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My
single friend believes that social pressures placed on bachelors are a
new phenomenon. I tell him bachelors have suffered social stigmas in
many cultures. “Think of severe Roman marriage laws,” I say, “that
regarded old bachelors as reprehensible, barring them from advancing in
a public career and prohibiting their receiving inheritance.” Yes, he
replies, but “Rome was concerned with the decline of its indigenous
population and hence was encouraging large families. What’s the excuse
in our culture?”
African culture sees matrimony as an inescapable necessity of social
existence. Any man who takes too long to enter the institution of
marriage becomes suspect; relatives and friends believe he is trying to
escape his duty. Hence the traditional strictures on permanent
bachelorhood in most African cultures.
In ancient Rome, elderly bachelors were reproved for failing their
social duty and forced to pay heavy fines, while in African traditional
structures an old bachelor loses the privileges that come with age.
Young, married men and women feel justified in being disrespectful to
old bachelors. Marriage gains one rights in African social order,
perhaps because it’s associated with wealth: unmarried people are
suspected of being unable to afford
lobola (bride-price).
All cultures, to some extent, make single people feel outré. Magazines
and newspapers in modern Western culture are filled with articles about
unmarried people trying to justify their single status. It’s a pity,
however, that most of these end up as conceited attempts to point to the
irrelevance of marriage to modern life, instead of arguing for the
rights of singletons to remain single.
A Martian reading these articles would think marriage is nothing more
than an anachronistic, sinister, waste-paper basket of emotion, ending
only in bitter divorce. Anti-marriage sentiment has become the de facto
attitude of the speciously enlightened.
I’m single, but believe that free association makes for unbalanced
unions. From my parents’ experience I know that marriage provides
structure and a meaningful framework for decision-making, which free
association lacks. If marriage, as an institution, was designed to fit
instinct into a legal framework, as Bertrand Russell thought, what’s
wrong with that? Governments need a robust set of social institutions to
function well. Marriage is one of them. Without such institutions the
individual is left to face life without formal support.
But I do not believe that marriage is for everyone. People should be
allowed the right to become nuns, priests or singletons without feeling
the need to explain themselves. The concept of marriage as the only
natural state for adult human beings is faulty. It gives mischievous
authority to married people to lord themselves over singletons, as
though being old and single were some kind of perversion. A single life
does not necessarily translate to debauchery and irresponsible sexual
behaviour. Nor are all single people square pegs in the round holes of
humans’ natural state, or selfish. In fact, the opposite may be true.
I’ve seen a lot of kind-hearted, considerate single people. That they do
not long for the security of mutual surrender in matrimony does not make
them square. In fact, it may give them more time to dedicate to other
things that are necessary for the advancement of human progress.
Most people who remain single have imposed rigorous ideals on
themselves. Think of 10 of the greatest people of all time: you’ll be
surprised at the high number of singletons among them. Even Christ died
single — something to ponder for those Christians who think marriage is
the only natural state of mankind. |
