This may be unnecessarily snarky, but a friend’s “I am married!!!” post on Facebook is irritating.

Two things:
1) I find it a little sickening to celebrate an institution that is used as a means of systematic discrimination towards a significant portion of American society.
2) How is becoming married, in and of itself, an accomplishment? Finding someone you have a happy and reciprocal relationship with? Sure. Sustaining said relationship through hard times? Definitely. Filling out some paperwork and getting presents? Not so much.

One might assert that the exclamation “I am married” is used to imply a lot - the finding of a suitable partner, the building of a relationship, the decision to make a legal commitment. But I don’t think that’s true. At all. And not in the sense that it used to be true but marriage has been degraded to the point that it no longer is, I think that it’s never been true.

Throughout history, and now, “I am married” can communicate a variety of things. Examples include the following:

• I’m poor
• I’m “of a marrying age”
• I’m bored
• I want to stay in this country
• I’m pregnant
• I’m getting deployed
• Our countries are becoming allies
• I want to have sex

I’m not anti-marriage. I think that everyone should have a right to do it if they want to. I think that for some people, it’s a choice that contributes to their life in a positive way, whatever the reason for entering into the contract may be. But I hate being asked to buy into the blind assumption that marriage means one certain thing and that it is to be universally celebrated.

Also, yes I know how old and bitter I sound…