Shangrala,
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shangrala
The one statement you made:
When I see a marriage that has lasted for 50 years or longer, I often wonder which person had to do the most sacrificing in order to make the marriage work.
My first reaction was, how sad that the first thing you think of is something so cynical and negative.  |
No I don't see it as negative or cynical... I just think of it as realistic.
I view life & love objectively.. I do not view such things with rose colored glasses while listening to soft music under the glow of candlelight, lol.
I will agree with you... there is probably some degree of love present in those marriages, but I will also go on to say that it probably came at a very steep price to one of the parties in the relationship.
Looking at the people celebrating their golden aniversaries today in 2009... these were folks who got married in 1959. They consist of that group that made an awful lot of sacrifices.
They were willing to stuff down their goals and desires for the sake of their partner's. Part of their reason for doing so was cultural (divorce was an unthinkable act and very uncommon) and also because there was still was a lot of economic and social disparity between the genders.
Anyway... I don't think most people are willing to sacrifice themselves or their goals as much nowadays and that is a good thing IMHO as marriage really should be an equal partnernship.
In addition... while there is still some disparity between the genders... there are a lot more opportunities for women to walk away from the relationship and successfully make it on their own.
Speaking of which... It's interesting to note that statistically, the majority of divorces are now initiated by women.
I think that stat speaks volumes about how much women and even our culture as a whole has changed in the last 20 - 30 years!!
And IMHO... the way things are going it wouldn't surprise me in the future that at some point 10 & 20 year wedding anniversaries start to get celebrated in the same way as 50th wedding anniversaries do now. I say this just because it looks like marriage longevity has taken (and is continuing to take) a sharp decrease over the last few decades.
It will be interesting to see if 30 years from now there will be anyone from my generation celebrating their 50th.
Maybe there will be just a few... but my guess is that it certainly will not be anywhere near the numbers of people celebrating that milestone today -- who got married in 1959 or earlier.
Peppermint