Walking in the Valley A weekly column for those who live and walk in Silicon Valley by Barbara Dahlgren

Happy Honeymoon! Column for the week of June 15-21, 2003

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June seems to be the month for weddings. My husband and I got married in the month of June over 30 years ago and so, it seems, did the majority of others who choose matrimony over living together. In some ways the honeymoon is over but miracle of miracles, we still love each other. We don’t still have that “can’t keep our hands off of each other passion” but we do have our moments.

Of course today’s society is exploring other issues like just what constitutes a marriage? Webster’s defines marriage as a husband and wife joined in wedlock. That may soon change. Recently the California Assembly passed a bill (AB 205) for homosexual couples to “have the same rights granted to and imposed upon spouses.” This is curious since 3 years ago the people of California passed Proposition 22, which defined marriage as solely between a man and a woman. Does your vote count? Apparently not in this case if elected officials can reverse what the people voted in. But, hey, that’s politics.

For as long as marriage has existed, information on how to have a good one has been circulating. Adam and Eve weren’t without their difficulties and they got their marital advice straight from God. I guess divorce was out of the question. Their dating options would have been very limited and whom would they have blamed for not taking out the garbage? The serpent couldn’t always be available when they needed to pass the buck.

In the book, The Good Marriage: How and Why Love Last, Judith S. Wallerstien explores the subject by studying 50 couples who have been married for at least nine years. This is especially interesting to me since statistics show 43% of marriages break up within the first 15 years. I don’t know about you but I think I’d rather get advice from someone who has been married a wee bit longer than 9 years. It’s a sad state of affairs when 9 years constitutes a long marriage. I guess our attention span is getting shorter and shorter.

There do seem to be some advantages to being married other than the tax deduction. The Case for Marriage by Maggie Gallagher cites studies showing the following:

1. Married people live longer.
2. Married people make more money and manage it better.
3. Married people are less promiscuous. This is indeed good news.
4. Married people are less depressed and anxious.
5. Married people are happier.

Many of us will be attending weddings this June and it’s nice to know they have at least a 50/50 chance of succeeding if they make it through the honeymoon. The honeymoon is a custom dating back 4,000 years to ancient Babylon. For a month after the wedding, the father of the bride would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Their calendar was lunar based and mead is a honey beer. Thus, this time was called the honey month. Today we call it the honeymoon.

God had something a little better in mind. “When a man has taken a new wife, he shall not go out to war, neither shall he be charged with any business: but he shall be free at home one year, and shall cheer up his wife which he has taken.” (Deuteronomy 24:5)

Dr. Joyce Brothers says that if the honeymoon is great it can raise the bar on marriage expectations and therefore lead to some disappointments. If you have a lousy honeymoon, I guess there is no place to go but up. I say a little honey beer can enhance any marriage. So pass the brew and let’s toast the newlyweds, and everyone else who has managed to stay married longer than 9 years!

©June 2003

Be sure to visit this page every week to read the next edition of Walking in the Valley. You can write to the author at bdahlgren@wcgsouthbay.org.