I am becoming convinced that the laws of conservation apply to marriage in the United States.  It seems the numbers of long-term couples I know breaking up, more or less equal the number of wedding invitations I receive in any given year. 

I am going to take this time to burst one marriage related fallacy – I have been sagely informed, by more than one concerned person (and a few times I suspect as an underscore to the failure of my first marriage), that second marriages are more likely to end in divorce.  An authority no less than the CDC, who keeps such statistics, concurs in very serious tones, that there is a “strong probability that 2nd marriages will end in separation or divorce”.

Well, let’s compare the CDC’s own numbers.

Percentage of first time marriages ending in divorce within 5 years = 20.

Percentage of second time marriages ending in divorce within 5 years = 23.

Now, I am a biochemist, with only a biologist’s working knowledge of statistics, but that 3% looks pretty piddling to me.  And, as an interesting corollary, the ten year figures only widen the gap by another 3% – 33% vs. 39% respectively.  This does not, in my own rather inexpert opinion, justify the knowing predictions of failure proclaimed by so-called marriage advocates.  All it tells me is that we are just as likely to repeat the same mistakes the second time around as we did the first – but no more likely.  And – contrary to the “divorce epidemic”, the majority of marriages overall are remaining intact at least 10 years.  10 years of living in close proximity with somebody else’s idiosyncratic personal habits is not a feat to be downplayed. 

Hey, I am a strong supporter of marriage myself.  Loved it so much I did it twice.  And in recognition of the overblown and inaccurate portrayal of our second-time chances, I admire every wedding I attend where at least one of the celebrants is going in as a retread.  As has often been said, it is a triumph of love and hope over experience, and after all, if we give up on the institution entirely, our chances of sticking it out with each other for a decade are really dismal. Cohabitations have as much chance of staying together as married people have of splitting up – only 38% remain together after 10 years.  That’s the saddest statistic.  Every time I hear somebody put forth the excuse that they are “waiting until they can afford the wedding they really want”, I know they won’t last another two years.  They have put style before substance.  It isn’t the “getting married” part that’s important.  It’s the BEING married part.  If you are so much in love that you are willing to commit the rest of your natural lives to listening to each other snoring and alternately leaving the toilet tissue un-replenished, then ANY wedding you have at that point is inherently romantic. 

It is said that women are most beautiful on their wedding day and they day they give birth.  I can testify that the latter is a complete crock.  However, I think that the last two weddings I attended definitely support the former.  Both brides were ravishing.  Both grooms suitably awed.  And both couples were absolutely, perfectly matched.  They were weddings that it was easy to cry at.  The ceremonies, the setting, the trappings were as different as they could possibly be, and they were both sweetly, wonderfully, perfectly romantic because the love and commitment was so evident it practically emanated.

But these are the things of our fantasies, our days to be fairytale princes and princesses.  The real part happens years later, when the man that thought you were the most lovely on the day he married you never lets on for a single moment that he ever thought so; when he treats every morning that you wake up as the day you are the most beautiful to him.  A perfect wedding is a beautiful thing.   A perfect marriage is breathtaking.