mikeandtim

Response to "Will This Marriage Last?"

This is a direct critique of the article on Time.com. To view this article please follow the below link:

"Will This Marriage Last?"

It seems that as a society we are not without punchlines. Whereas at points in time past we would have been hesistant to make light of certain subjects, and while I am definitely not removed from observing and commenting on life in a tongue-in-cheek style, Marriage is not a topic to take lightly. Perhaps it is ironic that I read this article a week prior to being co-officiator at my own cousin's wedding, perhaps not. I feel that the article put forth by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman is something that represents the continuing downfall of America- in this case through "Journalism".

I am not a professional journalist. I sell industrial heating equipment. But I do have the ability to think and reason and treat some topics as having greater sanctity than that of a sporting event. Upon reading "Will This Marriage Last?" I felt as if I was reading a sports column decrying the weaknesses and championing the strengths of two teams. As an attendee and officiant of many weddings, I feel that I somewhat qualified to speak on the basis of many of the points made in the article.

This is the excerpt I will start with:

"Every wedding is haunted by that axiom, "Half of all marriages end in divorce." But it's not a random coin flip. At the time of a couple's wedding, there are factors already present that can raise the odds of divorce to as high as 70%, or lower it to nearly 20%."

We all know that a marriage will either fail or succeed. But where do these numbers of 70% and 20% come from? Why do we have to assign a statistical association to every possibility? It is absolutely pointless. There are means of statistical analysis that could probably depict tendencies for marriages to succeed or fail; but each relationship and each marriage is so incredibly different that it is insulting to assign percentages to something that most view as having a highly spiritual element. This aside, the percentages quoted in the article have no source! Again, I am not a journalist but without some sort of study to reference or scientific basis for these numbers, anything stated must be seen as completely arbitrary.

There should be some manner of journalistic integrity in writing, especially when writing for a publication as widely circulated as TIME. The lack of a cited source for statistics in this article is an embarrassment. And if these statistics have been concocted by the authors, they should be immediately dismissed from any position held with the magazine. One of the primary reasons that I wrote this is to get people to remember that journalism is fallible. Too many times we read an article like this with statistics presented as facts without questioning or checking sources and we blindly accept them as concrete. And this is not the only occasion where statistics are put forth:

"An average couple now has a 57% chance of seeing their 15th wedding anniversary."
"....a middle-class second marriage has only 3% more risk than a first marriage."
"If this couple will earn a modest $50,000 as a family, their odds of seeing their 15th anniversary jump to 68%."
"....it's been known for some time that their children are at higher risk of divorce when they marry. It's quite significant — it raises their odds of divorce by 14%."

Please cite your sources. That way we, the freak bloggers of the world can analyze the study to see if they had an agenda, what the demographics of the sample group consisted of, etc. For all we know, this could have been an informal biased survey of 15 couples in Po Bronson's neighborhood.

Before I continue to tear this article apart I must say that I do think the authors had good intentions in writing the article. Given the steep decline in marriages over the last 50 years or so (here for reference), it is good for us to be aware of some of the pitfalls that often lead to poor marriages or divorce. I even agree with them that living together before marriage guarantees no greater chance of success than not living together. But there are some general statements put forth as absolutes that definitely need to be examined.

"Being religious doesn't make a couple happier with their marriage, but it does mean they might try a little harder to stick it out."

What? How do you know whether or not being religious makes a couple happier or not? Can you even analyze that? What does "being religious" mean? This is just flat out ignorant. Being religious can only really be defined as allowing the direction of your life to be subject to the teachings of a religious system. If I am an extremely devoted follower of Allah, while my wife practices Wicca- "being religious" probably won't help us out. Individually we may be quite pious, but it really doesn't mean much if our beliefs are incompatible. You might make the case that a Muslim and a Wiccan probably wouldn't get together, but why not? "Being religious doesn't make a couple happier with their marriage" anyway. Apparently, it's a crapshoot. What they probably mean is that following in a common system of beliefs together does not insure that the couple will find harmony in their marriage, but it does increase the chances that they will continue to be devoted to one another. I think this is probably an instance of poor word choice rather than anything else, but it is so careless that it begs for proper scrutiny.

"Watch the bride and her father as they walk down the aisle. Are they tense with each other? If so, that's bad."

Again... What? I realize that this is something of a metaphor for the relationship of the bride and her father in general, but it is ridiculous. For one, most brides probably aren't even thinking about their fathers at that particular moment. There are flowers all around, candles, people staring from every direction, a dress not to trip over, an organist blaring the processional, the groom smiling from across the way.. geez! It's amazing if the bride is even aware of the fact that she is walking, much less that her father is walking with her. (No, I have never walked down the aisle as a bride. But I have been blessed with a good imagination.)

This slightly humorous position aside, where does the tension come from? If her father is thrice divorced, had alcohol problems, and cheated on his wives.. he may be a little apprehensive about seeing the daughter he loves get married. The daughter on the other hand really has found Prince Charming, even though her father hates him for his being morally upright and devoted to creating an unconditionally loving environment for his soon-to-be wife. This all stems from jealousy, but no one really understands that because the father allows his case to be stated for him through said tension. I have been to several weddings where there was some tension between bride and father, but there was overwhelming support for the couple. No one realized that the tension was truly just the father's inability to deal with his own jealousy. Should that be the basis by which we judge the potential success of a couple's marriage?

Bronson and Merryman do show how the relationship between the bride and the groom's family can help to rectify the problem of having an unstable relationship with her own father, but it is almost forgotten as a topic. It seems they would rather dwell on the negative.

Before I finish, I must say that I am very critical of weddings. WEDDINGS. Not marriages. Buildings, tuxes, dresses, food, open bar, pay bar. These are all just asides. I would encourage all people to be able to set these things aside from the marriage itself. Each marriage is incredibly unique and special and should be seen as perhaps the greatest event in both the bride and groom's lives prior to the occasion. Even beginning to speculate on the chances of a couple "making it" is incredibly disrespectful to the institution of marriage itself. If you even catch yourself thinking those thoughts, perhaps you should refocus your thoughts on prayers for the success of the couples' marriage. Do not let yourself fall into this mindset:

"Bottom line, the weddings you attend this summer are likely to have much better odds of lasting than a coin flip. That's something to relish, when the champagne has run dry and the band covers Kool & The Gang and one of the bridesmaids has run off in tears."

"The weddings you attend this summer"... as if they were a baseball game. "Better odds of lasting than a coin flip"... as if that should be even a remote matter of thought associated with marriage. Again, the wording is a problem here. The sentence should read, "Bottom line, the marriages that you witness this summer have a greater chance for success than they do failure."

My conclusion? Between the poor wording, poor thought, and poor lack of statistical references it is little wonder that it was co-authored by "Po" Bronson. Despite having some good intentions, this article falls on its face in the attempt at having any sort of journalistic or editorial merit.

posted by mikeandtim @ 9:29:00 AM