10-03 Marriage

It was one of our first cruises in the early 1960s, and my wife and I were seated with a couple about our age. We discovered he had been a Mormon in his early days with three wives.
He explained that two of his three wives did not really like him, and were continuously trading their days to sleep with him with the third wife. Seriously amusing.
In so many religions women are treated as inferior so it is hard to imagine what they would call a good marriage.
Now it is another unique experience sitting at the table of honour with the Chairman of the Korean Federation of SMEs on the night of their formal banquet during the annual International Symposium of Small and Medium Enterprises held in Seoul in the fall of 1977.
It was a table of six and the Chairman, his wife and concubine were wearing traditional costumes. With my wife and myself was a Korean with a PhD from a US university functioning as our translator.
It was a shocking site for us with both the wife and concubine dressed in exquisite traditional costumes something like Geishas from a Japanese movie. The translator said it took two hours for them to prepare for this evening’s function. The big difference between the wife and the concubine was the quality of the combs in their hair.
The first instruction from the translator was to address questions only to the Chairman. He also explained that only people of his status would publicly appear with both their wife and concubine. The Chairman was appointed by the government.
I asked him if he had a wife and a concubine, and he said with a laugh, “You’ve got to be kidding.”
Then to my surprise, the host of the evening, the Minister of Industry, arrived sitting on a kind of throne carried by six people. He was placed on a platform at a higher level than the rest of the VIPs.
That is when I was convinced that societies that are hierarchical not only treat men differently but women and marriage. What is right and wrong depended on your status in society.
And, during a tour of New Zealand, I discovered that the Maori historically were also hierarchical in nature and that the status of your marriage depended on your status in your tribe.
When you have travelled to over forty nations and have spent time trying to understand the differences in culture, you find it always extends to marriage. What is moral is societal.
Certainly, you can understand marriage being necessary for the healthy raising of children. But when women had the pill in the 1950s, and more control over their lives, marriage was impacted everywhere. Less children and careers for women was the big change.
The big debate over marriage that impacted me personally was related to the issue of same sex marriage. We had a gay son.
We knew he was different at the age of three. He was born that way and experienced the same feelings of love as regular couples as he grew up. I love the cartoon which demonstrates society and the legal system accepting gay marriage.
The typical response of the religious right was expected. You know bible quotes that talks about a man leaving his father and mother and he and his wife becoming one flesh. And how about a woman belonging to a man. Or how about marriage created by God and not by man.
Certainly, couples want to be married because there are endless tax and legal benefits. No problem. But marriage is more about commitment than the law.
And so many couples must deal with unhappy marriages. There can be a time in a marriage when a partner turns out to be a drunk, a philanderer, an idiot or just a serious jerk.
I never had a problem with divorce, something that was almost impossible in my grand-parents time. It was never a moral issue.
I loved my daughter’s comments at our 60th wedding anniversary celebrations when she said that “during her life she has been able to see what real love looks like”.
Perhaps I have been lucky or we just learned to put the other’s interest ahead of our own. Now in our 80’s, the big issue is watching each other so neither of us falls. Simple stuff but still wonderful.
That’s the way I see it anyways.