Marriage: A Bit of a Rant ...

Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay

In a crossword puzzle I was doing today, there was a clue: single. The word was 5 letters; I had two filled in, and knew the answer. 
I just knew it because the narrative that has been running in my subconscious my whole life says that marriage is the standard by which all other relationships are measured. Ergo, to be single is to be unwed.

* Dating, courtship, wooing, or whatever you choose to call the steady coupling of two individuals, is a pre-marriage period, a path that is intended to lead to marriage.
* Single is the designation of persons who have not yet attained this goal.
* Widowed or divorced is what we call people who have been married but are not any more.

Marriage is the standard by which all other relationships are measured. 

I hate that I 'just knew' that. 
And I knew it without words. Without a thought. Without question.
I believed that narrative, and I succeeded in achieving that goal. 
Because I so wholeheartedly bought into it, it was as true for me as saying the sky is blue or the grass is green.  
And because it was so very true for me, I knew I was exactly where I needed to be - married. To Rod. I was loved, I was safe, and I was provided for. I was truly happy; I have no regrets.

Here I am, 12 years post-marriage, and still single. Um, widowed. Doesn't really matter - both are in the unmarried category. and I have no intention at this point to remarry. 
​
But because marriage is the gold standard, I somehow feel wrong in not pursuing (or even being interested in) achieving that goal.  

Does that make me a quitter?
No. Definitely not. I did *not* quit my marriage. In fact, I fulfilled my marriage vows, until death parted us.
​Am I a failure to still be single, and happy to be so?
Perhaps, if I am measured by the gold standard, I am a failure. 
​But who set that standard? Who did they set it for? What was their purpose or reason for setting it?

I understand that the idea of a woman being self-sufficient was pretty much legally (if not socially) prohibitive.
It was just over a century ago, in 1920, that women got the right to vote (in America), making it necessary for her voice to be heard through her husband's vote before that.
My own mother died (in April, 1974) without ever having the right to have her own bank account or credit card, or sign a lease on her own.
So I get that there was a time when a woman really needed to be married in order to survive. Or, in my grandmother's case - who never remarried after my grandfather died in 1965 - my dad, her only child (and gratefully a son) took on those things so she could have her own place to live and to manage her own funds.

But things are different now - at least they still are today. 
After Rod died, I was able to switch our bank account into my name (though it took me six years to be ready to take that step). I traded in our car and financed one on my own. I sold our house and bought myself a new one. Survival is no longer an issue for a woman without a husband. 
Nevertheless, marriage is still the standard. 

If I my marital status (see how baked in it is into our language?) is held up to the marriage ideology, then I supposed I am a failure. 
But what if I hold my singleness to a different standard? Maybe to it's own standard? What if the standard for measuring the success or failure of an individual - married or not - did not depend on their relationship to another individual, but on themselves, as a human being? 

Am I a failure at being a human being? 
Well, that's a whole other conversation, isn't it?