Independent UK: Does marriage matter any more?

[marmar]

Does marriage matter any more?
Weddings are the talk of the nation this spring. But our sugar-coated fantasies shouldn't blind us to the fact that it's the vows that really count, argues Peter Stanford

Thursday, 31 March 2011


The romantic in me so wanted to believe Ed Miliband when, in announcing his marriage to his partner, Justine Thornton, he said in that slightly clumsy way that even otherwise uber-articulate men do, when talking about such things: "I feel incredibly privileged to be marrying someone so beautiful and who is such a special person." I could feel the "aargh" forming on my lips.

The British public's appetite for someone else's wedding appears undiminished, even if the numbers actually tying the knot have been in step decline to a record low in 2008. With Miliband's announcement, a cash-strapped nation can now look forward to not one but three high-profile big days: Prince William and Kate's on 29 April, Ed and Justine's on 27 May and Zara Phillips and Mike Tindall's on 30 July. But then the Labour leader slightly took the edge off it. "At the end of the day we're in our 40s and we've got two kids, so it wasn't a case of me suddenly popping the question," he added in his exclusive interview with his constituency paper, the Doncaster Free Press.

Suddenly, he was making it sound more like an exercise in tying up a few loose domestic ends. Which, of course, is a very modern view of what was once the sacrament of marriage.

Then, of course, there is the inevitable suspicion that the small family ceremony the couple is planning for environmental lawyer Thornton's hometown of Nottingham is simply a move to head off criticism from the Daily Mail, which likes to refer to Miliband as "the first leader of a major political party to live with his family out of wedlock". It doesn't quite use the phrase "living in sin" – or "over the brush", as my Auntie Rita still calls it – but the inference is still clear. You can't be prime minister material if you don't marry your partner. That equation of personal moral code and public action apparently still has a resonance in Middle England. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-sex/marriage/does-marriage-matter-any-more-2257678.html

[niyad]

1. well, it matters to the wedding planners, the dress designers, the florists, the bakers, the

caterers, the bartenders, the wedding halls, the ministers, the jewelers, photographers, musicians, etc.

as an institution of patriarchal ownership, I have no use for the activity myself, but have no problem with others' desire to enter into that particular state.

[Demeter]

2. Marriage Matters A Lot

So much so that today's Man-children really can't step up to the plate and fulfill those vows. This leaves a whole lot of women without reasonable alternatives for the formation of families equipped to raise children.