MAKE MARRIAGE LAME AGAIN 2
Further notes on the cuntification of marriage
I am currently staring at my screen with the distinct expression of someone who has just swallowed a wasp. A video pops up on my feed—completely unprovoked, entirely unhinged, and radiating pure, unadulterated brain rot:
“It’s so nice to see her finding someone that’s so good for her, and it’s honestly just so nice to see for the rest of us,” a fan beams, ear to ear. “I feel like this is the American Royal Wedding.”
The American ‘royal’ wedding appears to have constituted 500 cars to transport said royalty’s friends, over 100 police officers for security with roads closed left, right and centre causing a local business shutdown — all for what's dubbed the ‘wedding of the century.’ Unlike a Kate and William British spectacle, its American counterpart is conducted in a stadium. One that normally carries the stench of hot dogs and sweaty basketball players’ socks. God bless America and Taylor Swift I guess.
My attempt at an anti-wedding zeitgeist last year has evidently failed miserably. These large ‘let them eat cake’ wedding spectacles and their ‘‘JUST&T MARRIED’ projections have only solidified themselves further in pop culture. From the Sanchez-Bezos Venice shutdown, to everyone circle jerking over Dua Lipa and Callum Turner, to the MSG stadium ‘princess castle’ wedding of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce.
Amongst an apparent ‘declining’ marriage rate, it seems we’re ravishing in each and every media circus nuptial. Like parasocial Pavlov dogs, salivating en masse at the modern-day equivalent of an OK! Magazine exclusive. We’ve traded our critical thinking for luxury romance slop, and we are eating it straight from the trough. Not too dissimilar to when the MET Gala descends onto New York, the Swift-Kelce wedding resembles little difference in pandemonium. With bated breath, the masses await to dissect every dress, speech and guest list choice.
I write this again because I am fed up. I am sick to death of wedding culture, the bridezilla that has come to sit in the psyche of women whether we are or aren’t walking down the aisle, whether we are conscious of it or not. These exuberant parades, and the fact they are shoved down our throats, are only a testament to the pedestal heterosexual marriage is placed upon. A milestone for a woman that undeniably carries far more weight and importance than it ever has done for a man.
So yes, in a society that is ever leaning to the right, that is attempting to cuntify the tradwife and domesticity, where capitalism has reached its maximum state of slop and the rich want to show you what kind of parties they can throw whilst you’re living pay cheque to pay cheque, I will stand by what I have always said: marriage is ‘cheugy,’ it’s embarrassing, it’s self-indulgent and, most of all, it’s fucking LAME.
LET THEM EAT (WEDDING) CAKE
I long for the days when a wedding was a tacky, paid-for magazine spread and we kept it stepping. Much can be said for the media circus and public fetishisation that sits around ‘wedding core,’ with its ideals based on aspirationalism and consumerism.
It lies in Dua Lipa’s Bottega dress. It’s in Sanchez’s $4 million engagement ring. It’s shutting down cities simply because you can. It’s unattainable, and the media would like to remind you where you stand amongst the classism of it all. But as is the way with unattainable norms, it somehow becomes an unspoken code of conduct, an aesthetic, an avatar that women are lightly cooed towards. Wedding culture and its flamboyance have become another unspoken expectation in the parade of womanhood, an extravagant wedding being another litmus test of femininity.
The media coverage of said new ‘feminine’ ideals as of late includes, but is not limited to:
“Dua Lipa has finally revealed her wedding dress – and it took 1,155 hours to make.”
“Dakota! Gigi! Karlie! The celebrity guests at Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s wedding.”
“Till Jeff us do part: divisive, star-studded Bezos wedding hits full swing in Venice.”
It’s apparent these weddings receive an obscene amount of coverage in comparison to other events affecting these women’s lives. After all, regardless of previous achievements and successes, they are now fulfilling the societal role that was expected of them. They have finally been chosen by a man. By patriarchal standards, this is the greatest privilege of their lives, and for that they shall perform. Their prior lives, which they have built, become background noise, faded into the abyss, as often happens after a woman pronounces ‘I do.’ To forever be categorised as a wife and potential future mother before all else.
We attempt to mimic these social status symbols, cosplaying as the upper echelons of society, sinking into an overdraft to fund a single day of aristocratic roleplay. Although marriages are declining, it appears the cost of weddings is anything but, with an industry currently worth $1.14 trillion, thought to expand to $2.65 trillion by 2033, walking down the aisle is only increasing in price.
There is no denying that wedding content is littering For You pages more now than ever, and the context of our current lived experience, as well as the political backdrop against which this content exists, is ironic in itself. We have never been more void of connection. We are undergoing a sex recession, an apparent ‘male loneliness’ epidemic (who gives a fuck about women, am I right?), marriage rates are falling, along with birth rates across the West.
Marriage content acts as emotional pornography to the lonely. These weddings, streamed in 4K with lavish displays of wealth, also make love and connection feel unattainable and out of reach. Union feels ever more scarce as our love lives feel outsourced by the likes of Match Group and their babies, Hinge, Tinder and Bumble. Our ability to meet one another is in the palms of big corp et al.
Across a cost-of-living crisis, where housing is scarce, childcare is extortionate and jobs are being lost to the bot, these fanfares couldn’t be more dystopian. It seems as the masses struggle with simply getting by, dangling your 75-carat diamond necklace worth half a million (yes, half a million from Miss Lipa) is a form of entertainment for the overworked masses.
Many may argue that these stars have carried out their ‘philanthropy.’ Lipa paying a mere £5,000 to Palermo locals and Swift donating $26 million to charity before her wedding seems like a counteract, a peace offering to pay for their hedonistic sins. However, deep down it’s a form of virtue signalling, an olive branch, PR stunt and nice, juicy tax break for the A-listers.
It seems celebrity weddings aren’t just another form of entertainment. They sell heterosexual marriage as the pinnacle of womanhood, all the while turning it into another luxury commodity. As revgirlisha aptly put it in her piece, ‘Commodity, Spectacle and Complicity: The Swift-Kelce Wedding Industrial Complex,’ attention is a new primary commodity. Weddings such as these are profitable through our attention, clicks and likes. We turn our rest and relaxation to these forms of media; it pacifies the masses and diverts them from class consciousness.
Let them eat cake, I suppose.
NOTHING MORE ROMANTIC THAN A TAX LOOP HOLE
We are told these weddings are harmless escapism. But escapism and attention currency are never neutral. What we choose to romanticise tells us what we value. And when marriage is endlessly packaged as spectacle, aspiration and achievement, we’re not simply ‘celebrating’ love. We’re reinforcing the idea that one particular life trajectory deserves more admiration than all the others.
The marriage industry is a testament to just that. In my first piece on marriage, which received a few nods and a few strong head shakes (and death threats, teehee xo), the dialogue around it hyperfocused on the financial benefits of marriage (how romantic) and that it solidified a couple’s relationship so neither party could easily walk away to the kingdom of deadbeat (even more romantic).
People want to partake in marriage because there are financial benefits and incentives. Although cohabitation is on the increase, it seems the government would still like to hierarchically rank relationships and their validity. In the UK, married couples are exempt from inheritance tax, widowed spouses can be entitled to their partner’s state pension benefits, and married couples can inherit each other’s ISA allowances. Spouses can also reduce capital gains tax. If a significant other is in a lower tax bracket, funds can be allocated to them in order to reduce the tax burden on the higher earner. There are many financial incentives for marriage, but really, should a tax break exist for people who live under a dual income?
Society praises and financially incentivises those that wed, but in the 21st century, amongst a varying plethora of ways to be with someone, from civil partnerships, to polycules, to cohabiting, to singlehood, why must someone enter a legal contract with governmental bodies that is also a nightmare to get out of? Furthermore, are we giving financial breaks to those that truly need it?
As if society doesn’t punish the single woman enough, reminding them of their expiration date and pending future as a crazy cat lady, it likes to financially punish them as well. Mumbles from the current Reform Party’s Matt Goodwin attempted to push a ‘childless women tax’ because nothing says 'traditional family values' quite like financial coercion. Also, not like single individuals are already at a vast financial disadvantage to their wedded counterparts. Single individuals pay an extra £7,608 on rent alone, with an additional £719 on bills and £516 on council tax (a 25% reduction doesn’t really account for a singular income vs. dual). But it seems the ones who get the financial advantages are those that play the status quo.
My qualm with marriage and its positioning in society is that not only is it packaged as an assumed life milestone, it is one that is endlessly praised, and for what reason I’m not entirely sure. It doesn’t take into account the complexities of human relationships and care. It places a spouse at the top of a hierarchy, and whether married or not, this may not be the case. It could be a sister, a friend, a parent, a boyfriend, a coworker or a neighbour that provides endless support and love, maybe more so than a husband ever could — that’s not given any light or incentives.
We’ve decided one relationship deserves extraordinary cultural, financial and legal recognition over every other form of care and relationship, when that very relationship is 50% likely to fail.
AGAIN WTF ARE WE DOING THIS FOR GANG??
The media celebrates marriage.
The market monetises marriage.
The state incentivises marriage.
Whilst I may be a marriage hater, I am an endless love defender, and for that I will die on the hill of tearing down the most unromantic thing about love – the commodification of it.
In an ever-growing right-wing and fascist West, where we are rotting in late-capitalistic slop, I am done with the fanfare of salivating over love on our screens whilst we live touch-deprived in reality. As we watch the spectacle, we become part of the spectacle and its unrealistic ideals and aesthetics. I feel it in my bones to always challenge heteronormalisation and the pushing of reductive gender norms. For women, this has only ever shoved us into boxes, rather oppressive boxes at that. Marriage in pop culture reduces a woman’s worth down to being chosen by a man, to performing a lavish version of domesticity that is now being sold to us as a social status dream.
Love can come in a million and one shades. How we choose to love shouldn’t be something dictated by higher powers, nor should it be used as a tool for big corp greed. I feel it’s only fitting that, as Taylor Swift weds, her ceremony is officiated by an outspoken Zionist as well as being attended by a high-ranking ICE detention officer. These parades are out of touch with reality because these people are out of touch with reality, yet it is them who create the expectations the masses will aspire towards. MAGAcore adjacent and all.
Until we stop treating one state-approved relationship as the gold standard of a life well lived, I’ll continue asking the same question: are we celebrating love, or are we simply rewarding conformity?
MAKE MARRIAGE LAME AGAIN
(married people pls don’t kill me again)
Xoxo,
Smizzo
PART 1:
Marriage culture is funny because people swear it’s about love, but so much of it still gets treated like proof that a woman has been properly chosen. The ring, the photos, the caption, the big public display. The social promotion from woman to wife.
I’m not anti-marriage. I’m just suspicious of how often marriage gets treated as the highest form of female achievement. Being chosen is not the flex. Being in a relationship that actually makes your life better is.
loved the article! totally agree (especially as women) cultivating relationships outside of romantic ones, leads to happier and fulfilled life as we have bigger support group, and yet we are constantly told that the romantic relationship is the most important one 😵💫
that’s why so many women are stuck in emotionally and financially abusive relationships that doesn’t benefit them, and they don’t feel like they can get out of it because they have no one else to rely on
me and my friends are often talking and trying not to center romantic relationships in our lives , and i did unfortunately lost a friend over her romantic relationship too , cause she was basically behaving like Carry in SATC ☹️