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HOLY MATRIMONY!

First comes love, then comes marriage. Now comes Quebec, proposing the world’s first post-marriage society.

Text: DANIELLE STANTON

1 | 2 | OCT '04

"I met Jeannette* when I was in my late 20s," recalls Louis, a 51-year-old Montrealer. "I made no secret of my sexual ambivalence, but it didn’t scare her away." The only time Jeannette and Louis have ever lived together was for a few months after the birth of their son, now 20.

Since then, Louis has begun and ended a 10-year relationship with a man; neither he nor Jeannette currently has a love interest. Soon they’ll be moving into adjacent apartments. "Because we provide each other with a sense of emotional security, the need for another partner in our lives is less urgent," Louis says.

Common-law marriage, gay marriage, non-cohabiting relationships... In the Quebec couples’ department, there’s a size and shape to suit everyone. In fact, the province might just be the world’s first postmarriage society.

As in the rest of the Western world, fewer people are tying the knot in Canada, especially Quebec. Quebecers are not only saying, "I do" at half the rate they did 30 years ago (20,600 marriages in 2003 compared to 50,400 in 1975), but they are also divorcing more frequently. And more Quebec couples are opting for common-law marriage than ever before (30 percent compared to 12 percent elsewhere in Canada and 8 percent in the United States). To see where relationships are headed, we need look no further than the society where the statistical pattern has already played out. Quebec is the crystal ball of North America’s marital destiny.

So why are Quebecers leading this revolution of postconjugal bliss? After the Quiet Revolution that shook Quebec politics, culture and religion in the 1960s, the province quite literally divorced itself from old institutions and embraced modernity. "In 40 years, Quebec went through the same changes that were spread out in other societies over 300 years," says Diane Pacom, a professor of sociology at the University of Ottawa. A huge Environics survey of more than 14,000 North Americans bears this out. It found that Quebec has the highest percentage of non-traditional family environments and is a breeding ground for permissive attitudes. It’s no wonder that Quebec couples are redefining the North American family.

Like picking a new car, Quebecers can select from three distinct takes on coupling: Open-ended couples are the equivalent of a flashy convertible sports car; wedding party animals are like the fun PT Cruiser; and advocates of new-and-improved marriage are as neo-traditionalist as the New Beetle. For all models, fidelity is an option.

The trick to the first variation is to reconcile being both an individual and part of a couple. "Philip has been the love of my life for the past eight years," explains Mackayla, "but we simply couldn’t live together. Our lifestyles are just too different. By living apart, we avoid a lot of arguments." Like other open-ended types, this couple keeps things fresh by deliberately injecting elements of separation and change. Racy and exciting in theory, this lifestyle can be exhausting in practice, as the partners are constantly wondering, "Have I made the right choice? What if the grass is greener…?" Instead of "All for one and one for all," the motto is more like "You for you, and me for me."

This kind of conjugal scrimmage is completely at odds with conventional marriage, which, these days, has a nouveau-retro appeal in Quebec. The second group, wedding party animals, is making marriage seem fun again. The boom of matrimonial reality-TV demonstrates that wedding bells still toll for Quebecers. (For instance, a French-language version of For Better or for Worse debuted on TVA this fall.) "The same old story still sells," report journalists Pascale Wattier and Olivier Picard in their book Mariage, sexe et tradition (Plon, 2002). "When stars get hitched, Paris Match runs a huge cover story that boosts their sales by at least 10 to 15 percent." And if the lovebirds succumb to the odds and separate within months, at least they had a fabulous wedding.

* Some names have been changed to protect privacy.

1 | 2 | OCT '04