Dorian Solot never fantasized about being a bride when she grew up. She
couldn't imagine herself walking down the aisle in a flowing white gown,
and she certainly didn't want to be a Mrs. Someone.
But nor did she expect to eventually be penalized for her decision not
to marry her longtime partner, Marshall Miller, whom she'd met nine
years ago when both were undergraduates at Brown University.
"We're not against marriage," Solot said. "But we felt like our
relationship was working really well and we didn't need to change it to
make other people happy."
Solot said they're as committed to their relationship as any married
couple. That's why they were upset to learn they couldn't share a health
insurance policy. And they were angered when a Massachusetts landlord
denied them an apartment because they weren't married. They couldn't
even get joint tenant insurance without a fight.
They knew they weren't alone, yet they couldn't find much information or
assistance for unmarried couples.
So four years ago they formed the Alternatives to Marriage Project, a
nonprofit organization to serve as a clearing-house on information for
the growing number of people who cannot or choose not to marry their
partners -- whether they're straight, gay or lesbian, or bisexual.
NEARLY 26,000 PEOPLE WERE living with unmarried partners in Rhode
Island, Solot said the 1990 U.S. Census showed; 4 percent of those had
same-sex partners while the rest lived with partners of the opposite sex.
That number skyrocketed over the next 10 years, Solot said, with nearly
46,500 people reporting in the 2000 census that they were living with
unmarried partners, including 11 percent who were living with same-sex
partners.
Nationwide, Solot said, more than 11 million unmarried people are living
with a partner. And that number grows every year.
Solot and Miller said they received such a tremendous response to the
formation of the Alternatives to Marriage Project that they knew they'd
"hit a nerve." As Solot said, "We were filling this niche in culture
that wasn't being filled and there was a real need for."
SOLOT AND MILLER, who are in their late 20s -- they decline to give
their exact ages -- began by researching the issue of unmarrieds. They
collected information on existing laws, proposed legislation and
personal experiences of other unmarried couples.
They bought a guide to establishing nonprofit organizations, and
established the project in the spring of 1998. Soon they had created a
Web site, were issuing monthly newsletters and providing workshops
around the country. Most important, Solot said, they were "building a
sense of community" by linking unmarried couples.
Their Web site (www.unmarried.org
) allowed people to talk to others about the issues they were facing in
their lives, from dealing with pressure from family members who wanted
them to get married to coming up with ways to introduce their "spousal
equivalents."
She also thinks it's great that a senior citizen who may not want to
remarry because of pension benefits can e-mail a young gay couple or
feminist to see how they handle living in an unmarried relationship.
Solot and Miller also interviewed more than 100 people who'd been in
long-term unmarried relationships around the country, to learn from
their experiences.
"People would just tell us their stories -- what was working, what
wasn't working," Solot said. "It was very powerful for me to find role
models, people who'd been in long-term unmarried relationships for 25,
30 years."
Some felt pressured by family members to get married, or they worried
about health insurance or legal issues. Child care and custody were also
major concerns, Solot noted. Others felt they need to marry to fit in.
The couple plan to share the information they've collected in a book
called Unmarried to Each Other: The Essential Guide to Living Together
and Staying Together, to be published this fall by Marlowe & Company.
WITHIN MONTHS OF FOUNDING the project, Solot and Miller realized it was
far more than a part-time activity. So Solot quit her job as program
director for Adoption RI, where she'd worked with a variety of
nontraditional families seeking to adopt children, to work on the
project full-time.
As executive director, she handles much of the research, assimilates
statistics, publishes the monthly newsletter, coordinates the Web site,
responds to requests for information from individuals, groups, lawmakers
and journalists, does interviews, offers workshops and does anything
else that needs doing. This month, she'll be speaking at the Illinois
Council of Family Relations conference and at the annual conference of
the Council of Contemporary Families in New York City.
Miller, who works as a program coordinator at the Fenway Community
Health Project, doing HIV/AIDS education, was able to obtain domestic
partner health insurance for both of them through his work. And he
continues to spend most nights and weekends on the project, as well.
The Alternatives to Marriage Project now has more than 4,000 members on
its mailing list, of which about a third are gay or lesbian and the rest
are heterosexual. "They are as diverse as you can possibly imagine in
terms of age, race, family structure and political beliefs," Solot said.
Many are from large cities, including Boston, New York and San
Francisco, but there's also a large number from the rural South, where
people "can't find support, so they're a little more desperate," she
said.
"People who identify with this organization were very excited about it
from the beginning. It certainly took a while for the rest of the world
to take us seriously," she said.
The project has grown steadily; last year it had a $26,000 budget funded
almost entirely through small grants and private donations. And hundreds
of volunteers around the country compile information and provide
services, such as graphic design and publishing the newsletter. They'd
like to eventually do more advocacy, on the local and national levels.
"We have lots of dreams, big dreams," Solot said.
Meanwhile, they've attracted national attention -- especially in recent
months, as they've spoken out against the welfare reforms proposed by
President Bush that would require states to outline what they're doing
to promote "family formation and healthy marriages."
These include West Virginia giving a $100 monthly bonus paid to welfare
families with married parents in that state, to Michigan requiring that
single women on welfare in Michigan take 24 hours of classroom training
on how to be a good parent and "create a stable family." The Bush
administration also has proposed changing the wording of the welfare
laws to say that a basic purpose of the program is to help form and
encourage "healthy two-parent married families."
But Solot opposes the idea of pushing people into marriage. "Instead of
focusing on making sure everyone gets married, I think the focus should
be on making a strong healthy relationship -- if that's what people
want."
In addition, she said, "It's easy to talk about being in favor of
marriage. But whenever you're rewarding people for getting married,
you're punishing people for not getting married."
"I think it's perfectly fine for people to marry and it's obviously
something that works perfectly fine for many people," she said. But
people who aren't married, she said, should be entitled to the same
rights and privileges as those who are.
Not everyone agrees.
FRANCES GOLDSCHEIDER, a sociology professor at Brown University, notes
that several states now allow for some unmarried couples -- primarily
gays and lesbians -- to enjoy some of the same rights and privileges as
married couples when it comes to health insurance, housing and issues
concerning child custody and visitation.
But the problem, she said, is defining a couple. She cited a Swedish
survey, in which people were asked what constitutes a relationship. Some
defined it as sharing an apartment. Others said they had a relationship
if the other partner has spent the night. One woman said she was in a
relationship because her partner kept a toothbrush at her home.
"I thought toothbrushes were pretty cheap," Goldscheider quipped.
The fact is, she said, that in this society, marriage "is how commitment
is shown."
She compares it to having to go to college. It's not enough to say
you're committed to a particular major. You have to take so many courses
and pass so many exams in order to earn a degree. "That's the way it's
done," she said.
Marriage is the same way, she said. When it comes to heterosexual
couples, anyway, "if they're committed, that's what they do."
And one of the advantages of that commitment is the benefits that
marriage brings, she said, such as insurance, housing, and health
options.
Solot doesn't believe a person should have to be married to obtain those
benefits. Marriage, she said, shouldn't be society's "only answer."
RACHEL BATES, 30, OF CRANSTON, who works in library services, sees no
particular benefit to getting married to her longtime companion, Dylan.
"What would I gain from that? Everyone talks about this commitment. I
have that. Then, money. But there are ways to own a house, own a car
(without getting married). So what do you get out of it? A tax break?"
Marriage, she said, "feels like it has more to do with religion or
government or money and not to do with just me and him."
The issue might be more pressing, she said, if she wanted to have kids.
She said unmarried people may not be given the same rights when it comes
to such issues as custody and visitation.
And that's not fair, either, Bates said. In fact, she said, marriage
should be an option for everyone, not just heterosexual couples. "It
just doesn't seem to give much leeway for real life."
She said she's be more willing to consider getting married if the option
was open to everyone. But she'd rather see the world be more accepting
of all the choices people make -- including whether or not to wed.
"I think there are pluses and minuses to both situations and it's very
personal," she said. For now, she's content with the choice she's made.
GOLDSCHEIDER SAID SHE BELIEVES many young people are opting to cohabit
instead of getting married simply because they're unwilling to make a
lifelong commitment to anyone.
It's tough to envision themselves married, she said, because they can't
envision other long-term commitments in their lives. They've grown up
watching families split up in divorce and parents downsized out of their
workplaces. They know it's unlikely they'll find a career that will last
more than 10 years, let alone a job to last a lifetime, Goldscheider
said.
On the flip side, she said, some people hope that with so many uncertain
factors in life that relationships and families could provide the glue
to keep things together. "If the only thing you have to hold onto is
family, maybe you'll hold on tighter," she said.
But Solot said she doesn't need to be married to hang on tight.
She notes that she and Miller recently endured one of the toughest
ordeals any couple could face: She was diagnosed with breast cancer two
years ago, and Miller has been by her side "every step of the way."
"That experience really brought us closer," said Solot, whose cancer is
now in remission. "It changed the way we think about the future, but
doesn't change the way we think about marriage."
EVEN SOME PEOPLE WHO HAD dreamed of marriage have changed their
perspective. Consider Lauri Bazerman, 29, a public health consultant
from Cranston. She always thought she'd get married at some point. "I
just thought it would happen."
But over time, especially while she was in graduate school, studying
public health issues, her views began to change. "I started thinking
about it, and marriage, in my mind, would be the default, it would be
something you do just because that's what you did, that's what everybody
did." So after she began dating her partner, David, she questioned why
should she bother to get married. "I questioned why we would do this?"
She said she is clearly committed to David. "Over time, our commitment
to one another became a marriage of sorts and there was no reason I
would need for that to be government-sanctioned" by a marriage ceremony.
David, she admits, "is a lot more traditional than I am and would
probably jump if I said, 'Sure, let's get married.' But at the same
time, I think he's beginning to really see that there isn't any logical
reason above and beyond that of tradition."
Her parents and grandparents also would like them to get married,
Bazerman said. She doesn't understand why they can't accept her
relationship as is. "I've asked my parents, 'Why is this so important to
you?' They say, 'We just want to see you married.' I'm sure part of it
is wanting to have a wedding and celebration."
"But," she adds, "my family definitely knows it ain't happening."
And that's okay, Solot and others say. "There are lot of people walking
around in loving unmarried relationships and they're doing fine."
Indeed, when someone asks why she's not married, Bazerman responds: "I
don't see the need. . . . I have everything I need."
