Daily life as a Married Woman is…honestly, not all that different from daily life as an Unmarried Woman. Apart from the dark and foreboding prospect of a future committed to one person, life plods along just as before. Being married, in all honesty, isn’t all that different to being in a live-in relationship. I mean, there are minute differences, of course: I can no longer bail on social events that “we” are invited to just because I don’t feel like it, and sometimes I do forget that the “Amy Byrne” I see on paper is actually me. But really, all that being married means is that I get to hang out with my favorite person all the time, we get to make plans for grand adventures together, and there’s always someone who wants to get Chipotle with me.
Is that painfully naive of me to suggest? Of course. Because, on paper, I am Too Young, and therefore I have noticed that many people are automatically inclined to dismiss my marriage as the spontaneous decision of two over-eager young adults. Very often, I meet strangers at work who tell me I look too young to be married. I tell them I am 22. “Still too young,” they say, with a solemn shake of the head. And then there are the folks who post viral articles written by hot-headed college seniors who still get their Mom to come and do their laundry once a week, the kind of articles about why smoking weed and eating pizza is lyf and getting married is for fusty, old-fashioned losers who clearly don’t know anything about feminism anyway.
Sigh. Without taking my age into account, it saddens me deeply to see so many pervasive misconceptions about marriage as an institution. It’s as if saying “I do” is followed by fine print that states a woman must give herself up to her dastardly, scheming male master, don an apron and resign herself to a lifetime of wilted dreams and soiled diapers. Changing my surname clearly makes me an un-feminist puppet of The Patriarchy. And, of course, spending a lifetime with one person sounds more like a death sentence than a cause for celebration.
And then we foray into the age thing. How dare I make light of such an Important Life Decision?! How dare I gloss over all the hard parts and tell people that I’m happily married, when I am Clearly Too Naive to know if marriage was the right choice? And, of course, how dare I tell other people about my nauseating coupled-up happiness? Don’t I realize that Being Single Is Awesome Too?!
For once, I want this to be my turn to speak without being fobbed off as a brainwashed domestic bimbo. Look, friends: I hate to burst the bubble, but marriage has actually been really awesome. We go on dates to children’s movies late at night when there are no kids about, my handbag bursting with Dollar Tree candy. We get too drunk and share boxes of takeaway fries in bed. We scare one another and play-fight and cry with laughter over ridiculous in-jokes. Being married is, ultimately, a ton of fun—more rom-com montage than funeral dirge.
