You’ve heard the rants, and you may have even made some yourself. You see a beautiful woman married to a wealthy and probably not-very-attractive, sometimes older man and the first thing you say is:
“Women who marry for money are gold-digging *insert your favorite sexist slur here*s!”
Often times these rants are accompanied by detailed explanation about why the person making these statements is “not a hater, but…”
- I just couldn’t marry a guy whom I didn’t love
- she’s giving women a bad name
- she’s just lazy and wants to spend all his money
- and/or she’s just a glorified prostitute!
Besides the fact that the people who judge the couple in this way are making a lot of assumptions about a relationship about which they most likely don’t know all the details, sometimes I wonder if the people who say things like this are not just jealous that they weren’t bold enough to make the same move in their own lives.
I think for a woman to make such a bold decision as to shirk conventional wisdom, ignore the critics and go for what she wants, she must have a real purpose driving her. For someone to go left when everyone is going right, clearly that person has to know something that all the others don’t.
I think most people forget about the origins of the institution of marriage. Marriage was created to benefit society by making the most fundamental unit of a community, the family. Establishing a strong, wealthy and influential family, ultimately encourages longevity for yourself and your lineage.
Furthermore, hollywood has done a disturbingly good job convincing millions of people that this strange and mysterious entity, which they have chosen to call “love”, is the only reason people should get married. (Note: In the interest of brevity, I will save my thoughts on love as a noun versus a verb for another post.) Unfortunately, for many reasons, America has suffered worst through the propagation of this line of thinking as studies have shown that countries that implement arranged marriages have increased rates of matrimonial longevity.
I personally believe that marriage should be entered into purposefully and with intentionality. Because if you get married solely based on the rate at which your heart beats when you interact with a person, marital problems and eventually divorce will ensue as soon as your heart’s tempo changes.
There is a huge range when it comes to purpose driven marriages. They can range from, marrying a particular cultural group intentionally (because you think your offspring will have certain advantages) to marrying a person who lives in a particular region, because you both have investments in that area.
I think emotions or “personality” is the stupidest reason to marry a person ever!
Why? Because those things change. At the end of the day, you can’t take personality to the bank. You can definitely say, “this person has the same moral and political values as I do and I want to raise children with those values” and actually see things lead to a meaningful end if you agree that this is why you’re marrying each other.
However, to say, “I’m marrying him, because he makes me laugh and has a cute smile,” means you’re an idiot and clearly haven’t thought this through.
I know some women will read this and say, “F*** off! You don’t know what we have!” and to that I say, yes, I don’t know what you have. You might have other reasons you married that person in addition to their smile and personality that I don’t know about. If that’s the case, then I’m clearly not talking about you! (Which brings me to another point which I’ll save for a different article, i.e. did you ever consider that the women being judged as “gold diggers” actually enjoy the company of their sugar daddies?)
Anyway, in conclusion, if you’re marrying for love, you’re preparing for divorce; but if you’re marrying for a mutually agreed upon purpose that bares fruit, then aside from the purpose not being achieved, there is no reason the two of you shouldn’t be together for a while. Think about it! More on this topic to come…