Had I not made my mind up about the beauty and necessity of marriage in society, then this opinion of marriage in American culture by me could only be but a biased piece of subjective assumptions designed around my mishaps in marriage. Marriage is a good thing for any one individual. That is my general take. It is a vital support resource especially in an advanced capitalistic society. Yet, one must consider marriage in the context of one’s culture in order to understand it fully. In my case we must consider the American culture. As Americans we value the respect for individuality and of personal freedoms. It is no question why therefore that most Americans anticipate mutual respect in a marriage or otherwise expect to be brief in a marriage that is without mutual respect. A great relationship generally can only exist when the two associates have an appreciation for the contributions of the two parties involved. This I believe is critical to an American’s concept of a good marriage relationship. Without the respect of person, rights, and freedoms, our American understanding of goodness in life hence marriage becomes very vague. As much as the American expectation is true for oneself as an individual, we must recognize that it however eliminates a deeper human consideration that is vital to the general success of marriage as an institution in the global sense. Therefore, we fail to realize that the model of the culture denies us the ability to exhibit the virtue of patience. Patience is a crucial ingredient in marriage generally. A lack of it is a comprehensible reason why most Americans bail and give up on their marriages too early.
The hard work required in a marriage contradicts our cultural philosophy of individualism, rights, and freedoms. That work demands patience. To exercise patience in a relationship with another person requires that we forsake self as a priority. That tolerance is only achievable when a person exempts the expectations of our culture in terms of self in their calculations on how successful they anticipate their marriages to be. Americans simply don’t put in the work and effort for successful marriages to blossom more often than not. Marriage is hard work. Our culture rears in us an institutionalized ego coefficient which breeds more ego than an actual sense of community. Ours is a culture that promotes me first rather than us first. This is a critical downfall to marriage in American society. Individualism hence rights hence freedoms are a unique set of values in American culture. I will call it the American principle of self. In American culture, sacrifice is a very costly endeavor. We are taught to be self sufficient and to be reliant on the value of our input. This in turn challenges the requirement of sacrifice in a marriage since forfeit in marriage demands that we relinquish self preservation for the benefits of a collective sacrifice. However, what the principle of self does not indicate is the long-term reward of collective sacrifice, which is an attainment of a unity of inputs in a future environment. That unity provides room for stability in our society and communities. We have failed to edify Americans that the sacrifice we make in a marriage is not to each other but for the unity of the future consequences of our decision to marry at all. These consequences include our children, the relationship between the families we unite due to a marriage, and the effect on the societies we build through the union of marriage. The principle of self has caused people in our ever so independent civilization to see marriage as a cage. What is naturally ironic about a confine and its contents is the effect it has in the setting in which it stands. More likely than not, the people from without crave to find out what is in the confine, and those within attempt desperately to leave it. This is generally a human tendency. This is specifically an American quandary in marriage.
It is a unique truth that in America, due to our culture, we have managed to produce more broken marriages than successful marriages compared to the world out large. Statistics defend my claim. Think about the dilemma this way: like American biker culture, our independence forces us to appreciate riding a motorcycle as an independent thing yet not necessarily a car. For instance, most people would prefer to drive their cars alone or only with the people they choose to as a statement of independence and ownership of one’s property, hence self. This might be an unconscious preference. Yet, with the same independence bikers enjoy riding a bike alone; most American bikers would propose to ride motorbikes in a group which in itself symbolizes a sort of community even though independent in essence. A group of independent people one might say. That appreciation for autonomy even when together cannot be sustained in an institution like marriage. Marriage demands more togetherness and less independence. But it is un-American to fancy the former over the latter.
A vital characteristic of American culture is self innovation. We believe that one can start again in life and that a past has no real bearing on a future. We believe that as long as you can make it work, that you can leave the guilt of the past behind, or erase past traditions, or refuse to embrace past memories. It is a unique offering but it is inhuman to achieve. Imagine; let’s just move out of state, or change careers, or change our names, or start a new thing. Ironically, this is a hard sell to the experienced individual regardless of culture or nationality. The human phenomena is incapable of the task as we are blessed with the most advanced computer system there is; our brains. Our memory is such that we can learn to cope with the weight of stored data, such as our past experiences. Yet unlike computer machines, we can never erase the fact of the past because we do not forget. So unlike computers, we must always find a way to store the fact of the past in order to shape the dynamic of the future. As a cultured American you may succeed in recreating the instance of your present life. Yet as a cultured individual you cannot recreate the instance of your existence. For when we marry we create a database of events, and these events become a part of our true selves as we go forward to any future experiences. Can we develop a successful society then based of unstrung references? Or should we uphold a method that guarantees a point of reference that is referable hence profitable to the development of future societies? Our ability as Americans to recreate the realities of our shortcomings is an economic advantage as a republican system and as a commercialized culture. But I can assure you that it does not work in the establishment of marriage as a human institution. Marriage is what needs a constant transformation. As it evolves then so do the people in it. One can only mend their shortcomings in a marriage by repairing the loopholes in that marriage. A complete recreation of yourself will be like asking your spouse to marry you over and over again.
Revenge is a set principle in the concept of American culture. This is obvious in our projection of American resolve abroad in international disputes, and it is obvious in the construct of our penile codes. There is that underlying understanding amongst Americans that if a wrong occurs, then an eye for an eye is the best way to go. This idea of retaliating to show resolve is fantastic when there is a real enemy. However, in most marriages, with deference to those where there is a real threat of madness, hate, and violence; your spouse isn’t a real enemy. It is almost as if we go into marriages expecting the worst. We emphasize prenuptials during pre-marriage and separation of assets post-marriage in our culturing of the institution. It’s like preparing for war without a war. Remember the saying, ‘be careful what you wish for, you might get it.’ When we prepare so much for the worst we might end up with it. I believe this is a root cause of most American divorces. There is just no room for amends and forgiveness in our marriages; hence the more likely we are to divorce. Revenge only builds on a cyclical model. Every act of revenge taken only breeds another to be had. What our culture fails to harbor inside of us is that deep consideration for the true circumstances of our own lives. Most of us marry without clearly assessing our own abilities to marry in the first place. Before one marries, it is essential to address the friendship and loyalty that exist between you and your future partner. It is important to convincingly believe that you will be able to stay amicable with that person; to converse, and appreciate together into your old age. Everything else in marriage is purely temporary. If we invested in this assessment during our pre-marriage, we will have fewer rushed marriages and lesser early divorces. The truth is that the problems in most marriages can be fixed if only we had time for less self, less revenge, and more peace.
Capitalism is also taking its toll on American marriages. Never has there been an advanced society as primarily dependent on the effects of materialism as part of its culture like ours. Sometimes some may even argue about just how Christian the American culture is. Advertising has corrupted the value of so many powerful human institutions that are cornerstones to the human evolutionary table regardless of country. In America, our society has been flooded with lies about the essentials of a good life and about what describes success and happiness. We are caught in a time when even the best of the best are still not satisfied with being the best. Our commercial culture is just color intertwined with lies and this unfortunately appeals to the worst instincts in all of us. In marriage, we have clouted the expectations people have of a good start in the establishment with a farfetched commercial picture which includes dresses, bank accounts, cars, estates, and jewelry. Things that will not matter if there wasn’t any true love in the marriage in the first place. The greed that our commercial culture imposes on us through the social norm is a critical reason why marriages break. Americans just can’t stop being greedy and marriage cannot survive with self-indulgence. Marriage is first and foremost one of the leading platforms on which all Christian societies are built. Through marriage only can we sustain the original design of a Christian family, and this is under attack from the mainstream American culture of consumerism. How are we supposed to stay dissatisfied with what we have because our marriages are not so successful in providing what we expected as a financial resource before we committed? Or are we supposed to ignore our American right to have and do with what we have as we please? Or are we to sacrifice our American lives just for the sakes of an institution that in motion truth does not have to include us as individuals? These are some of the confusing questions that our capitalistic side has put in our calculations when we consider marriage as a critical foundation in American society. It is fair to argue that the character of the Christian church in America has become unstable due to our adoption of a fast and over materialistic mainstream culture. Yes. The Christian church in America is still numerically strong but it is clear that it has lost its critical influence in American public life and in social politics as a whole. Elite institutions of human society seem to be taking a second seat to the digitized norm of the twenty-first century. Marriage happens to be one of them.
To write about American culture and marriage and to ignore Hollywood in your scrutiny will be a complete display of ignorance about American culture. Hollywood is literally the image of American culture abroad until foreigners visit America indeed. At home here in America, Hollywood has also assumed the voice of speaking for America more so than appreciated. Movies have become a media source from which Americans at home gather information about American history, American life, American belief, and the impending future of the American civilization. Movies are an integral part of American culture, hence Hollywood. Ours is a gargantuan country and Hollywood offers every American the chance to come together through movies; as an American community. This means that Hollywood has a tremendous sway on our opinions and a great influence in our cultural practices. Marriage is one of the cultural practices that are severely influenced by Hollywood. In Hollywood movies, we’ve become used to the manner of the up-to-the-minute producers and their expectation of what’s beautiful, of what’s classic, of what’s stylish, and of what’s morally correct. Let’s take beauty for example. If every one woman was a Hollywood star, then every woman will imagine to be admired by an American, be courted by an Italian; be married to an Englishman, and to have a French boyfriend. At least Katharine Hepburn felt this way and the feeling is mostly true today. If this is how we culture the picture of a good relationship in different stages of a woman’s love life leading up to marriage, then where do we leave those American women who cannot live the actual Hollywood experience? If you consider the above premise, then it starts to feel like American love relationship culture is like a stock market where experiences are variable and must be traded. If so many experiences culminate into one good relationship or partner, then who will fit the profile of the stock? Marriage in America has become a thing of fantasy not reality. There is no doubt that there isn’t one Frenchman who is a German or a German who is an Italian or an Italian who is an American. Which compels me to ask; so what is the ideal American man? Make no mistake and understand that the tenets of American culture that stratify republic and one society are powerful presented by Hollywood through its movies. Yet the discussion is about American culture and marriage. Marriage between a man and a woman is a human and Christian culture and it must be kept simply that way.
Since I am a believer of an impending good in the transition of the human species and its culture, I believe that we will arrive at a point in American culture where the single faith ordered institution; marriage, guided by human laws, will arrive at a point where life can actually be appreciated. The best things in life cannot be harnessed, touched, or traded. I hope that one day America as a civilization becomes a reference point for successful marriages as marriages guarantee the sustenance of time through ordained procreation. We must strive to reeducate our people about the value of the feelings of our hearts not our societal needs. People must feel what they mean to mean what they mean. The more I think about marriage in American culture, I fear, that our methods of appreciating good as a society has pushed us closer to the admiration of the possibility of perfection in marriage as a standard in our expectation rather that for its essence. The irony is, as by simple physics, that perfection is not attainable, but that if we try, we can achieve a measure of it. Marriage is not a condition in which we get involved in with the all knowingness of a god. Hence there is no perfect marriage. We speculate, we bare a risk, and then we must perfect the instance of the risk. That is the marriage contract. The consequences are too high for us to consider it as a simply attempt. The lives that are affected by the effect of a marriage must come first before our own lives. If a marriage was taken on, it is my belief that we must do everything we can to maintain it even when it doesn’t suit us as persons, as individuals, or does not live up to our societal expectations. Like the tale of the sailor and the wind; a sailor cannot change the direction of the wind, but he can adjust his sails to always reach his destination. Marriage is a journey upon a grand ocean of storms and should not be taken without a destination or sails.
Edmond A. Arrey©