There was a piece in the NY Times over a week ago that is still bouncing around in my brain. Written by Ann Carrns and titled “Refunds for Wedding Gifts After the Couple Splits Up” (April 7, 2012) it was about a new service for people who fear being burned by spending money on a wedding present only to see the marriage fall apart. At WeddingGiftRefund.com you can insure your gift at a cost of 8% of its value. If the couple splits up within 36 months, you can get your purchase price back. So if you spend $100 on a gift, you’d be out only $8. (Read the whole article here).
The article explains that to claim your money you supply the company with the city, county and state of the divorce filing so that the dissolution can be verified. I marveled at that, imagining the phone call you’d have to make; “uh, hi Tom, sorry to hear about the divorce. You mind telling me what court you were in?”
Not exactly the kind of call I’d like to receive. Or make.
More amazingly though was this comment, from one Susan Orlins of Washington:
I love the originality of this idea . . . I had my own starter marriage at the age of 19, divorced at 20 while still in college. Then I had my middle marriage which lasted 18 years, until 1997.
“Starter marriage”? “Middle marriage”? WTF?
I’m once again thunderstruck by an apparent heterosexual talking about marriage as casually as if she were shopping for living room furniture. “Well, we started with some hand-me-downs from Goodwill and then spent years with a set from Ikea before settling on our permanent collection.”
And we, gay and lesbian lovers, husbands and wives, are a threat to marriage?! As I’ve said before, heterosexuals don’t need us to destroy the “sanctity of marriage.” They’ve been doing a fine job of it for years.
With the divorce rate amongst heterosexuals falling only because many people are no longer bothering to get married in the first place, you would think someone who thought marriage was a good idea for society would welcome people who want to make a commitment to the institution and who, knowing the difficulties they would face probably have a better chance of making it than the rest of us 'breeders'.
ReplyDeleteSorry for the long sentence but that's how it came out of my head. :)
I think this is appalling. "starter marriage", 'middle marriage; they sound so flimsy, don't they. To paraphrase the Bible, 'if you build on sand'...