The Wind Is Turning...

I had a really interesting conversation with one of the girls from my french rugby team last night. She was driving me to the tram and somehow we got to talking about the fact that her partner wanted them to start trying for a baby.

I was kind of shocked at this at first to tell the truth. Not because of the whole baby thing, but more that her boyfriend was the one initiating the whole baby question. I guess part of me just kind of assumed that if the baby wasn't already just a product of a relationship, that it was really the woman/wife/girlfriend's little internal clock that started screaming for a baby. It was so funny too, because she exasperatedly listed off all the reasons why he was the perfect partner ("Il fait la vaisselle, il cuit, il m'offre des petits cadeaux...") and you knew the one black mark against him was that he wanted to have a child with her. The nerve of some men these days...
(photo from http://www.theblogisfound.com/index.cfm?StartRow=61 )

Obviously the next question on my lips was, "Well, are you going to marry him then?". Usually this question is received with one of two reactions;

• a) they get really embarassed and say they-don't-know-because-My-God-they're-too-young-to-be-thinking-of-that!
  
• or b) they get really embarassed and say yes and gush about them.

To my astonishment she just waved the question aside
I'm not for marrying, and neither is he, she says.
I'm just desperately trying to fit this new idea in old fashioned box:
Love = marriage. No marriage = no love.
And then it came to me, "Vous allez vous PACSez* alors?" ("You're going to PACS yourselves then?"). And she was so casual about it, like yeahhh when I get a better job...

It was just.... such a new idea. Normally you hear of older couples or divorcees who have common law marriages because marriage has kind of lost its flair for them, but not young women (pass up the dress and flowers and getting your nails done? Not many young women would turn that down...). It was cool though, to get that kind of idea from a girl my age (well, she's 27, but I thought she was my age at first). I'm pretty sure one of my french teachers is PACSed too, and she has an 18 month old with her partner. It seems like a bit of a growing phenomenon in France, which I love because I always kind of figured France as a bit of an old fashioned, quasi-sexist country (no offense) - and its here that women are breaking away from an old fashioned institution with a history of oppression like marriage. (I'm kind of kidding here but not at the same time. In French you'd say I was saying something in tone that was "ironique").
Considering I just took a whole course on the sociological change of the roles of women in the family setting and the further changes that ensued in the education system, this was kind of cool to hear about. Applying the knowledge to real life, kind of.

Anyway, that's why I'm here I guess, to broaden my mind.

*PACS = Pacte civile de solidarité, basically an improved version of our "common law" marriage back home. Couples who've gotten PACSed share better financial and material rights than if they just stayed an unofficial couple. I think their children also get some degree of legitimacy from the government, though apparently things are still a bit lacking in that department...