Wedding Bells Are Ringing

It seems like everyone is getting engaged and married this year. And by everyone I mean mostly people I'm friends with on Facebook. My news feed has been overwhelmed with engagement and wedding photos of peers. They make the announcements and ask for advice on dresses and venues. And all I can think is, why?

We are so young. In the news and all the polls it shows that our generation is waiting longer to marry so they can focus on a career. Yet every week I'm seeing another person tying the knot. Some are even younger than I am.

I would like to set the record straight that I am not against marriage as a whole, I just think the current way of doing it is foolish. The institution of marriage how it stands now is a life-long contract. Not a commitment or a promise like the ceremony wants you to think, it is a legally binding contract. And just like any contract you want to get out of, it costs a lot of money and needs to be negotiated.

Think of any other contract you would ever agree to. A lease on a house, a loan, a cell phone plan. How long do they last? A year, 2 years, or until you pay it off. Not forever. Things change. We change. Would you ever sign a lease on a house for the rest of your life with no option to renegotiate and an absurd cost to break it? And I do not mean buying a house. That is different. You have free reign to change the house and re-sell if you buy. A lease does not give you that option.

I could never in good faith sign a contract that would last forever because I have no idea how anything will be down the road. People change just as much as circumstances and that isn't conducive to being legally bound to someone for the rest of your life.

Some people claim that my point of view on marriage is cynical, that I have no sense of romance and don't understand love. Some also claim that it is a religious sacrament and that I should respect that. I beg to differ. My point of view is realistic. People grow out of love just as often as they fall into it. I think the institution of marriage needs to be modernized just like everything else. Pre-nuptial agreements have become normal in society, why can't we make them a standard?

I have thought a lot about marriage lately because of so many statuses on my news feed that relate to them. I think if I ever do decide to marry, there will need to be a pre-nuptual agreement that stipulates a complete re-negotiation of terms after 5 years, including but not limited to dissolution of marriage. It is nice to think that you will always love the same person, but it's not realistic anymore. It was easy when we only lived to be 35 but now our life spans have doubled. I don't disrespect the sanctity of marriage at all, I just think it needs to adapt to the world we live in.

Congrats to all those getting married and engaged, I hope you stay in love.