What’s up with the weird weddings?
Photo of underwater wedding.
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Could it be marriage has lost much of its traditional meaning and people are trying to somehow make up for the loss.
Photo of bungee jumping bride and groom.
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Could it be that couples sense marriage has been reduced to a lesser lifestyle and they are reacting to the prospect of entering into minority status?
Bride and groom with wedding participants being raised for the jump.
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Could it be people are unconsciously trying to infuse marriage with some kind of significance by sealing the relationship in an unconventional manner?
The plunge after the “plunge.”
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Could it be people are confusing “meaningful” with “memorable” and are choosing sensation over significance.
Skydiving bride and groom …
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Could it be people are responding to the loss of significance marriage has experienced in a culture that is increasingly indifferent or even hostile to it?
Zombie bride and groom …
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Whatever the motive, tactics that further privatize and personalize marriage are actually part of a larger dynamic operating to undermine the institution.
A key question is “who owns marriage?”
If it’s a private thing open to individual interpretation, then the “weird wedding” phenomenon is just one aspect of a broader impulse that likes to make public that which ought to remain private.
But more importantly, if marriage is a private thing, then a whole “tradition” of rights intrudes, turning marriage ceremonies into platforms for making political statements over against communities that would deny those “rights.”
Reese and Bianca wed on ABC’s “All My Children, Feb 2009
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But if marriage is public thing involving common expectations and understandings, then couples are expected to conform to those expectations and understandings and not vice versa.
Truth is marriage vows are most “memorable,” not when couples write their own and even punctuate them with oddities, but when they are the same as those exchanged between others across an entire community. Common vows indicate common understandings that impart strength, endurance, and objective significance– and those are good things.
Such promises don’t need stunts to stand out. Rather they can never be forgotten because every new union is always a remembrance, always a reflection on “their” vows.
–Bill Brewer
Tags: barak obama, christianity, gay marriage, god as father, harry reid, maturity, nancy pelosi, pelosi, reid, same-sex marriage, uncle sam, vaughn walker
