TOW: Money and Love

I spent a lot of time thinking this weekend about the kind of family I am from.  My brother got married this weekend, and it was interesting to see the difference between the bride's family and our family.  It hurts to say this, but our family probably paid for all of the wedding.  And weddings are interesting because they are not romantic events that have Hollywood moments.  They're actually quite political in nature.

It's funny that we all think that people these days marry for love and for common interests between them and their partner...especially since the state of marriage, since time immemorial, has been, for the most part, a practical arrangement.  Even in Genesis in the Bible, God said, "It is not good for man to be alone."  God didn't say it's not good to be without love.  Just that it's not good to be without someone, and to be without God.  These are practical concerns, not romantic or 'emotional' concerns.  God was rational when he did what he did.

And history shows that arranged marriages were made to produce good children and bloodlines as well as financial gain and stability.  Very few wedding attendees, now and almost certainly back then, talk about whether they think the couple is in love, or how in love a couple seems.  It's more that people talk about the food, how long the speeches were, whether they were hot, crowded, bored or tired...people talk about all things political at a wedding, and more than anything, it's usually about whether a wedding was expensive or cheap.

And like all good things of price, a good wedding is expensive.  The average expected cost of a wedding in Canada is $23, 330.  In the U.S., it's about $24k

People often comment whether a bride buys into money or not.  Great novels have been written about if a woman chooses a penniless man she loves or a man with $ who is good enough. 

Very rarely do the two coincide, apparently.

I got to witness a lot of political family undercurrents, a lot of interesting surprises, and a lot of questions about what it is that makes a marriage great.  In the end, the most important thing seems to be true--practical concerns will make or break a marriage.  Therefore, money is not the key to happiness, but it seems to be the key to a good marriage and a good family life.

While I'm not sure I entirely believe that, experience seems to be teaching me otherwise.  I've seen a lot this weekend that suggest that people marry not for love, but because marriage is a practical social arrangement.  Not convienent, but practical.  Convienent would be common-law.

Anyways, the point is that marriage requires a lot of work...and that means loving the other person, but also recognizing the practical needs of your partner and yourself.  Because it seems to be that ignoring those practical needs will certainly result in the failure of any healthy relationship.