I read this article from The Atlantic magazine over the weekend and it sent my brain a-whirling in all different directions. I feel like I’m still processing it, mostly because of it’s length. As soon as I felt like I had it together a little bit I handed the magazine to Jordan and told him I wanted him to read it so we could talk about it and I emailed Kate with a link to the article saying that it was both infuriating and intriguing and that I thought she would enjoy it. Of course, she’d already read it, she’s good like that. I told her I felt a blog post coming on.

See the thing about it is that it is interesting. I like analysis of why people do and act the way they do especially with regards to marriage, relationships, friendships, et al. I feel like this article uses a lot of statistics. Statistics can be meaningful, but not always and I felt like the article was heavy on meaningless statistics. “From 1970 (seven years after the Equal Pay Act was passed) to 2007, women’s earnings grew by 44 percent, compared with 6 percent for men.” I mean, yes, this happened, but isn’t that just good common sense? Women were grossly underpaid and now they aren’t. I don’t think this has much to do with the fact that more women are going to college than men. And so what about that too? There are more women then men in the world, so it makes sense that there would be more college educated women today as well.

But aside from all the rage-inducing statistics I think it really comes down to the fact that is simply more complicated than she laid it out in the article. There is no talk of partnership, companionship, or love. All of it is based around scientific need for another income, another parent to share the responsibilities of your vile offspring, what society tells you you should be doing. And none of it has to do with sharing your life with someone and choosing a partner for life.

I’m not all marriage cheerleader MARRIAGE FOR EVERYONE LALALALA! But I like the idea of it, in the right time frame and the right setting. I agree that marriage shouldn’t be society’s highest ideal, that people rush into it because they think that’s what they’re supposed to do. But I also think people get married for reasons other than what was laid out in the article and I think things are changing because society is changing. And you know what? That’s alright. 

But if you’ve got the time read the article, I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.