AND ANOTHER THING
A sudden outbreak of marriage
PAUL JOHNSON
Recently, in our circle of friends and acquaintances, there has been a sudden outbreak of marriage. People coming up to 50, or already in their fifties or even sixties, confirmed bachelors, long-standing widows or widowers, divorcees, couples who have lived together without benefit of clergy for as long as anyone can remember — all, seemingly with one accord, have been trot- ting off to churches and register offices, or both, and plighting their troth. Who started this current trend, I am not quite sure. But I suspect it is catching. Indeed, I know it is. We were sitting around the kitchen table, discussing this and that, when my wife casu- ally mentioned that Laurence and Cecilia (or perhaps it was Ned and Josie), a couple who had been cohabiting since at least the end of the Vietnam war, had just told her that they were married the week before, without warning, fuss or explanation. 'Well, that does it!' said Kitty, slapping the table and jumping to her feet, the light of matronly battle in her eyes. 'I am going straight back to Edward to tell him he must come up to scratch.' So she did. And so did he.
Now the extraordinary thing about this revival of marriage is that it runs directly counter to the whole spirit of the age. All the resources and provisions of the welfare state, the injunctions of political correct- ness, the weight of academic opinion, the advice of tax accountants, the verdicts of the courts and the direction of new legisla- tion — has anyone read the Children's Act 1989? — combine to suggest that marriage today is not merely unnecessary, expensive, evidence of heterosexual triumphalism and homophobia, old-fashioned, reactionary, Thatcherite and suburban, but legally per- ilous too.
One has only to glance at the marriage service in the Book of Common Prayer to realise how improper, indeed provocative, matrimony is in the 1990s. The text is full of forbidden words and undesirable expres- sions. It speaks of a 'miracle', a sure sign of religious fundamentalism. It refers to `men's carnal lusts' instead of 'sexual orien- tation'. The very word 'men', used in isola- tion, is offensively patriarchal. There is an uncalled-for aside about 'brute beasts', evi- dence of blatant specism, and talk of 'ser- vants', 'obeying', 'subjection' and 'weaker vessels', which suggests attachment to an outmoded class system or male supremacy or both. One passage has an insulting refer- ence to wives as 'fruitful vines' and another flatly asserts that the purpose of sex is 'the procreation of children', which is strictly contrary to everything agreed at the Rio summit and taught by the Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Mr Jonathan Porritt, Mr Teddy Goldsmith, Madonna and other contemporary sages. There is even a sen- tence enjoining 'chaste conversation cou- pled with fear', which is nothing less than a call for the restoration of censorship. In short, this is not the kind of language which the Rt Hon Mrs Virginia Bottomley could recommend to the House of Commons or the Bishop of Durham to the Synod of the Church of England or Mr Andreas Whit- tam Smith to the readers of the Indepen- dent.
Yet oddly enough the news of this matri- monial recidivism, these deuxiemes notes, these triumphs of hope over experience, has been well received in our circle, has caused pleasurable flutters of good feeling among old married couples like ourselves, among newly-weds of the younger genera- tion, and has been warmly welcomed by children and stepchildren. Even grandchil- dren, informed of what is going on, have made approving noises. The fact is, despite all the secularist propaganda, marriage continues to exert a strong appeal to our instincts for what is right for individuals and society. In this respect the human race, `I finished my stint at university. Got a degree and was looking forward to a long period of idle disenchantment when, what happens, I'm offered a job.' or the civilised part of it, has not changed in nearly 3,000 years. A passage in Homer's Odyssey conveys this feeling exactly. In the late Dr E.V.Rieu's translation it reads: `There is nothing nobler or more admirable -than when two people who see eye to eye keep house as man and wife, confounding their enemies and delighting their friends.' I like that word 'nobler'. It is apt. There is indeed something noble about marriage; and, in late middle age, it is even heroic.
But in addition to those permanent, instinctual feelings, I suspect there is a par- ticular contemporary reason why quiet, sensible, mature people are suddenly rally- ing to the marriage standard. For the insti- tution has taken some hard knocks recent- ly. First, there has been that grotesque and hostile parody of marriage which has been enacted in a Manhattan courtroom, as Mia Farrow and Woody Allen, each flanked by platoons of lawyers, shrinks and counsel- lors, and watched by strings of wide-eyed, silent, reproachful children, both adopted and (as they say) biological, have hurled accusations of cruelty, incest, betrayal and madness at each other. The case has attracted huge interest even over here: men and women I know have taken sides, often quite violently. In a way all the modern age and its secularist, faithless, psychiatrist's values have been on trial in that courtroom, and a disgusted world has pronounced a unanimous verdict: 'Guilty!'
But we expect showbiz people to make a mockery of marriage. What has done more damage and seemed far more shocking is the collective assault on the institution recently carried out by the royal family. As Bagehot noted, 'A princely marriage is the brilliant edition of a universal fact, and as such it rivets mankind.' But a princely divorce, or separation, or row publicly car- ried on in the tabloids, is a grotesque edi- tion of an increasingly universal fact, and as such depresses mankind no end. However worldly or sophisticated or cynical we may be, we feel let down, betrayed, grievously disappointed. We all need to be set a good example, to look up to someone. But who is there left? So, feeling the lack of such men- tors, and by a kind of unconscious, thera- peutic instinct, numbers of middle-class, middle-aged couples are suddenly joining the ranks of the respectably married, and thus signifying their approval of what the Prayer Book rightly calls 'this holy and hon- ourable estate'.
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