Dear Readers,

First of all I want to thank those of you who took the time to submit responses to my little survey about matrimony. I do apologize to those of you who sent responses to my AOL account - the vagaries of modern finance have left me temporarily incommunicado via AOL. To be sure, you may communicate with me via the Minx…she knows my double top secret e-mail address (which I reveal to almost no one) and can forward correspondence to me.

Ah, now to the good stuff - the survey results.

First, I must give you a bit of a demographic profile of those who responded. I received seven responses to the survey. Six were from women. Since I didn't ask about age, I am not sure how old the respondents were-only the male respondent offered his age (34). Only one was from a married person-in fact, out of all those surveyed only one had indicated that she/he had ever been married, and that was the currently married person. Two respondents had children; the rest were childless (or child-free, depends on how you want to look at it.) I don't know the ethnic composition of the respondents and frankly I don't care. Six out of the seven respondents are denizens of AOL.

Most of the respondents said that they were single and liked it that way. And as I suspected, these people claimed that "freedom," in one way or another, was the reason they had stayed single. They wanted to remain unencumbered and free to live their lives in the way they chose. The male respondent, however, said that he was still searching for the woman with whom he wanted to share his life, and that if he could choose, he would marry-he would be happier as a married person than in his current single state. The married person who responded told a rather sad tale of entrapment within her marriage, and feeling as if she were living with a brother rather than a lover. While this person has been married for a number of years and didn't plan on divorce, she said that she was unhappy with her current arrangement and would not choose to do it again if she could.

All of this is as I thought it would be, really. In using these responses to answer my original questions about marriage, I find marriage indicted by this group as a static, growth-deadening institution rather than an organic one where the people involved grow together and build a future. This is disheartening to me as I contemplate my own future course.

I must tell you that I took my own informal poll (how a poll could get less formal than the one I put before you last month I am not sure) of married people I know. I simply asked them the same questions that you found in the survey. (they didn't know I was asking…I merely popped the questions into whatever conversations happened to be going on at the time.) What I came up with was this: the happiest couples I know have a common shared goal or goals that cleave them together and keep them going. For one couple it's the coming of a child; for another it's a home-based business which is slowly making them wealthy. For a third, it's a shared contentment and commitment to raising a child. And of course there's that couple, mentioned in last month's column, who just seem to belong together. However, even they have a secret: the wife told me that "we hardly ever see each other, so when we do it's fresh and new."

So I suppose I have the answer to my question, and it's clear that marriage can't live on love alone. Basically we're all sold the premise that romantic love is the key to life and marriage is its zenith. Now what I would say to that is that it's easier to create a society where people settle down, behave, and obey rules when the cultural mandate is to pair off, buy houses, and become steady taxpaying citizens. Step outside those lines and life is a bit harder; if you're a single or divorced female with no children, you know exactly what I am talking about. Even if you're married with no kids, the pressure is on to produce; millions of dollars are spent yearly to improve and ensure fertility, and to pursue the few "desirable" children that are placed for adoption. (Don't get me started about the thousands of kids who go unadopted…those whose race, physical condition, or behavioral problems make them too "risky" to adopt.)

So should I marry again? I wonder. I suppose I still am in love with the fanciful romantic ideal, despite the facts presented here. I suppose I will be swept away with joy and romantic fervor when the question is popped to me and the ring produced. However, I will enter this potential union with a lot of questions…and really, everything boils down to this…do I love this man enough to take the risk of committing my life and resources to him? And more portentiosly…do I want to settle down, to become what society wants me to become?

Can't answer that yet. But thanks for helping me to look at this.

Have a festive month!