Earlier this month, a lawyer posted a video on TikTok regarding her views on traditional marriage, and it has people talking. Cece Xie, a 2016 graduate of Harvard Law School, said marriage is just "made up" and that the old-fashioned institution doesn't make sense for modern-day couples.
Her thoughts confused some people, particularly once they found out that Xie is engaged herself. Evidently, her knowledge on the topic hasn't influenced her own decisions too much, and frankly, she has an interesting take on the subject.
Xie explains why she says marriage is 'made up.'
In the clip, which is less than a minute long and has more than 400,000 views, Xie explains that her biggest takeaway from "family law" is that marriage is a fallacy.
"Yes, there's a long tradition of marriages throughout history, mostly for economic purposes, political purposes, or religious purposes. But put that aside in the modern era, it's like, well, why get married?" she says.
Hmm, interesting.
Xie does think some valid reasons for marriage exist.
First, she says that some people marry because of religious beliefs. She also contends that "If marriage is made up, that's also the beauty of it. You and your partner can make it into whatever it means to you." And she admits to being a bit of a cynic.
Xie contends that there is a bit of encouragement from the government for people to get married. If a person is married, it takes some of the responsibility off of the government to take care of you. "Because it's a way for them to create private welfare networks, um, and make your family responsible for you," she says.
But there is a bit of irony: Xie is engaged to be married.
"We realized that marriage didn't mean the same thing to us as it did for some of our friends and parents. But, we talked through really like what we thought it meant, what kind of commitment we were making to each other. And that was actually like a really beautiful process," she says in the video.
That still doesn't really explain her point. Having said that, it resonated with some but was a complete mystery to others.
People from both sides of the argument pleaded their cases.
Those who agreed with her had a lot to say.
"I'm never getting married so when I die, my debts & medical debts die with me," one person commented.
"Never liked idea of marriage, got married 6 years ago for financial reasons, now getting divorced," wrote another person.
Then there were some who were onboard with her cynicism.
"Most if not all of the legalities of marriage can be covered with an Estate plan. Marriage is just to put you into another tax bracket," read another comment.
Others were a tad confused by her take.
"would love to hear more about what you and Nathaniel landed on and what it meant to the both of you," someone commented.
People had questions about what they could and couldn't do if they didn't marry. Then there were the questions about the legality and having a spouse.
"My question is what do you do in emergency situations if your partner is in a bad accident and you aren't married you don't have a right to be there," someone asked.
"How do we de tangle benefits from marriage status like healthcare?" another person wondered.
Xie answered this question, writing, "u can't really in the US — like that is another way that the US gov incentivizes marriage rather than providing all citizens with healthcare. and if marriage partially means healthcare to u/ur partner, i think that is just as valid as any other reason!"
And, of course, other people are totally in favor of traditional marriage.
"For me, its like the ultimate commitment and promise to each other. I wouldn't have kids with a man I'm not married to," someone commented.
"For both of us, I'd say the biggest benefit is built-in emotional support and companionship. We also wanted to celebrate our commitment," another person explained.
The consensus appears to be that people want choices.
There seems to be no right or wrong answer here, and the comments proved that there are many different ideas on marriage. To each their own, and individual couples should continued doing whatever works for them.
Congrats to Cece and Nathanial. May you have a long and loving life together.
