Mawwiage

While cleaning up my college email to collect important information - and also to relive my glory days as editor-in-chief of my school newspaper, where I totally ruled the roost - I found an article I wrote about Kim Kardashian's 72-day marriage. I thought it was funny and I also thought that I didn't want to write anything original today, so I'm going to copy and paste it and go about my day. (The headline I wrote, in my opinion, is brilliant.)

BEGIN ARTICLE

Can we divorce modern marriage already? (Ed. Note: I am so clever.)

Just a week before Kim Kardashian's lavish $6 million wedding to basketball player Kris Humphries, Joel McHale joked on E!'s comedy clip show The Soup that the marriage would last only 75 days. McHale's bet was off - by three days. 

Kim's 72-day marriage isn't the first celebrity coupling to die fairly quickly after saying "I do." Britney Spears married Jason Alexander (her childhood friend, not the actor from Seinfeld, which makes this story all the more depressing) and Eva Longoria of Desperate Housewives fame divorced her athlete husband Tony Parker after nearly three years of marriage. Even couples that I strongly thought would make it, namely Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, eventually called it quits. 

I wish I could say that this concept of an impermanent marriage is confined only to Hollywood, because then I could at least blame it on the fact that celebrities are under constant scrutiny by tabloids and fans alike or even the fact that their excessive living accelerates their lives exponentially. But the sad fact is that I do not know many couples that have lasted a long time after getting married. Many of my family members have a record that rivals that of Elizabeth Taylor, and those that have not married seem too jaded to attempt it. 

Not pictured: Kardashian's dignity

If this phenomenon isn't confined to celebrities, does that mean that this nonchalant attitude toward marriage has been bred in Americans? It can't be a coincidence that while divorce rates steadily rise, discontentment with the United States economy and political system only increases. Perhaps the increased cost of living (both financially and psychologically) had led to Americans becoming less and less dependent on each other, something that does not seem properly facilitate a marriage.

Kim Kardashian has been mercilessly accused of spending an over-the-top amount of money on her wedding, which she did. In the wake of the Occupy Wall Street movement, her excessive spending does seem offensive to working class Americans. But I don't think that Kardashian's heavy spending, or even the fact that she didn't know her soon-to-be-ex-husband Kris Humphries even a year before marrying him, attributes to her divorce. Kim's divorce brings up a very serious issue in America - the desensitization of Americans to divorce and the seriousness of marriage - and it is an issue that relates to every American living today.

END ARTICLE

I don't like the way I ended that article, and I half-considered editing the ending to be more dynamic. But I am lazy. More than that, I think the way I ended the article in 2012 reflects how I viewed marriage in 2012. I didn't believe I'd find someone I could spend my life with. I didn't believe anyone would want that kind of long-term future with me. Holding these opinions, I couldn't bring myself to admit how cynical I was and chose to leave the article open-ended. Two years later, I have changed completely and I think it's important to point out that change.

Because now, I know I'm going to get it right when it happens.