One romantic afternoon not long ago, as my husband, Bob, and I were strolling arm in arm around our neighborhood, I asked him, ”Why did you decide to propose to me?”
”You. You made me decide,” he said. ”You gave me an ultimatum.”
I was shocked. I was indignant.
”I did not,” I told him.
”Yes, you did. For weeks you circled ads for apartments in the classifieds. I knew if I didn`t propose, you`d move out.”
”That wasn`t an ultimatum,” I said, even though deep down I knew he was right. Maybe that`s why he nodded sympathetically in the supermarket checkout line when we read this tabloid headline: Tubby Gal Sits On Man Till He Says
”I Do.”
Like other women, I used to dream of a marriage proposal that was full of passion, romance, love. A Jane Eyre kind of proposal: the moon rising, a nightingale singing, the trees rustling, Mr. Rochester drawing her close, whispering, ”My bride is here because my equal is here, and my likeness, Jane, will you marry me?”
Instead of the moon and the nightingale, I got traffic and exhaust fumes. Bob finally proposed to me the day I returned my beeper after leaving my job as a flight attendant.
”So,” he said as we walked along one of the noisiest, dirtiest stretches of highway in Virginia, ”you want to get married?”
”Okay,” I said.
”Good,” said Bob. ”Let`s get a hamburger.”
This was not the proposal of my dreams. I don`t even like hamburgers. For weeks afterward, when the subject did not come up again, I began wondering if, perhaps, what with the traffic and all, I had misunderstood him, had conjured up what I wanted to hear.
Finally, I asked him if he had indeed proposed to me. ”Yes,” he said.
”I`m just trying to get used to the idea.”
No bended knees
When I spoke with other women about their marriage proposals, they all said that at some point they had imagined, at the very least, a man on bended knee. But if their real-life experiences are any indication, the romantic proposal today seems largely to be a myth.
I asked my friend, Jane Silva, a graphic designer living in Rhode Island, how her husband had proposed to her. ”I mean,” I asked her, ”did he really do it all on his own?”
”Well,” she said, ”I didn`t want him to feel backed into a corner or anything. So I tried reverse psychology. If we drove by a hotel with one of those signs that say `Congratulations Newlyweds,` I`d point it out and groan. I often told him it was a good thing we weren`t married because we`d have to change our tax bracket.”
Did she get him to propose, I wanted to know? Was it romantic?
”He said he`d talked to his parents at Thanksgiving,” Jane said, ”and he had mentioned that he was thinking of asking me to marry him. `That`s a good thought,` I said. `Christmas is a good time to get engaged`.”
I asked my husband`s best friend, a journalist in Virginia, how he proposed to his wife. He chuckled, a little embarrassed. ”Actually,” he said, ”Meg proposed to me.”
Elizabeth Hanson, a strategic planner for a health maintenance organization and John Kukulka, a builder and developer, had dated on and off for six years before the day John invited her to lunch at ”their place” in Manhattan. He told her that he had accepted a new job in Chicago. ”I`d like you to go with me,” he said.
Elizabeth remembers, ”Those were pretty much the words I wanted to hear. But not quite,” So she waited. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Fifteen. Finally, she told John, ”I`m waiting to hear just a little bit more about this `going with you` idea.”
Quickly John said, ”We`ll get married, of course.”
”I`ll go,” she said.
I was beginning to feel better about my own marriage proposal. If Bob called me his bride and his likeness, I would have thought he`d lost his mind. But the idea that I had pressured him into proposing didn`t sit quite right with me. Why had I been reluctant to take the initiative when I knew that I wanted to marry him?
Dad`s romantic approach
I decided that my reluctance had something to do with my expectations of the way things were supposed to be, before the demographic trend that, over the past 20 years-and during all of my adult life-created a shortage of eligible men.
Surely, my father, when he proposed to my mother in 1949, got down on one knee, gazed into her eyes, and said, ”Will you marry me?”
”Are you kidding?” my mother said. ”He kept talking about all the things we`d do `someday.` Finally I asked him what exactly `someday` meant. Did it mean we were getting married? He said, `Well, I was thinking that maybe-` and I said, `Good. How`s November`?”
So much for the generation theory. But what about romance? The hidden engagement ring? The champagne and flowers? In that department, there may be good news coming. According to an article in the New York Times by Jib Fowles, Ph.D., professor of human science and humanities at the University of Houston- Clear Lake, from now until the 21st Century, the sex ratio among Americans in their 20s is reversing. In other words, in the years to come, there will be, for the first time in 20 years in this country, more men than women in that prime marrying age. And when there are more men than women, life in these United States is going to be different.
For one thing, men will be more enthusiastic about pursuing marriage. University of Houston social scientists Marcia Guttentag and Paul Secord point out that when women are scarce, and men available, societal response favors monogamy for women, and when men are competing for women, the average age for a woman`s first marriage is lower.
Fowles further predicts that romance and courtship will be back in favor. In fact, I found intimations of this prediction already.
After they had told everyone they were getting married, my graphic designer friend Jane Silva`s husband-to-be got down on his knee and formally proposed. A dream come true? ”Actually, I felt kind of uncomfortable,” says Jane.
Vinny and Gina Gallucci, a photographer and sales representative, decided to get married after she came back to Boston from a trip to Europe. ”She wrote me a letter on a napkin from London saying how she wanted to be with me forever.” When she got back, ”We kind of decided to get married,” Vinny says.
Once all the plans were made, Vinny took Gina out to dinner, ordered a bottle of champagne and popped the question along with the cork. ”Gina knew what was going on,” Vinny says. ”We were just acting out what we thought we were supposed to do.”
I guess this idea about doing what we`re supposed to do was at work when Bob`s and my courtship finally turned to the proposal.
We had been living together for a year, and I knew that I wanted to marry him. But I also knew that I wanted him to propose to me. I needed ”those words” to come out of his mouth. I thought I needed them so that I would know he wanted a commitment, too.
If I did the proposing, I was afraid I would always wonder about his motivation. I thought I would miss the feeling of being wanted and loved that I had on that noisy highway in Virginia.
Romance to come
Today, after a little more than a year of marriage, it seems so unimportant. The only thing I do miss is the element of fun. But in the coming courtship revolution, we`ll no doubt be hearing lots of sporting proposal stories.
Paul Dauber, candidate for a master`s in business administration degree at Columbia University, went to incredible lengths to create a romantic proposal for his wife, Elaine, a law student at Fordham University in New York City. They, too, already had decided to get married, but Paul was unhappy with the mutual decision. He arranged a surprise that involved weeks of planning and subterfuge.
The result was a mysterious trip to San Juan that Paul had convinced Elaine was a favor for a friend who worked in the protocol office of the City of New York. Paul arranged to have written instructions waiting for them at each destination, from office to limousine, to the airport, lending an air of ”Mission: Impossible” the entire way to San Juan.
On the beach at the Caribe Hilton, Paul gave Elaine a note that read:
”You`ve been had. Enough of this charade. Will you marry me?”.
That`s a contemporary proposal that nearly rivals the excitement and suspense of the proposal in the thriller ”North by Northwest,” when Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint, pursued by the bad guys and clinging to Mount Rushmore, have their seminal conversation.
”If we ever get out of this alive,” says Cary Grant, ”let`s go back to New York on the train together.”
”Is that a proposition?” she says.
”It`s a proposal, sweetie,” says he.
Now that`s a proposal.
