Drayton is a Dartmouth ’17 who married his wife in a beautiful ceremony last year.

Lyam: Define marriage in your own words. 

Drayton: Marriage for me is the binding of two individuals together with the intent of dedication to one another or eternity. Specially for my wife and I, it was this idea of dedicating ourselves to each other in front of our friends and family and not just till death do us part, but we do believe in God and an afterlife and this is dedication forever.

Lyam: Friends and family are very important. But anything else to add in terms of religion. Did religion play a big part in your decision to get married? 

Drayton: I think so yes. I think that was a big part of it. I think thats how, in both of our families, what sort of a life bond looks like. Through a church sacrament in marriage and not just as a civil act, as like it wasn’t just for tax benefits. It was definitely a religious act.

Lyam: So where there, or are there, any gender roles in your marriage? And how were they decided? 

Drayton: I don’t think so, especially, when you think about traditional gender roles. In Western culture, the male is the main breadwinner and the female stays at home, maintains the home, provides reproduction. But that’s definitely not true in our marriage, specially now, when I’m the student and she’s the primary breadwinner. We both take care of the household, switching off based on who has more availability at the time. We don’t have set roles saying who does what, it all the depends on availability

Lyam: So, why do you think marriage exists? And is it natural?

Drayton: Well, being a scientist, i don’t think its necessarily natural. Monogamy in itself is not adherent most often in nature. I think it’s something that has evolved more through ritual and tradition around ideas of agricultural societies and providing for each other, maintaining a household to the better survival of both parties. but that’s something that has evolved into something that’s socially expected. In a lot of ways that people pair up and get married and reaching that milestones is a sign of success. In more ways that just economic viability but also there’s a drive to not be alone. That is something I feel is natural, not wanting to be alone.

Lyam: Can you talk more about how religion affected your marriage?

Drayton: Yes! My wife and I are both Catholic although her family is much more Catholic than mine. There is a push that if you’re going to live together then you will be getting married. Because in the eyes of God that is a sin. Also in the Catholic faith marriage is one of the sacred sacraments to participate in and part of living a full life in the church. It also means you will provide a family and raise children to be Catholic. I think that played a part, having family obligations and pressure on a religious standpoint, But also my wife and I felt that personally really take part and feel that there is intimacy in a marriage through the church. having a catholic mass with all the rituals really symbolized for us the joining of our families and our souls for all eternity.

Lyam: So why did you decide to get married?

Drayton: So it was more so an easy decision for us but it did take a lot of conversation and argument with our families. We both, from an early point, knew that we didn’t want to just date each other for fun but we saw an endgame to the relationship that we saw we could spend the rest of our lives with each other. We had the feeling that this was the person we could spend the rest of our lives with. But our families were questioning why so young, especially, given my career path. But to us we realized there would be a sensible path or time to get married in the next ten years so we decided we didn’t want to wait.

Lyam: Do you think your life at Dartmouth has been affected by marriage?

I don’t think so because i came to dartmouth engaged. so it was almost like we were already married because everyone expected we would. i was surprised that we weren’t questioned so often about why so soon this is so unusual. we were never really questioned about our decision to get married

Lyam: So you didn’t feel like you missed out on anything?

I don’t feel any regrets about anything I potentially missed out on. It’s also that my personality doesn’t aligned wit the things you would think I missed out on. I didn’t really like greek life. so to begin with I wasn’t really on campus because I lived away with my wife.

Lyam: So have you been pressured to have children?

Drayton: Not at all, quite the opposite. My family wants us to wait until we’re ready financially and my wife wants to experience life as a couple, travel, and live alone before we add kids in our life.