I'd like to begin by saying that I am not against monogamy nor do I think that marriage is some sort of archaic chauvinistic institution. I see a few happy married couple around me, namely my mom and dad, my grandparents, and many of my favorite bloggers. That being said, it is hard to ignore just how shaky marriage really is. In my graduating class, most of the kids had divorced parents. To my astonishment, personal heroes like Larry King, James Cameron and Richard Dawkins all went through failed marriages. While it is true that these guys aren't relationship experts, I was surprised that they could not get such a seemingly simple area of their lives handled. I recall one of my sisters' friends, an evil gluttonous succubus of a woman, getting married to a sweet, gentle man. I feel that the marriage will be a miserable one
The way I see it, people complicate things too much instead of just being best friends to each other like Steve and Erin Pavlina. They set up barriers, limitations, and a whole nonsensical web that it seems almost impossible to meet each other's expectations. I have only had a few brief relationships, but even my grandmother (married happily for 40 years) seems to agree with me.
Marriage seems like such a trap, that you hear men joking of losing their freedom. Why would a marriage eschew personal freedom? That is not what I want with a wife, all I want is a best friend and a sex partner with kids, not a chain and ball!
The other night I was watching an episode of Two and a Half Men. In a dream, Alan, a squeamish, social inept chiropractor with two bitter divorces (and financially crippling alimonies) has a dream of working at a movie theatre at old age, while Charlie, his lazy hedonistic brother, comes in with a beautiful woman by his side. The show is a comedy and this scenario was merely Alan's nightmare, but this struck a chord with me. Who would I rather be: Charlie, who still dated beautiful women at his prime, or Alan a sad, beaten man looking many years older than his older brother.
What do you guys think?