Here I sit a few months after my marriage in October still dazed from the monumental decision. There’s no doubt in my mind that I love my wife, but still I cannot help but see the differences between men and women and their underlying animal instincts represented by the act of marriage itself and sex. Looking at these two occurrences, one being a human creation and the other a natural desire, has helped me to come to some conclusions as to the origin of marriage and to better understand the differences between the sexes.

I guess the main differences between men and women (other than the obvious) hit me immediately after I became engaged to my wife. While she ran around booking the church, reception, photographer, and florist, I was just shaking my head in agreement and silently hoping that the day would be here soon so all of this madness would be over. She was hoping the wedding day would be here soon as well but for different reasons. Because I had little to do with the wedding besides get fitted for a tux and show up I had a lot of time to think (and they wonder why guys get cold feet). You’d be surprised at how deeply you can philosophize when contemplating the rest of your life; I increasingly thought more and more about my short life before my decision to marry. Meanwhile my wife can’t help but look to the future as she plans for the big day. As I thought more about it, it became clear that I was not the first man to think this way.

Take for instance the bachelor party. Here we have a blatant celebration of the free man, free of course from the duties required of a married man. It is if you prefer a celebration of the single life. On the other side of the spectrum there is the bride to be; they celebrate the up coming event by having a bridal shower. The very name looks forward to the oncoming event just as the name bachelor party looks back. At bridal showers the bride receives gifts to get her started on her future life with her new husband. At bachelor parties, though, the goal is to get the guy into a drunken stupor so he can bravely go forward towards the death of life as he knows it. So in general we see that men look back on their lives before marriage and women look forward to life after the blessed day. There are of course exceptions that make every rule. This is the case with the recent popularity of bachelorette parties; this is something brought on doubtlessly by the women’s liberation movement of the 1960's . Now that we see the differences between men and women when it comes to marriage, maybe it would be interesting to ponder the origins of these differences.