We all have parents. It is a common denominator. Whether we know them or not, even if we are a test tube baby, we got here by way of one sperm and one egg. Ka-Ching.
As such, I have parents. Or had them. Today is my Mom and Dad’s anniversary, married February 15, 1947. A day after Valentine’s Day. The love appears to have carried over, for they stayed married until death did they part, a total of 66 years, together for more than 67.
Their love for one another was astounding. They were kind and caring, showing affection often. And never a harsh word between them, at least, not in front of us kids.
Marriage is quite the thing. I never thought about it one bit as a young person, but many of my friends were fixated on getting married to Mr. Right. I was more interested in catching a ball than catching a boy. Let alone kissing one.
Maybe the key is in the kiss. An average woman kisses about 15 men before getting married.
Not only that, a marriage ceremony typically ends with a kiss. You know the line: “You may now kiss this bride.” This is because, in ancient Rome, a kiss was a legal bond that sealed contracts. Back then, marriage was seen as a contract. And maybe the same is true today.
We all know that a kiss can lead to other things. Oh, yes, we do. It seems that eighty-five percent of couples have had premarital sex.
But marriage might depend on where you live. For instance, Washington, D.C., has the lowest marriage rate in the nation. And people approach marriage at different ages. In three states—Arkansas, Utah, and Oklahoma—women tend to marry younger at an average age of 23. Men’s average age is 26. On the other side of the country, in the northeastern states of New York, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, men and women wait a little longer to marry. The U.S. average age for women is 25.6, and for men, 27.7 in those states.
Here is another spin. A person’s level of education tends to influence the age at which they marry. The more education a person has? The later they get married. Wising up, I suppose.
And. The place appears to have something to do with longevity. Nevada, Maine, and Oklahoma have the highest percentage of divorced adults. Arkansas and Oklahoma have the highest rates of people who have been married at least three times. I wonder where Liz Taylor and Larry King lived.
Back to my parents. As I think of these facts, some things are true. They were both college-educated. They lived in Ohio, midway between Arkansas and New York. As such, they got married at 25 years of age. And I am pretty sure they didn’t have premarital sex, although my sister Ann was born exactly nine months after their wedding date. Ka-Boom.
They were happy to be married to each other. But a recent poll suggested this is not always the case. It found that 72% of women have considered leaving their husbands at some point. I’m not sure about the guys.
And sadly, in the United States, over 50% of first marriages end in divorce. The more times you marry, the worse it gets, as 67% of second marriages end in divorce, and nearly 74% of third marriages end in divorce. (See earlier note on Liz Taylor and Larry King.)
The next fact is astounding to me. Nearly 60% of married adults have had at least one affair.
All that aside, marriage can be golden. In fact, in the United States alone, a whopping 17 tons of gold are consumed to make wedding rings each year. And they range in price. Today’s average engagement ring costs a little more than $3500. And the most expensive ring on record being? That would be $8.8 million. It was given to Elizabeth Taylor, of course.
Looking at all of this, I am grateful for my parents and their love for one another. They passed it on to their children and to the rest of the world. And that is the best fact of all.
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“Where there is love there is life.”
– Mahatma Gandhi
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“Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.”
– Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven
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“We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness–and call it love–true love.”
– Robert Fulghum, True Love
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I do. They do. The knot, the big, big, knot.
