Pants Free Parenting: You should marry who you love

During a playdate, my daughter married her friend. They were playing house and decided to get married. 'We love each other,” my daughter explained when she asked me to help find some rings. Her friend Sarah chimed in, 'You marry who you love.”

They were so nonchalant about it. Of course they are getting married. I helped them with their little ceremony and then strapped some babies in the baby stroller for them and went to make lunch.

When I was 18, I was determined never to marry. I saw my mother take care of eight children while my dad worked long hours. My grandmother, aunt and sister all married men out of obligation and each marriage took its toll.

Once I asked my grandmother why she stayed. 'That's what marriage is,” she said.

'But does it have to be?” I asked.

'Read your Bible,” she told me, 'read it good.”

I did. There are few happy marriages in there. Most are borne of convenience or strife. They were designed to conserve wealth and secure bloodlines, they were marked with violence and betrayal and multiple partners. Consequently, arguments of what marriage has been or should be always have had a false note. Only recently has modern marriage demanded that relationships not only sustain, but also provide emotional support and well-being.

When I got married at 22 (which in all fairness, was old for the women in my family), I tried to make a list of all the reasons why I was choosing to violate my 18-year-old self's sacred oath. There were practical reasons: He had a job, I didn't. Marriage meant health insurance and stability. But the most compelling reason was that this was the person I wanted to walk through life with. Love? I wasn't sure what that was. All I knew is that he was the best person I had ever met. I trusted him implicitly and with him, I felt safe. I felt that I had a firm foundation from which I could do anything. From his continuity, I have found freedom.

Some days, I feel like we are two people lost at sea, shouting for help, shouting at each other. But more often than not, he anchors me. He supports me and because of this, we are free to grow and change. Together, we are better than we are alone. I see no examples of that in the Bible.

When I heard about the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on same-sex marriage, I had to pull over into a parking lot, give my toddler a cookie and cry. I was so happy that somehow, we had created a world where my children would be free to choose the same stability and freedom I had chosen.

When I married, I felt free to choose a partner, not out of circumstance or moral pressure, but I chose him from a place of strength. I was able to do this, because even in a generation, from my aunt and my mother to me, so much had changed. Feminism had wrenched marriage from its ugly necessity and made it a choice. Now, when my children marry, their marriages will be even stronger.

Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy stated, 'No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were.”

And now my children can choose that for themselves, no matter who they are. And that is worth celebrating.

Lyz Lenz is a writer, mother of two and hater of pants. Email her at eclenz@gmail.com or find her writing at LyzLenz.com. Lyz Lenz