Is getting married an achievement? Hmm well it certainly is one of life’s milestones.
Almost a signal for growing up ... going into one’s next stage of life.
However, is it an accomplishment, attainment, feat, fulfilment?
Well, American banker and writer Natalie Brooke seems to think not.
In her recent Huffington Post article she admitted that now that she has ‘a ring on her finger’ she can finally publicly share her opinion that being officially taken off the market has not changed her stance: “Getting engaged and married is not an accomplishment.”
“I often wonder why the event of getting married is put on a higher pedestal than the true successes that come along with an education and career.
“In the 1950s, women were primarily housewives and getting married was typically the end goal. Back then, being a wife is what defined a woman, so I can understand why finding your special someone was considered an accomplishment,” she declares.
In today’s society, ladies are balancing much more than just finding a man, true, and women as Brooke suggests are entrepreneurs, lawyers, teachers, CEOs, inventors, designers, researchers, writers, consultants and so much more.
“I believe success comes into play not when the man gets down on one knee or when the couple stands at the altar and says ‘I do’, but rather when the husband and wife are able to weather through financial woes, illnesses, having kids and the general stresses of everyday life,” she says.
I completely agree that through thick and thin, sickness and health is the ultimate accomplishment.
But I totally disagree with ... “you don’t have to have a brain, drive or special skill set to get married. You just have to have a willing partner.”
What nonsense! No wonder then that more than 50 per cent of marriages in the US end in divorce!
It is not about getting married. Yes people get excited about the announcement itself that because it involves a whole clan of friends and family.
More so than when you pass an exam, or get a job, for which the accomplishment, just as deserving, only involves you and perhaps at times your immediate family and friends. After that you are on your own!
Being married and staying married, now that is an attainment and no matter how ‘willing a partner’ you have, a marriage will still fail, if one does not work at it day in day out, after babies, schools, and the regular ups and downs of life.
I for one, never even wanted to get married, I was too much of a career girl.
Running an office and working with deadlines seven days a week gave me a great fulfilment in life. But it was my own personal achievement, my hard work and no one else’s.
However, marriage is a whole different success story. It involves more than you as an individual. You are not achieving things for yourself.
And unlike Brooke I believe you do have to have a brain, a drive and a special skill set to be married.
So it seems does British author P G Wodehouse when he said, “and she’s got brains enough for two, which is the exact quantity the girl who marries you will need.”
Or perhaps, American novelist Nicholas Sparks puts it best...
“So it’s not gonna be easy. It’s going to be really hard; we’re gonna have to work at this everyday, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, everyday. You and me... everyday.”
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