THE DEVIL’S IN THE DETAILS

The news is filled with gossip on the impending Bezos and Sanchez wedding.

I am reminded that in the mid 2000s, a friend was contracted to write a book about the starter marriage trend. Every time we talked, she would tell me how the interviews were going. Thousands of men and women volunteered for the chance to tell their side. She had piles and piles of notes.

Months later she told me she decided to quit writing the book. It turns out that when she told them to speak freely and honestly, they did, ad nauseam.  She told her agent she couldn’t go through with it.

She said it was too hard to listen to the shallow ways of most of the young men and women–and, surprise me, mothers–she interviewed. That generation and their middle class parents became more practical about how to approach conjugality.

A mother, who was also the maid of honor, told her she knew all along her daughter’s wedding was a fixed, starter marriage and that she knew the clock was ticking, and it was best to get married by a certain age or miss the chance at landing a good one later down the line.

That’s why they took out a second mortgage to foot the wedding and, most  importantly, the photos and the online wedding album was, in her words,

“Her only chance to showcase her beauty so she can marry up someday.” 

A mother swore the groom was fully aware that he was in a starter marriage, and made an agreement that her daughter had the choice to keep on looking for a new husband, and once she found him, they would go their separate ways. The only problem was, after racking up so much credit card debt to pay for the catering and photographer, for this couple, separate ways for the groom meant the basement of the house where they lived with her parents.

My husband and I attended a Southern wedding years ago, and I couldn’t get this image out of my head: the way the groom’s tuxedo pant cuffs were held up with safety pins. It could be a metaphor because, as it turns out, it was a starter marriage, and this bride thought others would take pity on her, especially eligible or on the verge of dumping their wives–wealthy men. Someone saved her (and her family) once; by god, she’s going to go out there and find another guy just like him one day.

She should read Fussel’s research on class because, as he would argue, the devil’s in the details.