Life Before Marriage: Why You're Not An Adult Until You Tie The Knot

[no_hypocrisy]

It wasn’t until my 30th birthday approached that I began to feel the first real impulse to get hitched. My career was thriving, but still, I sensed a barrier. It soon became apparent that my unmarried status was preventing me from being taken seriously as an adult and a professional. I was trapped in relationship purgatory.

Don’t get me wrong: it’s not like I was blatantly ostracized. I wasn’t sent to the kiddie table or anything. But my colleagues weren’t that much more subtle. Answers to, "When's he going to pop the question?" or the classic, "Why aren't you married yet?” were demanded of me, insinuating that something must be wrong with me if my boyfriend hadn't proposed after all this time. If I dared to express my ambivalence about weddings and marriage, I was often met with disbelief. And not just from colleagues, but from friends too.

-snip-

Of course, my stock quickly rose as soon as I exchanged my scarlet "S" for a sapphire engagement ring. Just like that, the same people who once made me feel pathetic for being ring-less suddenly admired me. It was like the door to an exclusive club had opened up to me. And membership had its privileges.

Suddenly, I had celebrity status among colleagues, friends -- even bosses. I was the most popular girl at any cocktail party, work event or meeting, and it wasn't just because they were vying for a wedding invite; I was celebrated just as much by acquaintances.

-more-

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/05/life-before-marriage-why-_n_3386714.html


I'm over 50 and never married. I've noted an overall attitude about marriage that differs from when I was in my twenties: it "legitimizes" like the article propounds. Almost all female teachers in my school system are "Mrs.", not "Ms." My title is rarely Ms., but Mrs. not only as an assumption, but even after I have announced I'm a Ms. It's like because of my age, nobody wants to "invalidate" me by suggesting that at my age I never "managed" to get married. Also almost universally, on the younger female teachers' desks are their wedding photos.

I don't begrudge their happiness and excitement of being a couple, a team, their husbands. Not at all. But I can't help but notice the marriage fever and its use as defining who we are as women. I thought we were beyond that. Apparently I was wrong.