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culture thoughts

Perspectives on Promoting Marriage

Tyler Smith asked a great question on Google+ about whether people were concerned about the waning influence of the traditional family in American Society. I answered with a resounding “yes” but I think the topic deserves more attention. I’d like to address this in two parts. First, the conversation cycled around the issues of how and when we do or should make the decision to get married in modern western culture. In a separate post I will directly address my perspective on the question that sparked the original discussion.

As a starting point, here was my initial response (early in the discussion but not the first response):

Based on my observation – “haven’t met the right person yet” is usually a cover for “it really isn’t a high priority for me yet.”

I spent a few years “not meeting the right person yet” and then I realized that it was time for me to be really serious about it. I “met the right person” within 2 months and was married within a year.

In hindsight (based on the experience of more than a decade of marriage) I realize that some of those I had spent my time with during those years of “not meeting the right person” would have been pretty good for me (no better for me than my wife, but no reason not to get married). The difference was that I wasn’t prepared in those earlier years and the difference in my preparation was almost entirely an outgrowth of my recognition that it was time to get serious about moving forward with marriage.

I’m not trying to put pressure on +Tyler Smith or +Ryan Bickmore‘s brother but I do hope that those who are still looking for the right person will stop and consider if they are really not finding mr/ms right or if it is simply not yet their priority.

As to Tyler’s original question: Yes, I am concerned that the influence of the traditional family is waning in our society. The alternative lifestyles (meaning all the lifestyles that take the place of traditional families) are not conducive to the long term stability of society when practiced on a wide scale for a sustained period of time.

The discussion that followed his post had participants representing a number of fairly typical perspectives. I apologize in advance if any of them feels that I misrepresent them or oversimplify their perspective. I have no intention of doing either of those things. I will be presenting their perspectives in boxes that I find to be fairly consistent but I understand that their personal perspectives are almost certainly more nuanced than I make them out to be and hope others assume that as well. Also, I will not be including myself or my perspective in the list of characters & perspectives not because I think I have some more grand, overarching perspective to offer, but because as the author of this article I expect to display my perspective writ large. (Besides, I fully expect that readers will find at least one character in the list that they associate with my perspective.)