The French: Forget Marriage, Just stay Engaged.

Leave it up to the French to resolve their very conflictual views on marriage.  You don’t have to be a social scientist to figure out fairly quick that in France”nobody ever get married these days”.

Marriage is very optional to the French who for decades have viewed the state of wedded bliss as not being all that it is cracked up to be.   Marriages have steadily declined since 1990 are, yet French version of civil unions are up.

While marriages are down, procreation is certainly up with France having the highest number of births per woman in the entire European Union.  So obviously, married or not, there is a lot of making love  and babies going on.

At the Fête des Vendages this past weekend, in Montmartre, there was their annual “ceremony” and dance for those who have vowed never to marry.  Engaged for life couples gathered at Place Abysses, where the mayor of the 18th arrondissement performed a “ceremony” for them to pledge to be fiances forever, rather than marry.

Inspired by a popular song by George Brassens that goes: “I have the honour, Not to ask your hand in marriage,Let’s not inscribe, Our names at the end,On some parchment”. Apparently this concept is trendy as  55.8 % of all babies born in 2011 were out-of-wedlock.

Then there is the most recent model in newly elected French president Francois Holland who campaigned as being the “normal” candidate, as opposed to incumbent Sarkozy.  He has 4 children with his former companion Segolene Royal, whom he never married in all of 20 plus years!  Somehow that would not fly very well across the pond in American politics.

I am not an expert on why the French have such a dim view of getting married, but only a few suspicions.  Maybe it goes back to marriage traditionally having been dictated by the church, which is certainly on the wane here .   Anything that smacks of religious propaganda is politely tolerated, but is treated with suspect.

All marriages here must first be performed in the town hall by the mayor, due to strict church-state separation.  For those  not wanting to strings attached by matrimony, then civil unions called Pacs are very popular here. They were initially set up in 1999 to provide juridical benefits to couples coinhabiting such as health and tax benefits and for same-sex unions.   They are much easier to set up and to get out of than marriage.

Another possible reason of diminishing marriages by the French is that for eons, love had nothing to do with marriages.  The marriages of all the royals were arranges for political reasons around treaties and annexation of neighboring countries. Extramarital affairs with mistresses were expected and even very well accepted in the court.   In my previous post on Queen Margot and King Henry the lV is a perfect example of the charades of royal marriages.

Non royals or bourgeois families also married more for status or gaining property, as well as to provide a secure lineages for their wealth to be handed down through children.   Again extra marital affairs were usually part of the triangle, though perhaps more discreet than the royals, who seemed to parade theirs in public.

Another major reason is the French seem to enjoy being anti establishment.  Montmartre gave birth to bohemia with the colony of artists in the mid 1800’s who flaunted anti establishment lifestyles in the name of freedom of expression and art. The French see themselves as  avoiding the herd mentality, that they consider controls  too many Americans through advertizing, media and social status quos.

I think we all need a nest so to speak and I personally find marriage provides the best  declaration of committment.   In time of trouble and conflicts that are inevitable in any union, be it cohabitation, Pacs or marriage, the bonds however quaint  and old fashion that marriage entails does make it more difficult to just toss all aside at will.

If your love is framed in expensive and fine porcelain, as an analogy of marriage , perhaps you take extra care to make it work.  Cohabitation or Pacs here in France seems a little to easy to just change partners when the going gets rough.

On the other side of the coin, there are people who are already not meant to take on any real commitments, nor have the personalities needed for a harmonious union.  In these cases cohabitation might be a better choice if the odds are already stacked against them staying together.

So perhaps the best answer might be triaging those who have the make up for  marriage and directing the others to a more easy to get out of union.  In the end it is no body’s business but the couple.