Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 3:18 am
QUOTE(raum)but if then there is no repercussion for divorce, then what power is there in marriage, especially as a life-long commitment?
I'd like to know the answer to that one as well.
As far as I can tell, marriage is only what you make it. My mom has made it a career- the more husbands, the more alimony, the less work she has to do. For my best friend's parents, who've been together since high school, it's a bond of friendship and commitment. Personally, I see it as an eternal understanding of each other, and a promise of unconditional love in old age.
Whichever way you take it, though, society has grossly underrated the sanctity of marriage. I can't recall the last time I saw an article in the paper about a couple who lived together and died together for sixty-seven years; yet I do remember Britney Spears' twenty-some hour marriage in Vegas, and how the press was littered with talk of Brad and Jen, Nick and Jessica, and Renee and Kenny splitting. As far as I can tell, the last time the media presented marriage as sacred was when it was used against Clinton by his opponents as a "holier than thou" argument. Regardless, it can't be more than a few hundred years before the concept of lasting and meaningful matrimony is nothing but a passage in history books.
I'd like to know the answer to that one as well.
As far as I can tell, marriage is only what you make it. My mom has made it a career- the more husbands, the more alimony, the less work she has to do. For my best friend's parents, who've been together since high school, it's a bond of friendship and commitment. Personally, I see it as an eternal understanding of each other, and a promise of unconditional love in old age.
Whichever way you take it, though, society has grossly underrated the sanctity of marriage. I can't recall the last time I saw an article in the paper about a couple who lived together and died together for sixty-seven years; yet I do remember Britney Spears' twenty-some hour marriage in Vegas, and how the press was littered with talk of Brad and Jen, Nick and Jessica, and Renee and Kenny splitting. As far as I can tell, the last time the media presented marriage as sacred was when it was used against Clinton by his opponents as a "holier than thou" argument. Regardless, it can't be more than a few hundred years before the concept of lasting and meaningful matrimony is nothing but a passage in history books.