Nowadays people are disturbed by a variety of questions and dilemmas which have to be solved and evaluated, and one of the most burning ones is the idea of marriage. Is it really important to get married and legitimate relations all the time? Why are so many people eager to get married?
And why do some people still try to avoid getting married and continue living alone or with lovers but without marriage? It is always interesting to find answers to such questions, however, it is not always possible to be sure about the correctness of the answer. This is why to get a clear idea of why people get or do not get married, it is possible to rely on some literary works and evaluate personal attitude to marriages and life in family.
Works by Hemingway, Corso, and Hardy may be used as reliable sources for the analysis of marriages and their role in human life. It is not easy to comprehend why people get married: all old ideas and attitudes have already fallen away, and people are free to choose a person to marry, the time to get married, and the reasons to start married life.
There are many wrong and right reasons why people should start thinking about marriage. The variety of reasons may be connected to the wrong interpretation of marriage essence. This is why, to comprehend clearly why people get married, it is necessary to analyze its essence. In fact, any marriage is a union between two people who are eager to share their lives and souls to each other and become as closer as possible.
Among this variety of reasons why people want to get married, it is necessary to underline such ideas like the desire to have a lifelong partner, share this life with a person you are in love, have babies, support each other all the time, and enjoy this life together. Of course, nowadays all these reasons are not as powerful as they used to be, and many people prefer just to live together and not to hurry up to say “I DO” before family and church representatives.
In comparison to the past, modern conditions seem to be softer and more convenient for people. People are free to choose and think as long as they want. Some time ago, relations between women and men were very strict and reserved. It is enough to remember the poem by Thomas Hardy The Ruined Maid, where a woman suffers from inability to comprehend how it is possible to have sex and relations with men without being married and being in love.
Old rules and attitudes to marriage usually attract people’s attention. If a woman gets a chance to wear expensive clothes or jewelry like “gay bracelets and bright feathers three” (Hardy 445) without having a husband, she undergoes considerable critics and reproaches from the society she lives in. The lifestyle chosen by the character is similar to the one we live today, however, during those times, it was rejected and regarded as wrong. Women should have legal husbands to be able for reproduction and bringing up children.
In fact, the question of children in marriages is raised by many authors, and Ernest Hemingway was one of them. In his Hills Like White Elephants, he introduced a story of one couple that had loving affairs but was not eager to get married. They found it was ok to have relations and not to be bound. But still, their mistakes became evident; though the author did not name the problem, it was evident that a woman was pregnant and had to agree to abortion because her man did not want anyone except her.
She wanted to have this baby and regarded it as a white elephant (Hemingway 406) due to its importance and cost. This is one of the most burning problems any couple may face – birth of bastards. Unborn children are not guilty but already deprived of a chance to live in this world. Fathers do not accept this problem as well as mothers do, this is why when couples start living together without thinking of getting married, they have to admit the fact that one day their couple may become a trio.
Men have also a different attitude to marriage itself like it was described in Corso’s poem Marriage. He asks many questions like “Should I get married? Should I be good?/ Astound the girl next door with my velvet suit and Faustus hood?” (Corso 440) and cannot find appropriate answers. Even if a man fells in love with a woman, he cannot be absolutely sure about his readiness to create a family, and women have to be ready for this uncertainty.
Marriage is a poetic issue that is described by many poets and writers. Some writers accept this notion as something pure and amazing without which it is hard to imagine this life.
And some writers are eager to discover bad sides of marriage and life in family. Of course, each person has his/her own attitude to this issue and is able to decide whether it is time to get married or not. Still when people start thinking about the importance of marriage, it is necessary to admit that relations between men and women always lead to something, and if this “something” is a baby, such aspects like marriage and legalization of relations have to be taken into account.
Works Cited
Corso, Gregory. “Marriage.” In Missy James and Alan P. Merickel Reading Literature and Writing Argument. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall Professional Technical, 2004.
Hardy, Thomas. “The Ruined Maid.” In Missy James and Alan P. Merickel Reading Literature and Writing Argument. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall Professional Technical, 2004.
Hemingway, Ernest. “Hills Like White Elephants.” In Missy James and Alan P. Merickel Reading Literature and Writing Argument. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall Professional Technical, 2004.