Delaying Marriage (Part 2)

It's getting to the point where I'm no fun anymore.
I am sorry.
Sometimes it hurts so badly I must cry out loud.
I am yours, you are mine, you are what you are
You make it hard.
Remember what we've said and done and felt about each other,
Oh, babe have mercy.
Don't let the past remind us of what we are not now
I am not dreaming,
I am yours, you are mine, you are what you are
You make it hard.

¡Que linda! Me acuerdo a Cuba
La reina de la Mar Caribe
Quiero sólo visitarle allí
Y que triste que no puedo. ¡Vaya!
O Va! O Va!

[#418 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time]

~Crosby, Stills, & Nash 

 

Last week was a bit of a rambling collection of various thoughts. I originally wrote most of that during a rather arduous Math 675 lecture last semester. It was the type of class that you showed up to and just sort of listened. The book was translated from German and was extremely hard to follow. Furthermore, the topic really had nothing to do with my thesis  and the class usually devolved into some discussion about typos or mistranslations in the text. Hence the reason I faded in and out and ultimately ended up writing a steam of conscience diatribe.

One really important theme that I am going to introduce here is the difference between "general society" and my "local society." General Society is very accepting of a large variety of lifestyles that run counter to the traditional lifestyles of the past. This is especially true in relation to marital considerations. Local Society is wholly not accepting of lifestyles other than their own. Much like Tevye the Dairyman, these are the champions of "tradition." I am in hopes that you are familiar with the distinction I am alluding to here. Perhaps you place yourself in one of these Societies. Finding myself as a citizen of both Societies, I must at times reconcile their disparate views. The result of such a compromise of opinions has at times led to me standing separate from both the General and the Local.

Tevye the Dairyman

If you have not figured it out by now, marriage is a trending topic in both General Society and Local Society. Hence the reason I formally introduce the two; they both vie to be the voice in marital matters, and the subsequent confluence of such Societies induces a collision of conflicting conclusions. If we are to speak of delaying marriage, it is critical that we understand the view from both Societies on such delays.

Let me add as a preface to all of this that I am not trying to made some sort of political advocation here. There are people from both Societies with views completely out of harmony with what I deem important, and there are also people from both Societies who present themselves with dignity. I just leave it at that. Furthermore, for sake of clarity and brevity I am going to use broad generalizations about both societies--generalization that probably are rarely the complete picture. This, however, should show us that perhaps we all lie on both sides of the line at times, we just do not realize it. Moreover, I am not trying to portray myself in the role of a victim. Let's be honest, I consider myself to be better than most of the world, so I seldom am too put out by untoward comments. Please also keep in mind that I am well aware of the fact that most people, married or otherwise, that I come in contact with manage to act in a completely civil and logical manner. If you are a normal married person minding your own business, what I say in here is not an attempt at criticizing you.

Now back to the subject matter.

To be plain, General Society and Local Society see marriage very differently.  Because of these differences, I have seen a certain level of "taking sides," where each body is pitted against the other. Today I am not going to focus on the actual collisions of these two Societies, but rather on one of the side effects.

As pertaining to marriage, the two aforementioned Societies have converged to their current positions rather rapidly. The foundation of the so called "traditional family" has been questioned repeatedly during this process. Due to this dissuasion by the General against what the Local Society usually considers the sole definition of a family, I have seem a marked effort from the Local to lay a line of demarcation between the traditional family and everything else. This has led to the rather odd occurrence at times of me being placed into a Society with whom I do not associate. I have even seen someone infer that if you are an unmarried male in the LDS Church and you do not have a family "of your own,"* you must be gay. Really? That's news to me. True it is that I know some men who are gay and also LDS. But I know an hundredfold more single men who are not gay. This reflects the general percentage-wise distributions of our society. Even jokes in the regard above are rather....inappropriate--whether you are "just in the grocery aisle" or not.

As a more subtle variation on the above theme, I have seen it inferred that somehow by not being married, I am attacking the traditional family. Or, at the very least, I do not get the importance of family. This is also a revelation to me. Now as I said, this theme is more subtle. It is also more prevalent than we care to realize. It is manifest in comments such as "Since I'm married, I understand the importance of (traditional) family" and "When you get a family [see *], you will understand how important ________ [fill in blank: marriage, children,....] is/are." More than once have I had the experience of someone sanctimoniously quoting an LDS General Authority on marriage as a way of shaming me or showing how they possess some sort of moral high ground that I have yet to conquer. Such comments are ofttimes not even said purposefully as an insult, but rather are just an appendage of the speaker's naïveté. Of course we will usually be better off by just ignoring things we deem offensive.  But let me give you a hint: Quoting a General Authority out of context as a way of shaming and belittling your audience is a rather poor method of motivation.

Why does Judy sing about clouds?

Since the title of this post deals with the delaying of marriage, I probably should actually address said topic. This post has up to this point been a bit heavier and dense than last week. Next week will be more like the first, with lots of low level jabs and much scoffing at hubristic pompiety. But today, we talked societies. That was the theme. So I will tie delaying marriage into that.

This really will not take long. Here is how it goes. Those in General Society delay marriage for many reasons that those in my Local Society do not. In fact, as was my thesis last week, I am not even sure that "delaying marriage" is the correct term to be using for most of the single people I know in my Local Society. I summarize as thus: Just because you read about "delaying" marriage in The New York Times or The Progressive does not mean you are well educated on the subject as it relates to the Local Society. Believe me. Look at the comments at the bottom of this article from the General Society on delaying marriage. These comments do not really look like anything I or my peers would espouse as our own views. Perhaps because I do not live in the "real world," I have entirely missed the boat here and there is in fact a large tide of single members of the Church purposefully trying to shirk marriage. But somehow that seems unlikely. Please feel free to relate below stories of persons you know who are purposefully dodging getting married. Mothers of opera loving daughters, this is your moment to shine.

Naturally, I am well aware of the several quotations from leaders of the LDS Church about "delaying marriage." I am not going to even address how many times I have had such attributions applied wholly out of context. I do not deal with radical quackery. Instead let me explain a concept that is important to understand in relation to what Church leaders teach. Sometimes we have a problem with mistaking a warning for an accusation. We must not confuse warning the caravan of the dangers of highway robbers with accusing the caravan of being highway robbers. For example, in the General Conferences of the LDS Church in 1971 (April & October), the word "drugs" was used 62 times. In the most recent two conferences (October 2014 & April 2015), the word "drugs" was used one (1) time. And it was in a talk about gay marriage. If we look at General Conference as a time for the leaders to get up and accuse members of sin, might we infer that the young people of the Church in 1971 had a drug problem 62 times more prolific than exists now days? Or were these words in 1971 meant to be taken as warnings--warnings which the high majority of people took note of and adhered to in the first place? You be the judge. Good leaders warn. Bad leaders accuse and point fingers. Unmarried does not equal delaying marriage. Blah, blah, blah. You get the idea.

Comment below if you so desire.

---

 *I have had people ask me before if I have a family "of my own." The answer to that question is "yes." It consists of my parents and brother. I got a family of my own when I was born. It does not take me getting married to understand the concept of having a family.