Free The Unspeakable by Meghan Daum Page A

in their families and therefore lack the financial incentive to commit to a male partner. I then shifted course slightly and spoke about the way five- and six-figure price tags on weddings and the fetishization of gift registries and lavish honeymoons and bridal paraphernalia had made marriage seem less like the ultimate life choice than the ultimate life style . I suggested that if our chief cultural images of marriage are dominated by consumer fantasies, not least of all setting up a household filled with magazine-ready decor and “grown-up furniture,” it should be no shock that less-affluent people are skipping that step altogether.
    â€œIn other words,” I said, “if we’re going to talk about socioeconomic divides in marriage trends, we’d do well to think about the materialism that’s endemic to our contemporary concept of marriage. When the average wedding in America costs thirty thousand dollars and there are entire cable channels that seemingly place a higher premium on finding the right dress than finding the right partner, why should we be surprised that the less affluent are seeing it as less than essential?”
    I was kicking major ass, clearly. What a lively social critique! What a potent cocktail of insight and indignation (with a light garnish of sanctimony)! Though the audience registered no more expression than it had during the first two speakers, which is to say practically none, I told myself that it was probably out of politeness. Maybe Orthodox Jews were more like New England WASPs than was commonly imagined. Maybe they were thoroughly engaged and amused but too uptight or inadequately plied with gin to actually laugh or appear interested.
    I forged ahead. I picked some bones with some of the Marriage Project’s research findings, much of which seemed to me to have a classic causation-versus-correlation problem. I suggested that even if it was true that unmarried people in their twenties are more likely to be depressed, drink excessively, and report lower levels of satisfaction than their married counterparts, how do we know this is because they’re not married? Maybe they’re not married because they’re depressed. Or maybe the kinds of people who are apt to delay marriage are also the kinds apt to be depressed—or just more likely to talk about being depressed. Maybe they’re more likely to occupy social spheres where people go to therapy and pick apart their psyches or go to parties and drink more than they would if they stayed home.
    â€œMaybe people who put off getting married are more prone to a certain kind of chronic life dissatisfaction,” I said. “No one’s good enough, which maybe has something to do with why they’re alone. In other words, maybe being happy or unhappy might not have to do with being married as much as, simply, being the person we are.”
    I took a drink of water. I was starting to get a little choked up. The audience still appeared unmoved but I felt confident I was just seconds away from delivering a major aha moment.
    â€œSure,” I said, “there are cultural forces out there that can cause people to walk away from fantastic relationships because, as the ‘Knot Yet’ report suggests, they don’t yet feel they have their ducks in a row. As the next speaker will probably tell you, it’s not even about the row of ducks but about shallow requirements that cause us to reject people for reasons that ultimately have no bearing on what kind of partners they’ll make. Sometimes it’s about thinking we haven’t yet become the person we want to be when we meet the right person. It’s about having some fantasy version of a perfect self and the perfect mate that self will attract. But sometimes it’s really much simpler and more boring than that. Sometimes it’s because we just haven’t met the right person yet. Sometimes it’s because that person comes