ECKLEBURG
2005-01-06 - 10:08 a.m.
This Sunday is Grumblecake and my 5th Wedding Anniversary. This is a particularly interesting anniversary because of my brilliant marriage idea, which I will explain now.
I propose that marriage cease being “till death due us part” and become a five-year renewable contract. At the same time, I would ban all types of divorce and annulment. I believe this can save the Institution of Marriage.
Let’s face it, with divorce rates in the US approaching 50%, we live in an society where marriage is not viewed as a necessarily permanent institution. And often, Divorces occur very early in a relationship – I’ve seen statistics that say that divorce is most prevalent after only 2 years.
I think that a good deal of the prevalence of early divorce is caused by two things:
1. Some people rely on the knowledge that if things don’t work out, they can get a divorce at any time as a justification to rush into an institution they aren’t 100% sure they want or are ready for.
2. That whole “till you’re dead” thing is a really long time. If there are problems, people think about dealing with the inevitable annoyances of living with another person not only in the short-term, but amplified over your entire life. Your loved one’s proclivity of farting in bed 5 times per night, or their need to wear like 8 different pairs of underwear every single day – you think about how your going to wake up to that “special aroma” 5 x 7 x 52 x 60 = 109200 times in your life, or have to wash like 8 x 7 x 52 x 60 = 174720 pairs of underwear that will need to be washed. The multiplication factor on how often you will have to deal with the annoyance is just too big when you multiply it by all those years that you expect to live.
So what better way to solve both these problems then to simply limit marriage to 5 year periods. If you knew you were committing to 5 years of “for better or worse” without exception, I think lots of people would hold off until they were that much more sure. Would Britney Spears and high school friend Jason Allen Alexander, have gotten married at all rather than for only 2 days; or Dennis Rodman and Carmen Electra, 9 days; or Gregg Allman and Cher, 9 days; or Jeremy Thomas and Drew Barrymore, 29 days; or Ethel Merman and Ernest Borgnine, 38 days; or Janet Jackson and James DeBarge, 4 months?
Under my proposal, if your dead-beat, loser husband/wife cheats on you, too bad, you were dumb enough to commit for 5 years to someone you weren’t 100% sure wasn’t a dead-beat, loser husband/wife.
Now on the other side, if you’ve just found out that you spouse left the spray-butter on the counter overnight again, and you are wondering just how many times you are going to have to put the spray-butter back in the fridge over the next 30 years, you can stop and relax, and breathe easy knowing that if you can’t take spray-butter putting-away at the end of five years, you don’t have to. You don’t have to panic and get out now before it’s too late. And I think anybody can live through a mere 5 years of butter returning.
And did I mention that you get to have awesome parties with gifts and everything every 5 years, instead of once-in-a-lifetime? I think the catering and wedding-dress industry should be solidly behind my plans.
So there you have it, the Eckleburg way to save marriage.
