The Marrying Kind

Caroline Puntis looks at Friends and Sex in the City

Towards the climax of the ninth season of Friends (and we are promised a final tenth before the long-standing sitcom goes into retirement) the issue that no doubt preoccupies a great number of single thirty-somethings comes to a head for Phoebe. Will she agree to just 'live with' her boyfriend Mike, who never wants to get married, or will she move on and look for love elsewhere? (Preferably upstate, to a nice husband with a big house and a Volvo for transporting the kids.)

At the other end of the comedy spectrum in an apartment about fifty or sixty blocks away, Sex and the City's Carrie Bradshaw is contemplating the same fate. As her boyfriend Aidan prepares to leave, she asks if he couldn't just stay - forever. Why does anything have to change? Why does she need a ring on her finger? Carrie has been wearing their engagement ring on a chain around her neck to avoid the inevitable comments from astounded peers. How can she, a woman who writes a newspaper column about sex and relationships, get married? When Miranda whisks her away to the worst bridal shop in town, hoping to conquer the fear of wedding dresses with laughter, Carrie develops physical manifestations - a wedding rash. She eventually confronts Aidan, and then realises that his reasons for wanting to tie the knot are not what they seem. Just as Carrie doubts that she is ready to get married, Aidan doubts that he can fully trust her unless she has walked down the aisle - due to an infidelity on Carrie's part.

In Friends, Phoebe and Mike are sure about one thing: they love each other, in spite of everything. They have vastly different backgrounds - Phoebe has crawled off the streets into a relatively ordinary existence; Mike has had every benefit of a rich family. When they announce their impending 'moving in together' to Phoebe's Friends, a joke about the next step causes Mike to lay his cards on the table. With one failed marriage on his résumé, Mike is determined not to make the same mistake twice. Marriage is definitely not on his agenda, but Phoebe feels differently. Now that she knows it will never be a possibility with Mike, it seems pointless to continue. 'It was okay to move in when I didn't know what was going to happen, but I can't move in knowing that nothing is ever going to happen.'

Meanwhile, Ross is not sure that an ordinary marriage would suit someone as extraordinary as Phoebe. But even with three marriages under his belt, he cannot deny that marriage is in itself a good idea. Across the street, his sister Monica and best friend Chandler have found love and seem to be living happily ever after.

So, in TV land, marriage is deemed to be suitable for some and not others. Unfortunately for the characters of these two conflict-driven comedies, Carrie and Phoebe must love men who want the opposite to them. However, to maintain an element of realism both dramas do have token married couples. But marriage is not the answer to all their problems. For the married couple in Sex and the City, Charlotte and Trey, the conflict is drawn out of their inability to have babies. It looks like Monica and Chandler may be heading the same way. How will they deal with not being able to start a family? Will their marriage survive? Or are they destined to follow in the steps of their uptown soap relatives who have now divorced?

According to Friends and Sex and the City, the big issue in life is finding the right person to settle down with, closely followed by having children - which may or may not be connected (see the shows' single mothers, Rachel and Miranda respectively), and may or may not involve marriage. Naturally this message is underpinned by the relativist question, what is right for me? And, if you are thinking that marriage is right for you, make sure that you've ruled out anyone who is incapable of delivering a less-than-perfect lifestyle. Try living with them first. Better still, try having babies with them first. Just in case you're not compatible, then you can find someone else who is.

There isn't necessarily an easy moral finger to point at the likes of Mike, Carrie, Phoebe and Charlotte. Marriage, the biblical institution, hasn't been written out of today's society or sitcoms. But the version presented to us by comedy institutions does fall a considerable distance short of the version modelled in the Bible. In the fictional world of Friends and Sex and the City, marriage is simply an opportunity to bring about greater personal happiness. It is about two individuals living together - enjoying the perks of the married status whilst hanging onto the single life they were brought into existence to epitomise. In the Bible, marriage is about two individuals living as one - who are prepared to put each other's needs first and minimise conflict. Jesus may have been a single man in his thirties, but in his life and his death he showed to his 'bride', the Church, the true depths of love - sacrifice.

Ultimately, TV marriage is a selfish endeavour. If you're like Charlotte or Phoebe, it promises satisfaction, security and status. If you're like Carrie, perhaps you've found these already as an independent city-dweller. Still single in her mid-thirties, marriage means surrendering the things she's grown to love (space for $40,000 worth of designer shoes). Where one person wants marriage and the other one doesn't, TV couples break up. Conflict wins; TV executives are happy; the show runs for another season.

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