Seventy-two days. That's all it took for Kim Kardashian to file for divorce after her wedding.
While I am not about to comment on what led to her decision, this latest crash and burn is emblematic of the state and institution of marriage.
Forever is as short as 55 hours, as Britney Spears in 2004 would tell you.
Given the brevity of many marriages out there, I used to wonder why people bothered getting married.
Was it the superficial, romantic daydream of a white wedding fairy tale?
Or is it simply a true human desire that is within every man and woman: a human requirement for the transcendental beauty of nuptial love, a love that is faithful, unconditional and will not be withdrawn on a whim and can withstand the test of time.
How else would procreation and parenthood be viable seeing as children are pretty much the joint responsibility of parents spanning 18 years or more.
Pope John Paul II identifies the root of this high incidence of broken vows in modern times as a crisis of commitment wherein “frequently lies a corruption of the idea and the experience of freedom”.
First, we are spoilt for choice, and, by choice.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to have the freedom to choose, but when the will to freedom supersedes wisdom and good sense and speaks only of selfish, immature urgings, then the process of choosing becomes one that is predicated on the idea of happiness as being the ability to choose among many options.
Does freedom of choice truly lead to happiness? Perhaps, but it is only a very transient version of happiness that seems not even to last the honeymoon period. And surely we want more than that.
In the meanwhile, families are being torn apart and children are growing up in single parent homes only to perpetuate the lessons learnt at their parents’ knees, lessons of broken promises, infidelity and selfishness.
We have forgotten that we are able to synthesize happiness; that it is not found in material things or dream circumstances but in accepting the limitations of life and using these so-called constraints as a platform to happiness.
When we accept conditions such as race, gender or culture as part of our identity, these become a springboard toward self-actualization and fulfilment.
The same can be said for accepting the strengths and imperfections of the spouse you marry.
We would do well to mimic wild Canadian geese. David's Quammen writes in The Flight of The Iguana that these migratory birds “embody liberty, grace, and devotion, combining these three contradictory virtues with a seamless elegance” that humans often “only espouse”.
I would like to suggest that it is not just the geese but humans that have an “ecological mandate for fidelity”.
And that free will has somehow caused humanity to misplace its own human nature and adopt practices that are actually hostile and poisonous.
Geese can’t afford our frivolity for their survival depends on “a life of mutual reliance in permanent twosomes”, a commitment brought about by their “physiology and anatomy”.
Unfortunately for humans, the bid for survival and the perpetuation of the species is not so urgent or critical and also involves the luxury of love as an emotion and not purely just a decision.
Love is a glorious thing and should be at the heart of every marriage. However, it will be selfless commitment that carries a marriage through its rough patches and enables love to retain its vibrancy while growing in depth.
When love becomes a decision to be committed and faithful, happiness can be found at the end of the rainbow, which, incidentally, is symbolic of kept promises.
Quammen ends his essay on geese with a quote from Marguerite Duras that I would like to end with as well:
“Fidelity, enforced and unto death, is the price you pay for the kind of love you never want to give up, for someone you want to hold forever, tighter and tighter, whether he's close or far away, someone who becomes dearer to you the more you've sacrificed for his sake. This sacrificial relationship is precisely the one that exists in the Christian church between pain and absolution. It can survive outside the church, but it retains its ecclesiastical form. There can be no more violent, and beautiful, strategy than this for seizing time, for restoring eternity to life. ”
While I am not about to comment on what led to her decision, this latest crash and burn is emblematic of the state and institution of marriage.
Forever is as short as 55 hours, as Britney Spears in 2004 would tell you.
Given the brevity of many marriages out there, I used to wonder why people bothered getting married.
Was it the superficial, romantic daydream of a white wedding fairy tale?
Or is it simply a true human desire that is within every man and woman: a human requirement for the transcendental beauty of nuptial love, a love that is faithful, unconditional and will not be withdrawn on a whim and can withstand the test of time.
How else would procreation and parenthood be viable seeing as children are pretty much the joint responsibility of parents spanning 18 years or more.
Pope John Paul II identifies the root of this high incidence of broken vows in modern times as a crisis of commitment wherein “frequently lies a corruption of the idea and the experience of freedom”.
First, we are spoilt for choice, and, by choice.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to have the freedom to choose, but when the will to freedom supersedes wisdom and good sense and speaks only of selfish, immature urgings, then the process of choosing becomes one that is predicated on the idea of happiness as being the ability to choose among many options.
Commitment thus becomes an anathema to this misguided idea of freedom. We like what commitment brings to the table, the unconditional and faithful love, but we don’t want to play by its rule of reciprocity.
Does freedom of choice truly lead to happiness? Perhaps, but it is only a very transient version of happiness that seems not even to last the honeymoon period. And surely we want more than that.
In the meanwhile, families are being torn apart and children are growing up in single parent homes only to perpetuate the lessons learnt at their parents’ knees, lessons of broken promises, infidelity and selfishness.
We have forgotten that we are able to synthesize happiness; that it is not found in material things or dream circumstances but in accepting the limitations of life and using these so-called constraints as a platform to happiness.
When we accept conditions such as race, gender or culture as part of our identity, these become a springboard toward self-actualization and fulfilment.
The same can be said for accepting the strengths and imperfections of the spouse you marry.
We would do well to mimic wild Canadian geese. David's Quammen writes in The Flight of The Iguana that these migratory birds “embody liberty, grace, and devotion, combining these three contradictory virtues with a seamless elegance” that humans often “only espouse”.
I would like to suggest that it is not just the geese but humans that have an “ecological mandate for fidelity”.
And that free will has somehow caused humanity to misplace its own human nature and adopt practices that are actually hostile and poisonous.
Geese can’t afford our frivolity for their survival depends on “a life of mutual reliance in permanent twosomes”, a commitment brought about by their “physiology and anatomy”.
Unfortunately for humans, the bid for survival and the perpetuation of the species is not so urgent or critical and also involves the luxury of love as an emotion and not purely just a decision.
Love is a glorious thing and should be at the heart of every marriage. However, it will be selfless commitment that carries a marriage through its rough patches and enables love to retain its vibrancy while growing in depth.
When love becomes a decision to be committed and faithful, happiness can be found at the end of the rainbow, which, incidentally, is symbolic of kept promises.
Quammen ends his essay on geese with a quote from Marguerite Duras that I would like to end with as well:
“Fidelity, enforced and unto death, is the price you pay for the kind of love you never want to give up, for someone you want to hold forever, tighter and tighter, whether he's close or far away, someone who becomes dearer to you the more you've sacrificed for his sake. This sacrificial relationship is precisely the one that exists in the Christian church between pain and absolution. It can survive outside the church, but it retains its ecclesiastical form. There can be no more violent, and beautiful, strategy than this for seizing time, for restoring eternity to life. ”
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