Marriage...and Other Stuff

It’s May. The inevitable season for weddings is upon us, and I’ve been swallowed whole like Jon Voight in Anaconda when he was gobbled up by that giant snake and then spit him out later in front of J-Lo covered in intestinal fluid and saliva. I actually really like that scene.

I can’t stand weddings. Not because I have to mingle with people I haven’t seen for several years who spend 5 of the 10 minutes you speak with them about how much weight you lost, who you’re seeing, and when you’re getting married. No, that’s not why I can’t stand them, well, I mean mostly.

My friends know better than to talk about wedding bullshit with me, but they’re all believers of the perfect union between two people spending the rest of their lives in holy matrimony with a pair of kids in tow.

The sacredness surrounding marriage, or “sanctity” if you will, is forced to say the least. I guess I should start from the beginning. Assumptions around ancient man indicate there was no such thing as marriage. In fact, men vied for several females, and females chose males based on resources and genetic viability. Evolutionary, women would cuckold their mate if a more suitable mate happened to swing by.

Fine. So why does marriage even exist. Who knows? I blame Plato (as I do with everything that has to do with sexual taboo). As I previously mentioned, marriage involves lifelong union and presumably offspring. A law binding two people together so there is never any parental uncertainty. Crap.

If you think marriage is the next step in this thing we call life, that’s up to you. But the truth is, as soon as we hit puberty, we were supposed to begin pro creating, but that’s frowned upon. In fact, we’ve made it a business to publicize this “freak show” of “underage” pregnancies (See: Teen Mom, etc).

I’m not sure where I was going with this. I started out this piece wanting to discuss why people got married. Instead, I’m talking about evolution and bad TV shows. I think what I want to say without going into too much science crap is that marriage is unnatural. I’ve expressed my distaste in monogamy, so I won’t go into a tirade against it, but we were built to perpetuate our genes for purposes of superiority. It just doesn’t make sense to settle with one person when at any given moment a more genetically viable mate could pass by. And I’m not condoning cheating mostly because I’m not condoning exclusivity.

That’s not to say I don’t support my friends who are getting married. Let the record show that I am serving as a bridesmaid for one of my very dear friends. I just think that if she wants to cheat on her husband, I won’t only cover for her; I’ll pay for the hotel room and Trojans.

(Note: I want to dedicate this post to Nikki who is getting married in two weeks and I really couldn't be more happy for her.)