AND FINALLY
Why would anyone NOT marry?
LAST weekend we attended a marriage ceremony that was an object lesson in how to get things right.
My young friends and neighbours Candy, 29, and Craig, early 30s, had their dream wedding ten years after first meeting at Bath station.
When baby Ted came along (rather a surprise) 3½ years ago, they turned themselves from carefree young things into loving parents — coping with the work-life balance with innate ‘cool’. Now, with Teddy as pageboy, they finally tied the knot.
When I remarried almost six years ago, I wrote: ‘Some marriages end with a bang, others with the most pitiful of whimpers.’ Yet the other side of the story needs to be heard, too. There are plenty of marriages that last, nurturing children in harmony, and carrying the couple into a contented and loving old age.
I could not do my job if I was cynical about wedlock — or rather, if I ever lost faith in the human ability to get it right, to sustain long-term love ‘till death us do part’. I believe it’s natural for human beings to want to nest in pairs, to grow together, to share, to say ‘we’ instead of ‘me’.
Why would you not marry? That’s the key question I’d ask cohabiting couples, and I’m so glad our friends found their own answer. All the statistics tell us marital commitment is the bedrock of society, and children are happier and do better and have more security when brought up by married parents.
Of course, life is complicated, which is why the speeches from Candy’s father and stepfather were so moving: two men who have played such a vital role in the bride’s life.
Here was a thoroughly civilised, modern, melded family — divorced parents, step-parents, half-brother and step-sister on one side, and a big jolly Irish family on the other. A barn in the Gloucestershire countryside resounding with laughter and love. We hear so much of unhappiness — but on that day I thought: this is how people can live. This is a glorious truth as powerful as anything I know.
Bel answers readers’ questions on emotional and relationship problems each week. Write to Bel Mooney, Daily Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT, or e-mail bel.mooney@dailymail.co.uk. A pseudonym will be used if you wish. Bel reads all letters but regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence.