First Comes Love...

This past weekend, my husband and I visited his brother and family in Madison, WI. The weather was beautiful, so we went to the park. After playing a little softball, my 10-year-old niece and I headed for the swingset. Eventually, our swings were in perfect sync. We were precisely side by side as our swings went forward and back to the same exact height. At this point, my niece said,

"We're married."

Confused, I asked,

"What?"

She repeated,

"We're married. That's what me and my friends say at school when our swings line up like this."

The first thing I thought of was this rhyme from my childhood.

Billy and Susie sitting in a tree,
k-i-s-s-i-n-g.
First comes love,
then comes marriage,
then comes Susie and the baby carriage.

It was a naughty rhyme that we didn't sing in front of adults, and if you wanted to be especially naughty, you added,

That's not all, that's not all,
Billy's drinking alcohol.

The reason I thought of this rhyme wasn't necessarily because my niece mentioned marriage, but primarily because I first learned this rhyme on the swings. My friends and I almost always spent recess on the swingset, where we not only learned this rhyme, but sang it regularly. It was at the swings that I learned the rhyme that expressed our childhood's basic cultural understanding of love, marriage, and babies. And alcohol.

The image of marriage I learned on the swings through that little rhyme carried a lot of weight. It implied sex (k-i-s-s-i-n-g), which is entirely missing from my niece's metaphor. But the naughtiest part of all was the mention of alcohol, which we would often leave off when singing it. A girl would only add that part if she wanted to be provocative. The image of Susie with her baby carriage while Billy is stumbling around drunk represented a failing family unit, or at least a suffering one.

Not only did this rhyme teach us that marriage is about sex and having babies, but it put the whole process of becoming a family in order. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes babies. Marriage was certainly not something we could ever possibly do with one of our friends, and the consequences of failure at it would be painful indeed. It was a guide map and a warning regarding the great responsibility of marriage.

My childhood friends and I also enjoyed synchronous swinging, but we never called it being married. When my niece first said it, I was confused because I didn't even realize she was referring to our swinging. Her metaphor for marriage suggests it is something two best friends might do. It is simply two people, doing the same thing, facing the same direction, moving in sync with each other, side by side as equals, a mirror image of each other.

This metaphor is devoid of sex and children, and emphasizes equality between the partners. So why not marry her best friend? But this image doesn't just open up the possibility of gay marriage. What if one person decides to swing more slowly, or more vigorously? Does that mean they are now divorced? How very temporary this image of marriage is. And what if three friends manage to swing synchronously? Are the three of them married to each other? And what is the purpose of this marriage? Just having fun? What a frivolous, empty view of marriage.

During our visit, she also showed us the gift she had made for her parents for their recent wedding anniversary - a trophy. I hope that when she grows up, the value she places on her parents' marriage outweighs the overly simplistic and distorted metaphor for marriage that she learned on the swings.