fact that if they are messy or moody or flatulent now, they’ll be this way when they’re 80. Finally, the question you should ask yourself is “Can I live with this person for the rest of my life – wrinkles, pot-belly, sagging parts and all?”

When Rebecca Addelman asserts that marriage is an outdated institution, I think couples should look at it in this way. It would spare them the disappointment that their wedding day is neither the be-all and end-all, nor the magical solution to all their problems. Doing this, they will hopefully see it as it should be seen: a promise made public, a single step on a long road.

I´m probably going to be eating these words years from now, crying over my Kraft Dinner in my bachelor apartment, waiting for my kids to call (who won´t because my ex-wife will have poisoned them against me). But this won´t mean I was wrong about what I´m asserting here, because I won´t be rationalizing the reasons of my failed marriage on an institution.

– Rocco de Giacomo, Toronto

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