'Altared' states

Ebony, June, 1994 by Laura B. Randolph

IT'S that time of year. The month that thousands of couples will do it. Take the plunge. Make the leap. Jump the broom. It's peak-marrying month and all across the country wedding bells are ringing.

That millions of American couples--rational, intelligent adults not addicted to drugs, alcohol or prescription medication--still flock to the altar to pledge their eternal love both thrills and amazes me.

I'm thrilled because there is nothing in the world like a wedding to make you feel exactly the way you did when you were 6 years old and you watched the prince slip the glass slipper on Cinderella. Especially an outdoor summer ceremony where the bride's veil waves in the wind as she and her prince--I mean groom--ride off into the sunset.

I am amazed because with couples marrying later in life (the average age at first marriage has risen steadily since the 1970s), you would think these people are too old and have seen too much of life to believe in fairy tales.

They may be madly in love, but these couples are not crazy. Like the rest of us, they know the facts: That getting married in the '90s is as much about rolling the dice as it is about throwing the rice; that in this 50-percent-divorce-rate culture, a marriage is just as likely to bomb as it is to blossom.

For Black couples in particular, the decision to marry is an extraordinary act of courage. We don't just jump the broom. We make a leap of faith. That's because, as sobering as these divorce stats are, for us, they're even scarier.

"The probability that Black couples will be divorced within 15 years is 50/50," says Norval Glenn, a University of Texas sociology professor who has studied African-American marriage and divorce patterns. "But the probability that Black couples will divorce in their lifetime is even higher, although, generally speaking, the higher the income and education levels, the lower the divorce rate."

These admittedly depressing statistics are the main reason why I have two immediate and opposite reactions every time I receive a wedding invitation. The first is jump-up-and-down joy. (Opening the envelope, reading the on-this-day-we-will-pledge-our-eternal-love missive and feeling the couple's euphoria deep in my soul.) The second is sheer amazement. (Who but somebody crazy would invest so much--their heart, their hopes, their happiness--in something with such a poor chance of succeeding?)

I don't mean to sound cynical, but you have to admit these odds are enough to shake even the most die-hard romantic.

Think about it. If you knew that a swim in the ocean would likely result in you becoming fish food for a great white shark, is there any power on earth that could get you near the water?

What if the FAA told you that every time you set foot on an airplane the odds were better than 50/50 it would crash? How many frequent flyer miles would you have?

Why, then, when it comes to marriage, do we treat these same odds as if they were rice at a wedding ceremony: something to be tossed to the wind? Given what we know about divorce rates, shouldn't Tina Turner's song be, "What's logic got to do with it?"

In the months that have passed since my only sister announced her engagement, I have given these questions a great deal of thought. I'm pretty certain that the answer, at least to the last one, is "nothing." When it comes to love, the rules of logic simply do not apply--to me, to any of the couples I know, to anyone it seems. There's just no other way to explain the thousands of couples getting married this month. Or the recent Newsweek poll in which a whopping 88 percent of single African-American adults said they want to get married.

Times may have changed, but hopes have not. As much as our parents and grandparents, we still want to believe in love and its power. In happily ever after. That the slipper will fit.

Watching my sister plan her wedding has helped me to understand this in a way I never did before. The desire to get married, to go through life loving, and being loved by, another person is not about logic or reason. It is about hope and faith. Hope that you will know the security of spirit that comes from finding your soulmate, your other half; that your love will be passionate and permanent; that every day for the rest of your life you will wake up to the person you love not only for who they are, but for who you are when you are with them. And faith that somehow you will.

Somewhere deep inside all of us there exists a place where we don't think, we just feel. It is from this elemental place that the decision to say "yes" to marriage comes. When we make it, we don't analyze the odds or assess the probabilities. We just close our eyes and jump.

At that moment in time, we know with inexplicable certainty what Black people have always known: that whatever the odds, love can overcome them; that its power is total and transcendent; that it is the force that makes life worth living the elixir that always has, and always will, transform and sustain us.

This ancient knowledge, this profound faith. That's what carries us forward. Down the aisle. Up to the altar. Face to face with a new partner, a new life. "Altared" states.