64 | January 2013 www.womanthismonth.com With all the updates and downloads, new versions of old programmes and the latest technology everywhere, I am a little shocked that despite our modern ways and our drive to modernise everything, the age old practice of marriage has not changed. Today, just like centuries ago, partners walk down the aisle in front of witnesses to WoMentality By Hard-headed Woman Thanks to technology, we have updated everything over the past few decades. Yet, marriage which continues to fail at an alarming rate has never had an update. Are we failing thanks to a bad copy of a flawed design? profess their love and commitment to one another. Nevertheless, I read an article recently about the staggering growth of divorces and separations in Europe. Ten years ago the rate was 200 per 1,000 marriages, now the rate with separations and divorces together is closer to 600 per 1,000 within the first ten years of marriage. Why then do we bother? Why do we waste the money? Why do we promise “through sickness and health, through richer or poorer, for better or worse”, when few of us believe them and fewer will honour the words? Is it an ego-driven addiction that we must have pomp and circumstance surrounding our love to show off to our friends the wealth we have and the happiness we dream of? Or is it just a silly addiction like smoking? Facts prove that it’s going to harm us, but we do it anyway. To avoid disorder in society; we must have order, laws and rules; or we would all do as we pleased and seven billion people on earth would just go rampant. However, following a system which is proven to be flawed would seem to me a superfluous act, and as a single woman, a waste of money to an extent and a contrarian act at that. We just aren’t the people we were decades, centuries and millennia ago. Weddings were a great idea when life expectancy was 30. The majority of us don’t believe in the things our parents did. We don’t have the same values. We seek personal freedom and happiness over “doing what’s best for the kids”. None of us really cares for what society thinks, if we are married or divorced. Most of our friends are separated. So who’s to judge? It is a sad reflection of where we are going as people. We want the fairy tale so badly that we follow our heart over what our brain screams at us. We walk down the pretty little aisle, invite all our friends to impress them, speak the same old words of centuries ago, sign away our lives on an irrelevant piece of paper called a marriage license, throw the rice and open gifts like this fairy tale will last forever. Perhaps, what we forget is that these fables end with six final words — and they lived happily ever after. We never truly get to see if they did or not, or for how long forever was. Even the final few words of the story are enchanted after all. We say we “believe” in weddings and “marriage”. All the same, do many of us understand what the white dress refers to and how many of us are as pure as it signifies? A friend of mine is a chef. His business was once busy with just birthday cakes and wedding cakes. Today his range has extended to divorce, separation and annulment cakes. He’s happy with the state of current life. Our misery makes him busier. As a single girl still hoping that the fairy tale exists, I am sadly beginning to feel that it does not. What I am beginning to believe is that someone needs to write a new programme and download it. Marriage 2.0 would be a best seller and hopefully provide some answers for the generation ahead. Otherwise, I fear marriage will simply become a thing of the past, a side-show attraction one can only find in Las Vegas. Perhaps, that’s exactly where it belongs — in a town built on dreams. Dear Marriage 2.0
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