And now a brief pause from the travails of the world. I don’t know about you but I am psychically weighed down by the recent series of bad news—the terrorist attacks, the Charleston church massacre, the Greek financial crisis, the tornado watches on Cape Cod, and the flash floods and brush fires leveling communities across the country.
So I’m taking a pause to reflect on love. The timing of this momentary respite couldn’t be more perfect—it’s just a few days past June, the traditional wedding month, and the beginning of a new life for same sex couples whose weddings the US Supreme Court legalized.
Recently I attended a wedding party so full of love and promise that all of us guests were caught up in the glow. The newly-marrieds were not the dewy faced young professionals whose nuptials you might expect on a Saturday in June. No, these were never marrieds of a certain age.
Pew reported last year that 25 percent of millennials— those considered most marriage eligible— said they would never marry. Partly soured because of finances— they don’t have jobs— but overwhelmingly they expressed less interest in the institution of marriage. Instead, according to a recent survey by Allstate/ National Journal/Heartland Monitor millennials prefer to live together.
Maybe they’re on to something. I’ve attended three weddings of mature never-marrieds during the last year. Turns out these days they are the most enthusiastic of marriage enthusiasts. Committed couples whose relationships stood the test of time before they tied the knot…
I thought about this as I reflected on last week’s momentous Supreme Court ruling. Many of the gay couples who rushed to get licenses in the wake of the decision had been together a long time. For some of them like 82-year-old George Harris and 85-year-old Jack Evans of Texas it’s been a lifetime. 55 years for the two who were the first to get married in Dallas County, one day after the Supreme Court ruling. In an interview with a local station, George happily remarked, “I hope we can show the straight community how it’s done. There are too many divorces.”
So married love could be getting a boost from the people who are arguably the best candidates for marriage in the first place—the couples who really want to be married.
No matter how they regard marriage as an institution, polls confirm that never-married millennials and mature couples agree delaying marriage is a good thing.“ Time is too slow for those who wait, author Henry Van Dyke wrote, but, he observed, “For those who love, time is eternity.”
Ah love—is there a more perfect solace? I know I have to turn my attention back to the real world and its troubles; I’m in the news business after all. But, for this moment, there seems to be a little more sunshine all around.
