BirdInFlight wrote:
It's partly that people tend to be suspicious of unmarrieds of a certain age without further information. But it's also a perception change people have when they know/think/believe or perceive that someone is loved by someone, and therefore must be a "worthy" person they ought to treat well too. It nearly always automatically makes them treat the person better.
Because, simplistically, even subconsciously, people who see someone in a setting of being surrounded by others who apparently love them (enough to marry them) or stick by them (such as friends or family) "must be worthy" of love and loyalty and therefore a more quality person, is the assumption.
Whereas when someone seems alone or lacking in backup, most people feel they don't have to be accountable for treating that person with less respect, because of their perception that already nobody respects or loves that person.
It's not particularly fair and just or even rational (I've known some bloody horrible, unlikeable, unrespectable people who were married and loved and accepted and received further liking and acceptance), it's a primal response going right back to when we were apes, and you still see it in other animal behavior -- reject the lone individual, accept and raise up in status the ones who manage to find mates.
It's even why some situations turn out better if you just bring a friend along to advocate for and with you at a doctor's office or talking to a landlord or whatever -- anyone who looks like "someone's got their back" gets more respect instantly than someone who's out there on there own.
It happens quite a lot that married people go up in other people's estimation, or that when they discover you're married they suddenly up their opinion based on nothing else at all but that fact. Or that some people are even more flirty and attracted if they see a wedding ring on a finger, than if they see a bare finger.
Yep...all of this is true, unfair though it is.
Plus society really hasn't come very far along since the times when marriage was primarily about social status and family/property alliance. Marriage is still looked at as proof that one or both partners either had something tangible to offer, like an inheritance or property or the ability to earn a good living, or else being really good in bed. It is shocking to hear how people talk about other people's marriages, especially those who are unhappy in their own, they try to figure out why other people are married and basically reduce it down to nothing but a business transaction.
06 Jul 2016, 7:04 am
