Weddings do not make a Marriage

Weddings do not make a Marriage
Kim Kardashian is getting a divorce. After just 72 days of marriage that began with a wedding estimated to have cost $10 million, Kardashian is divorcing Kris Humphries, citing "irreconcilable differences." How exactly one can determine that differences are irreconcilable after only 72 days, is beyond me. Either something truly awful was revealed on the honeymoon or Kim Kardashian really is as superficial and vapid as she appears on T.V.

I regularly hear, "Marriage is a sacred union." By a casual look at the news, i find it difficult to reconcile "sacred union" with a spectacle costing millions and with the resulting marriage only lasting 72 days. If actions speak louder than words, and there is not more to this story than presently known by the public, then Kim Kardashian's marriage was not sacred. Marriage is not, in and of itself, holy. Some alliances can be unholy, even an alliance going by the name "marriage."

If marriage is holy, Indiana woman Linda Wolfe, who married (and divorced) 23 times, should probably be beatified. No one does holy that many times! St. Francis couldn't compete.

Britney Spears married Jason Allen Alexander. That marriage lasted 55 hours, and her record label later released a statement claiming that the whole thing had been "a joke." If a wedding can be a joke, then it is not necessarily sacred. If marriage can be a joke, then marriage is not, by definition, holy.

A married couple may feel that they've been blessed to find one another, they may experience their wedding as a spiritual event, and they may even understand their marriage as a sacred institution. But marriage, in and of itself, has never been sacred. All marriages are not Holy Matrimony.

Marriage is a tax shelter and a smart way for a couple to combine assets. It is certainly a civil institution. In Kardashian’s case, it appears to be a good way to make a quick $8 million. The wedding was said to have cost $10 million, but grossed $18 million in sponsorships. In Kardashian's case, it also appears to have been a good photo-op.

Marriage as an institution, in and of itself, is not sacred. Love is what makes marriage holy. But, not any ole kind of love. Romantic love is fleeting. Lust is even more fickle. Steadfast love, committed love, is what makes a matrimony holy. The promises one typically makes at a wedding are meant to ensure that the love in question is not merely of the romantic or erotic variety. Many take the vows of marriage, however, not as the most sacred promise they are likely ever to make, but as audible window dressing for the photo shoot.