By MACKENZIE ISSLER
Recorder Staff
MONTAGUE -- In the home they built together, Oliver Williams asked his girlfriend of five-and-half years, Christina Chubb, to marry him.
Williams said once the couple got through building a house together, he knew that he was ready to make the commitment of marriage.
"We built a home together, not just a house," he says.
"I just gave her the ring right here," he said, as the couple sat in their kitchen recently.
Chubb said she had no idea the engagement was coming. In fact, she said they had recently gone to a wedding and that Williams was acting "so weird and so standoffish." She thought he was acting that way because he was "terrified of the idea of marriage."
"It turns out that he had bought the ring that morning," she said with a grin.
The two met through friends and went on their first date, which was a double date, after he called her two days later. "I kind of thought something was there a little spark," he said.
Both described their first date, which was spent on the Connecticut River on a warm summer day in 2005, as a success. For the next month, the two saw each other once or twice each week, and often Chubb would come to visit at the dairy farm where Williams worked.
The couple was apart for a bit, after they broke up briefly, but they got back together and started planning the house they wanted to build in Montague. They moved about a year ago into the two-story cream-colored house, and Chubb brought her two horses, her dogs and some recently added chickens to their homestead.
On May 25, 2010, her birthday, Williams proposed. The wedding is planned in Conway on Aug. 13.
Williams, 30, works at Patterson Farm in Sunderland. Chubb, 24, works at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
They both agreed one of the top reasons they are getting married is to start a family. Both feel that marriage is a prerequisite to parenthood.
Chubb said another reason she wants to marry Williams is "to show the world we are committed."
They are embarking on the road to marriage during a time when fewer and fewer Americans are saying their "I do's."
Both say they don't believe that marriage is becoming obsolete, but they think it is being taken less seriously than in previous years.
They also attributed the decrease in getting married to today's high divorce rate.
"(Divorce) is just no big deal now," said Williams.
Chubb also cites the dwindling of the importance of religion as another reason why fewer people are being married and more are getting divorced. She said more people used to believe having sex before marriage and getting divorced were sins.
Both agree that cohabitation before engagement is a must. Chubb said she doesn't think that she would have been able to get engaged if they hadn't lived together.
She feels it is a way to really get to know someone and learn all the little quirks that he or she has, which may not be visible when living apart.
Chubb feels that her relationship with Williams would survive without marriage, but that it is an experience that she wants in her life. "I want to be married," she said.
Williams says he was brought up to believe that when you fall in love with someone, you make the commitment of marriage, so he wouldn't be "OK" with just being in a life-long partnership with Chubb.
Chubb said this was modeled for Williams in his family -- his parents and grandparents never divorced.
Chubb's parents, on the other hand, divorced when she was 18.
"After seeing what my parents went through, I feel more determined to make it work," she said. "I wouldn't do this if I had hesitations & I have seen things fall to pieces.
Chubb said she feels the advantages to marriage will be:
* having someone to share the rest of her life with,
* having and enjoying a family together,
* having someone she can always count on no matter what & to be a best friend.
Some of the disadvantages that she anticipates are:
* having someone else to clean up after,
* the cost of the wedding,
* having to make every decision together, and
* not having as much freedom.
Williams had one advantage to married life that he is looking forward to is being able to call Chubb his wife. The only disadvantage he could think of was the cost of the wedding.
Asked to evaluate the reasons they got married, married respondents in the Pew survey placed the greatest value on love, followed by making a lifelong commitment, companionship, having children and, at the bottom of the list, financial stability. Unmarried adults ordered the reasons the same way when asked to evaluate why they would consider getting married.
Chubb's top reason, she says, was making a lifelong commitment, followed by love, companionship, having children and financial stability.
Williams put love on the top of his list, then making a lifelong commitment, companionship, having children and financial stability.
Most Americans now embrace the ideal of gender equality between spouses. But, the Pew report highlights the notion that men, far more than women, need to be good providers in order to be good marriage prospects.
Chubb says financial stability is the least important reason to get married, but that she wants a husband who will pull his own weight, just like she will.
"I have seen, growing up, arguments about money and I never want that to be an issue," she said.
Williams said, when they first met, he found that Chubb didn't have any debt, which was a "big positive." It showed him that she is responsible with money.
What they are looking forward to the most on their wedding day, where their dogs will be the ring bearers, is "having an excellent time with everyone invited, especially my future wife," said Williams.
Chubb added, "Being with family and friends on the biggest day of my life."
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