Marriage Dreams

Picture a smiling couple exiting the temple. The woman, beautifully clad in white, is walking down a hill, slightly in front of her new husband, holding his hand. All of a sudden, she shakes her head slightly and looks around with confusion etched in her face. "Where I am?" she thinks. She looks down, and sees her dress, looks back and sees the temple and a man, smiling broadly at her. With a shock of realization, she knows that she has just gotten married to someone, yet, she has no idea who he is. The last she can remember of her life is from 4 months earlier. She asks the stranger, "What is my major?" He looks at her quizzically. "Hurry! Answer the question!" He responds that she is studying elementary education, of course. Her thoughts are like a shriek. "No! No! That's not right. I am a physics major." She begins to panic. What can she do? She glances again at the man. He is smiling lovingly at her, but there is also a glint of anxiousness in his eyes. With a jolt, she realizes that he expects to have sex with her that very night. The thought revolts her--not only is he a total stranger whom she just married, but she is not the woman he thinks she is. She starts to walk quickly away. What can she do?

Then, I awake, my heart racing.

This is a dream I had probably 12 years ago, long before I married. I am the woman who comes to myself on my wedding day. As in most dreams, the boundaries between the surreal and the possible are blurred, and here, it is not clear what the dream events are that led to the "wedding day."

I have often thought on this dream. On my mission, I had several experiences with elders where they unrighteously tried to control my missionary behaviors. I began to understand that it would be possible to have a marriage where a husband--my husband even--would try to control his wife--me!--using his priesthood as justification. And I was scared thinking of marriage--for how could I know for certain that any man would not become the dominator or resort to such behavior? Perhaps that had in part spurred the dream, which, best as I can recall, occurred shortly after my return from my mission.

I think that the dream also reflected my fear that to marry as a Mormon woman, I had to become something that I was not. That I would not be able to find someone who would accept me as I was and would have to resort to hiding certain aspects of myself in order to find a husband. However, I knew that no such mask would be permanent and I would be left desperate and unhappy. For such a marriage, I feared.

This first attempt to write a story of my life was inspired by my recent reading of Kate Chopin's The Awakening. Written in the late 1800's, it is prescient in its look at women, domestic life, and discontent.