Marriage: A Dont do it Yourself Guide

I live in Orem Utah, it is huddled in between two universities and there is a lot of business catered towards students. I think the most common businesses in shopping malls are jewelry stores. People here have marriage fever. They go off to college with the idea of first finding a spouse and second getting a degree, if that does not interrupt with the first objective. Where I live anything can be a date, from going to a church activity to filing your tax return. The boys here just want to spend time with Utah’s gorgeous young women, even if it is just waiting in line at H&R Block. I imagine they would almost always be sure to mention to their lovely date that married couples get tax breaks and then they would look at them in the eye as if to say “I said that because I want you to imagine us married, I have done it since I was 14.” Good work men, last I checked women love seeing a man who has the tax brackets memorized. Of course at the church activity it’s even easier that the topic come up. They will talk about characteristics of a successful marriage and the dude will start listing off all of his attributes that he will bring to marriage. Hoping that somehow, be it with luck or divine help, he will recite verbatim from the list of attributes desired in a spouse these women made when they were fourteen years old in the third hour of church.  Another thing that is classic Utah is a magazine published by the church called the Ensign. Every once in a while I find an article that talks about how some thirty year old guy has been trying to get married for ten years and is unable to. Tip: lose the sultry pickup lines and say something substantive.  Or a woman that tells of how she contributed to society even though she wasn’t married. (Your efforts in the neighborhood association aren’t wasted, the Halloween parade is super important for society) So I get a little confused when I see marriages down.  With so much buzz and so many people wanting to get married, and on the other hand the social normality of marriage dropping I would say we are in a wedding crisis. Well, I would never write something on my blog that would only point to a problem and not a solution. Remember the fact that I am better than congress and so doing that would be unthinkable so here is my solution.

Meet Jarab and Vanasai, ok I don’t know if those are their real names but they look like a happy couple right. I mean Jarab, the dude, has a creepy smile on his face as if to say “I can’t wait to unwrap your 47 layers of clothes” and Vanasai loves her husband so much that she put some jewelry on, I imagine the chain from her ear to her nose makes this middle aged man of the orient go wild! Well I bet you would be surprised to know that this prime couple did not decide to get married, their family members arranged it for them. What a brilliant solution. We could get rid of the dating scene. No more awkward devotionals or weird comments at H&R block. No more of the sad doorstep scenes where the girl is hoping the guy will kiss him but he did not get the hint when the girl said “you’re a really good guy and I would love to date you more” and no more date rape. I must say this family is super kind, I would never be mad to come home and my family had found someone to marry me, I would thank them forever.

Arranged marriage is a great idea because divorce practically disappears. We are currently seeing about a 45 percent divorce rate. In arranged marriages that percentage is ten times less. Sure, the cultures are different and in these countries divorce is worse than a double homicide but at the end you can’t argue with statistics.

So with this idea all the people who want to get married can, and even the ones who don’t want to would be obligated to so that they could bring their family honor and let’s not forget the small fortune that  might be a key influencer, and by a key influencer I mean the deciding factor.

You see kids it’s not that hard to solve problems when you ignore the cliché nonsense of today, like love being an important factor in deciding who to marry. Your parents know you best and they can pick a wonderful partner for you. Sure he may be abusive, hairy, and creepy but in the end it made your family rich and helped decrease the divorce rate. That’s change you can believe in.

Yours untruly, cause I am my own

Benjamin Williams