Marriage is an Institution :)

I was just on facebook and saw that one of my friends posted about girls being able to take the last name of the guy that they are going to/will marry in the future. It received a lot of comments, and I have to say, I'm happy to see that most men are traditional in the sense that they still want women to take on their last name. That's sweet. Now if only you men can be traditional in other aspects of relationships...

So I decided to take this time to talk about marriage in whole. In the movie 27 Dresses, James Marsden's character says "I give the guy a lot of credit. Although he is willingly entering into the last legal form of slavery left in this world, for some reason, he always looks happy". I love that line, because even though it is ironically cyncial and somewhat untrue, he in a way makes a point. Some men, men like him, will look at marriage as an instituion, a place in where you are held against your will, forced to do things that when you are single, you wouldn't dare to do because guess what, often times your mother did it for you. But things just seem to change when you tie that knot, and before you know it, you hate your name, wishing that you could change it, as your wife calls you every half hour to ask you for another "favor".

But it wasn't always this way. The reason why we are in such constant conflict is because times have changed, and so has the the generation in which we live in. Look at it this way, back in the day, the roles of the household were clearly outlined. The woman was the housewife while the man worked to support the family. But we are now in a world where us girls are fighting for our careers, for our names, for a shot at success in the real world just like the men do. And with that comes competing values within the relationship. So when two people get married, and if kids get involved, who stays home? Who keeps their job? Do both the husband and wife still work?

We continue to be at a crossroads in life as relationships are only getting more difficult with each generation that passes. In fact, relationships seem to be diminishing, as divorce rates are high, and kids start "going out" at younger and younger of an age. It's up to us as parents to stop this amongst our children and re-instill the values that were once given and taught to us as kids. Maybe then marriage will go back to being something based on true love and compromise!