Are married people taken more seriously?

My sister and brother-in-law had a party last Saturday celebrating his birthday, and the one thing he wanted was to perform a few songs with his band. Since they live in an apartment complex, and there was no way to avoid it being a little on the loud side, the band purposely played for us in the early evening, finishing at about 8 PM. As they were taking the equipment out the front door, two police officers calmly walked in through the back – someone had complained about the noise.

“You really can’t be doing karaoke or anything like that in an apartment complex,” one cop said gruffly. “You could get evicted.” (As my sister and brother-in-law noted later, that was pretty funny considering they always pay their rent on time and their complex has empty apartments all over the place!) My sister, wisely, yessed them to death as they lectured us and took a good look around, but there really, really, REALLY wasn’t anything to see. There wasn’t even any alcohol being served, and even if there had been, almost everyone in attendance was at least 30 years old.

But the most interesting thing was what happened when one of the cops asked my sister, “So you’re the owner of this apartment?”

“We rent, yes. Me and my husband,” she said.

As soon as she said the word ‘husband,’ the cop visibly relaxed. “Oh! You and your husband!” he said. The lecture stopped, he took down her name and phone number, and left without even issuing a noise citation. We couldn’t figure out why the fact that she was married seemed to reassure him so much. It’s flattering to imagine that we all appeared young enough to be a bunch of wild college kids, but we don’t look THAT young! I just think there is a tendency for married people to be taken more seriously, to be thought of as “real adults.” Once you turn 18, you graduate from high school and you can vote; once you turn 21, you can drink. But after that, in order to have any other real celebrations that people will truly honor, that they will drop everything for to come and witness, you have to get married. No one throws “congratulations, you’ve moved out of your parents’ house” showers, or “great, you got your first real job” parties -- at least not formal ones with religious ceremonies, like a wedding, where friends and relatives pledge to support your life together as a couple. It would be nice if everyone could have some sort of ceremony at age 21 or 22 where friends and relatives could come together to pledge their support for your adult life, period – whether you ever get married or not.

Better that than adapting a ritual from some remote Amazonian village in Brazil, where to be considered an adult, you have to stick your hand into a swarm of angry, stinging giant ants (see http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/places/culture-places/beliefs-and-traditions/brazil_initiationwithants.html).

Ouch!