Comment by rcoveson
7 years ago
I don't think you understand marriage if you don't think it's an achievement.
If you give the people in question the benefit of the doubt, you would assume that they understand the gravity of the interpersonal and legal commitment they had made. Building up the trust to make that commitment is hard work.
It'd be like if somebody just made a commitment to donate periodically to charity. Presumably, those donations required that person to establish themselves financially to the extent that they can be reasonable sure that they will be able to keep their promise. So even though it's a "decision," it's closely related to an achievement.
Or maybe this illustrates it more clearly: You'd consider it an achievement to reach a 50th anniversary, correct? As you say, "many marriages end in failure." So why not a premarital relationship resulting in marriage? That doesn't always happen either. Most premarital relationships end in breaking up, not marriage.
So, as long as we're treating these people with maximum respect, we can see that:
1. Getting to the point where they were ready to commit to marriage was a challenging process. Big commitments require stable foundations, and stable foundations aren't free.
2. There is reason to hope that marriage will be a positive thing for the two who have decided to engage in it.
1 and 2 together are sufficient cause for congratulations, so they are in order.
I am married and I agree with the OP. I don't see it as a huge achievement and people who do are the ones who, in my experience, like to spend spend way too much (IMO) on a wedding. But we're proving his point really by discussing it!
Having experiences that suggest that an achievement is likely very minor should not be a cause for withholding congratulations, or any other social pleasantry. For example, in my experience, just being accepted to college at all is really not much of an achievement. There are plenty of colleges that will accept virtually anybody who applies. However, if a friend or coworker were to announce one morning, "I was just accepted to $LOCAL_COMMUNITY_COLLEGE," I would congratulate them. Maybe the hardest part for them was applying in the first place. Maybe it was harder for them to just apply to that college than it would be for you or I to get accepted into Harvard. We can't know, so we err on the side of warmth and encouragement.
As for,
> But we're proving his point really by discussing it!
I'm curious. How so?