Don’t Take Marriage Advice from Your Grandmother
Her reasons for marriage were vastly different from yours.
In decades past, marriage was a financial necessity for women. Many of our foremothers married to ensure their security and safety in a world that was anti-female at best and physically hostile at worst. The political and economic landscape was significantly different fifty or sixty years ago.
The tribe didn’t allow for very many deviations in your personal lifestyle. You could be a wife and mother, or a plaything and a whore, or a pitied unmarried creature doomed to walk the earth alone — a clowder trailing behind you.
For men, marriage was status based as well as an everyday necessity. A married man was seen as more reliable and trustworthy in business settings. There was a little real stigma to his lack of marital status other than pity. Everyone’s collective tribal duty kicked in to help the unfortunate creature find a spouse to cook and clean for him.
Thoughts of lasting love or physical connections, chemistry, or compatible life goals weren’t explored in the face of poverty and loneliness. The practice of having sex for the first time on your wedding night probably sounded romantic or socially required, but yikes. What if you had no compatibility in the bedroom.
Perhaps the lack of sexual…
