Marriage musings

Sallie

Satterthwaite

Lifestyle

Columnist

Marriage is much on my mind this winter.

We have an anniversary this month, Dave and I. It will be 43 years since we stood at the front of a little Presbyterian church in Mechanicsburg, Pa., and pledged our love and commitment and all our resources, a '49 Studebaker and $200 to each other.

I wore a tea-length white dress with a princess waist and some sort of short veil. My skinny groom 5 feet, 10 inches, and 135 pounds wore a dark blue suit. Our cues were given us in the Scottish brogue of the Rev. Duncan MacPherson.

My college roommate Mary was my maid of honor. She wore a pretty blue-green taffeta she had lent me for a dance a few months earlier. Gwen, my best chum from high school, got sick at the last minute and didn't come. Another college pal, a tiny waif with a voice from heaven, sang The Lord's Prayer.

The congregation was building a new sanctuary and their old pipe organ had already been moved, so the organist used the piano. Besides Jackie's solo, I requested "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" (the newest thing for wedding processionals at the time) and the Mendelssohn Wedding March for the recessional.

Dave's dad was his best man. Groomsmen were Jackie's pre-ministerial boyfriend Chuck, and Ray, a pre-min friend of mine. We had a simple dinner at an area restaurant for our families and the wedding party, and that's about all I remember.

Except that I felt like the queen of the universe. I was all of 19 years and three months old, and was marrying the most beautiful boy in the world. None of our parents wholeheartedly approved, and if most of those who attended expected this marriage to last, it was not because they thought we were up to the challenge. It was only because, in my circles, divorce just wasn't done.

Or so I thought.

Mary became the first policewoman in her hometown of St. Petersburg, Fla., and got involved with a colleague. He left his wife and wed Mary just before their daughter was born.

A few years later, she divorced him. She never remarried. An occasional writer, she's retired now and lives on the West Coast. Her daughter Janet is out of drug rehab and going to community college, and when Mary wrote at Christmas, she mentioned that Janet's daughter that would be Mary's granddaughter had had a baby in April, at 17.

Mary was smart and cheerful, a sloppy roommate, but I loved her dearly enough to name my firstborn for her.

Gwen visited Mexico after she graduated from college. Came back with an Hispanic last name and a baby on the way. She died three years ago with the same name, but no husband ever appeared.

Chuck became a Lutheran pastor, and he and Jackie had two children before their marriage disintegrated. Chuck remarried twice; Jack never did. She still cares deeply for him.

Ray? He left seminary, went into teaching and, later, school administration in New York City. He married a KLM stewardess, had two children, then disappeared from my radar screen.

When he resurfaced a few years ago, divorced, he told a heartbreaking tale of betrayal (by his wife), substance abuse (his children's), and deep bitterness (his).

Let's see. Who does that leave? Just our parents and Rev. Mac. Their marriages lasted "till death us do part."

The meaning of this brief look at a handful of mid-20th-century marriages? I'm not sure. For whatever it's worth, of the young people gathered on that Palm Sunday of 1956, we were the only ones who did not graduate from college. The rest, all but one, went on for advanced degrees.

We took our vows seriously. So, I'm sure, did they. Maybe our marriage lasted simply because we're too stubborn to consider alternatives. Maybe because staying married is more comfortable than becoming unmarried.

We did promise in front of God and everyone who mattered to us that we would stay together. That doesn't leave a lot of choice; neither does it guarantee a happy-ever-after ending.

I may embroider some of my stories a little, but I've never pretended that Dave's and my history has been especially romantic. Suffice to say, neither of us believes that romance is a very realistic basis for marriage.

Some people do, my college roommate apparently one of them. Here are the closing paragraphs of her Christmas letter:

"I'm trying to write a Christian romance novel to keep myself entertained and also just to see whether I can do it. The Christian aspect is supposed to be the newest trend. My story is very sweet, but still needs a lot of work to make it a page-turner.

"Several that I have read are really just regular romances with 'The Lord' thrown in periodically and they never, ever have sex before marriage. At least mine shows some Christian growth. But it needs more punch... I'm working on it. Will let you know when I'm successful."

"More punch." Hmmm. After all these years you'd think she'd have learned that growth in a marriage beats "more punch" by a country mile.

Back to the Top of the PageBack to the Weekend Home Page