The Left’s campaign against weddings is in full swing as just one part of its global campaign against happiness. The plan to dismantle our way of life was launched in 2021 by the World Economic Forum with its famous slogan: “In 2030, you will own nothing and be happy.” Now that we are entering the high season of weddings, the progressive press has ganged up to discredit weddings with crazy headlines alluding to their high price, their climate footprint, the stress suffered by the bride and groom with the preparations, or the unhealthiness of dancing until the wee hours of the morning. Not a word about the happiness of the moment, both for the couple and for family and friends. It seems to me that left-wing journalists are becoming more and more like the cynic described by H.L. Mencken: “A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.”
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Weddings have always been expensive and complex. They require effort: for the bride to have decided to bring a bear into her house; and for the groom, to give up hanging underwear from the lamps and setting fire to the carpet after a game of poker with his friends.
But let’s not forget that the initial idea, until not so long ago, was to get married only once and for all time. That is the reason why it was such a big event. Today many marriages last much less and no longer wait until death do them part, but still, at a wedding, one should not be considering sobriety in case it all ends up going wrong. The only raison d’être of the wedding is for it to be an extreme ceremony, from solemnity in the church to the major drunkenness on the dance floor. Anything else is like buying a new apartment that already has leaks.
One of my greatest satisfactions as a Christian is to contemplate the wedding at Cana. The Virgin Mary herself called Jesus to tell him that the wine had run out in the middle of the wedding. At first, Jesus wanted to avoid doing anything out of prudence: “My time has not yet come.” But the beauty of the scene is that it reminds us that you never say no to a mother — well, that and it reminds us that drinking large quantities of wine is the right way to fulfill the Third Commandment. In Spain, as we love celebrations, instead of: “Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy,” our third commandment translates into something more generic and fun, like: “Thou shall hallow the feasts.”
Last week the New York Times devoted an article to trying to make weddings more boring and end sooner: “Forget Partying Till the Wee Hours. Newlyweds Want to End Early.” They’re obsessed with ending the joy! The wedding ceremony is long and tiresome for everyone. The only way to not give into melancholy and exhaustion at the end is for the bride and groom to offer a good restorative banquet and then provide plenty of drinks and hours of dancing, to celebrate the new marriage as God intended. In fact, my favorite moment of any wedding is when all the girls, who are always beautiful at these ceremonies, have had enough to drink for them to be unable to recall if they came to the wedding with a boyfriend. I usually take the opportunity to clear them of any doubts. And on occasion a grim groom has taken the opportunity to smash a bottle of whiskey over my head. Who cares? Let’s give the party a chance!
Finally, the Guardian has also devoted several articles to discouraging people from getting married: because of the high cost, because of the stress generated for the guests (it even goes so far as to say that many weddings end the friendship between the bride and groom and the guests!), and even because of the damage done to the environment. I guess the millions of other parties going on around the world every day do not pollute, because only weddings do, and, probably, only Christian weddings. I suspected as much.
This from Victoria Namkung in the Guardian: “Among food, travel, decor and single-use items, parties can create an enormous amount of waste — and weddings are among the most egregious offenders.” Anyway, I don’t want to make this a long personal argument, but if Victoria seriously believes that getting married wrecks the planet and makes the Amazon writhe in pain, perhaps she should visit my bachelor pad to learn first-hand what real radioactive pollution is.
Look, boy, girl: Get married, celebrate until dawn, and to hell with the killjoys.
Translated by Joel Dalmau.
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