I have many Eureka moments, from solving an elusive problem in my sleep to figuring out where I kept the car keys during my bath. This time, I was staring mindlessly at the newspaper (read : Woods Gate – current count at 9 mistresses for anyone keeping track) for 2 hours when it all struck me, marriage is probably one of the most futile of all the institutions devised by man.
So as is with any problem, the diagnosis starts with the origin. Now dumasses that cavemen (yes, MEN) were, they decided to put into effect a system called marriage, wherein they thought that they were saving the hides(quite literally) of themselves and their future sons. They said that within marriage, a cavechick couldn’t let it loose with other suitors and hence reduce the competition. Reduce competition my ass! What’s the purpose of reducing competition if it brings in so much complacency that the guy barfed all the time and the chick, well, put on some holiday weight :) But look at how it ended, the men had to club their women and drag ‘em by their hair into their caves!
Since Google will ever give numbers only for the US, a little bit of research told me that their marriage industry is worth 45 billion dollars annually, with an additional 10 billion dollars to be gained from legalizing LSBT marriages and divorce industry around 25 billion dollars. This comes out to around around 100 billion dollars that the citizens of USA spend on just marrying and taking care of the ramifications. An additional 45 billion dollars worth of pre nup is transacted due to marriages and with Tiger going the way he is, all this may well multiply manifold. Would I be wrong in saying that ATLEAST a trillion dollars is spent on marriages world wide, and India is just a 54 billion dollar economy.
I am not against marriage per se. I find it nice that people can celebrate their love by legally binding themselves to each other till death does the part but when society declares this to be an obligation on us, that’s when my problem arises. It is when people use marriage as a security against affairs or a redundancy for an accident that ticks me off. What is the purpose of making the men deaf and women naggers when the same man and woman wooed and courted each other so very gracefully just one wedding ring earlier?
Also, what is up with the English Language. Why would you call it ‘wedding’, ’marriage’, ‘matrimony’. I mean how cumbersome is it to use them. It may well be social acclimatization but methinks calling marriage a fling might work better. Replace the word husband by boyfriend and wife by girlfriend. That should bring a little freshness into the entire thing. Isn’t “Tom and Nancy a happily flinged couple” a lot cooler that them being “happily wedded”. A lil sense of humour goes a long way in easing the trouble of marriage.
Da Vinci said, “Marriage is like putting your hand into a bag of snakes in the hope of pulling out an eel.”
PS – The author is not responsible for your partner refusing to marry you after reading this awesome post.