Marriage

Marriage has always been clearly defined for me. Notice I said "for me". Evangelicals have a very specific, baby boomer friendly, sexist idea of how marriages are "supposed" to be according to God. Because clearly they know exactly what God is thinking. As a result, people my age who have been raised in this segment of the culture, despite being revolutionary 20-somethings in every other aspect of life, have marriages that function the same way their parents' did. Wives are emotionally volatile, unreasonable, selfish brats who get away with treating their husbands like crap. They don't ever say what they really mean, and they don't let their husbands enjoy anything they used to during their bachelor days. Meanwhile, men are passive, trampled, illiterate knuckleheads who can't think for themselves, always have poor hygiene, and spend all day drinking Coors while watching ESPN. They are simple and ignorant. They never understand their wives; women are just too complicated for their puny brains.

Here's my thought: maybe the reason why these women think that there aren't any good men left is because they're too caught in their own emotions and general cattiness to ever attract the good ones. Maybe if they just decided NOT to follow the sexist stereotypes, they'd meet someone decent. Maybe the problem isn't men, but women.

I'm tired of people telling me who I have to be as a wife. Prior to my wedding, when I told people that I expected marriage to be like living with my best friend, I was warned that it wouldn't be easy. Guess who was wrong. My husband is my best friend first, spouse second. How do I know this? We spend hours just talking about life and how we've changed. We don't need to be romantic to show that we care about each other. Sometimes we're friends, sometimes we're romantic and mushy. But we use different languages to differentiate. We've actually formulated different endings to words that are rule-based that only make sense to each other. Being a linguistics major, this is incredibly interesting to me, even though to others it might sound kind of silly and nonsensical. Whatever. It works for us.

During the course of the next few days, I will start a new job. I will make more than my husband. For a lot of husbands, this would cause shame, since men are traditionally seen as heads of household. I think Austin is glad that I'll be the one bringing in more cash; maybe even finds that kind of sexy.

Yesterday, I sewed a purse from a pair of Austin's old cargo shorts that had ripped down the middle from extensive wear. Guess who has claimed the purse for his own? Quote, "I don't think that this purse can get any more feminist. You made it yourself, and you made it out of my PANTS! Of course it's masculine; it's my own frickin' pants! I've found my new weekend bag."