“Till Death” - On Marriage, Birth, and Change
Till death do us part. But death of what?
Death used to come early. Life expectancy in colonial America was about 25 years. By the 1900s, it was only 45. For most of the history of marriage, till death meant a handful of years, maybe a decade. Now, when we can expect to live about 80 years, “till death” means something entirely different. Till death means half a century or more.
I know couples who’ve been together since they were teenagers. We’re all in our 30s and 40s now, which means these couples have been romantically involved, some without a single break or breakup, for the lion’s share of their lives. I marvel at that, and wonder if they’ve become like two vines that grow around each other, separate but also inseparable. I wonder if I could have been with one person during all those formative years — high school, in which I was cerebral and well-liked and profoundly othered and full of longing and rebellion; college, in which I was preoccupied with the future but also hopeful and dreamy; the post-college twenties which, for me and my friends in New York City, were a roaring, dynamic, bruising, fantastically fun time, in which I dated horrible people and wonderful people, smoked a lot of cigarettes, and stumbled as if tipsy through my development and maturation, in which I first discovered therapy and the power of self-directed…
