"Marriage"

All marriages are spirited but not as dynamic as the world in which we live. Thank God. It is necessary from time to time to retreat from the day’s news and to reflect on what has brought happiness, and to let humor and lightness have their play. In my case, what has brought happiness (and smiles) has been the family Caroline and I raised, and the families being raised by our three children. 

 

The photo was taken after our wedding ceremony and on the way to the reception.

 

...and, by the way, don’t forget that Daylight Savings starts tomorrow. Get to bed early!

 

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

More Essays from Essex

“Marriage”

March 7, 2026

 

“A woman’s life is not perfect or whole till she has added herself to a husband.

Nor is a man’s life perfect or whole till he has added to himself a wife.”

                                                                                                                                Anthony Trollope (1815-1882)

                                                                                                                                Miss MacKenzie, 1865

 

On April 11 Caroline and I will celebrate our 62^nd wedding anniversary. We have been married longer than either of our parents or grandparents. 

 

The concept of marriage dates back four or five thousand years, but for most of that time it was a contract for managing property. Marriage for love only gained traction in the late 18^th and early 19^th Centuries. Over time, attitudes changed. The courtships described by Jane Austen show partners standing in opposing lines. In 1828 Noah Webster wrote that marriage “was instituted by God himself.” In 1906 in The Devil’s Dictionary the satirist Ambrose Bierce defined the word marriage: “The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.” Our 1964 wedding vows were to last until death do us part. Marriage has always been considered the most stable environment in which to raise children. 

 

However, marriage is not a case of “one size fits all.” First, it is not for everyone, and second, not all marriages work. “Marriage,” the humorist Will Rogers once wrote, “is a habit. Divorce is a necessity.” It is impossible that two people can know all about one another after a few months or even after a couple of years. So luck plays a role. Nevertheless, when a marriage works angels sing.

 

Tens of thousands of books have been written, offering advice for a successful marriage – prioritizing your spouse, practicing forgiveness, maintaining a sense of humor, and committing to navigating both good and bad times together. While those words sound substantive, they sport an institutional tone; they could have been spit out by a ‘bot.’ When asked of lessons learned from our marriage, I demur. But love comes first.

 

“Vive La Différence,” sang Maurice Chevalier. And certainly Caroline and I are different. I am sensitive; she is empathetic. I am short-tempered, especially when interrupted while writing; Caroline is patient. However, like magnets we were attracted. P. G. Wodehouse had a sixty-one-year marriage to Ethyl Wayman. In 1932, eighteen years after he was married, he wrote Doctor Sally. The book includes humorous marital advice: “Chumps make the best husbands. When you marry, Sally, grab a chump. Tap his head first and if it rings solid, don’t hesitate. All unhappy marriages come from husbands having brains.”

 

While I don’t think I am a chump – there, my sensitivity is showing! – Caroline and I have had a good marriage. Besides being lovers, we are good friends. There is no one with whom I would rather take a trip or share a meal. But the glue has been the children we produced, and the children they, with their chosen spouses, have produced. There is something magical in knowing that the genes we inherited from our forefathers and foremothers will live on in generations yet to come. While the future is unknowable, we pray that their lives will be happy ones. And all this because of a young woman my sister introduced me to at a small ski area in New Hampshire more than sixty-four years ago. Fortune has smiled upon us.