The Waning Sacredness and Importance of Marriage Vows

Please permit to be as blunt as possible in my comments today. In my spare time, contrary to what a lot of people would assume of me, I like to catch up on celebrities life. Call me nosy but I enjoy it. Some of my friends complain that such pastime has the tendency to color their views of the celebrities even as it could make it hard to want to see their other works but I just do not care. I separate their lives from their work. I will have loved to explain that but that is a topic for another day. What I really want to comment on today is the blatant disregard for the marital vows these days.

I happened to read a story recently on a celebrity falling in love yet again and while I rejoiced with her because I love love and falling in love, I was struck by how easy it is to fall in and out of love these days. We live in a world where our celebrities pick up and break up at will, both home and abroad. Because these celebrities are the major characters that people see relate to even in their unconsciousness, we end up having and making role models of those who do not have stable family lives. We glorify leaving over working it out and while I find it commendable that we no longer condone the culture of silence, I am heartbroken that we now accept breaking up for flimsy reasons as the norm.

Everyday, we are confronted by stories of marriages that end because the wife is not a good cook or some even as silly as one partner preferring the light on and the other wanting it off. We laugh at these stories, some we have endless debate on but day in day out we become less sensitive to it. It is now a norm and it is right there on our TV, in the daily lives of those we consider the models of the society. And slowly, we are losing the very values that we need to nourish and sustain ourselves and the society.

Obviously we have to do better in finding a balance between dismantling the culture of silence, the one that forces us to be quiet in the face of violence, and using our new freedom to break down marital values. We need models that help us see that problems in marriage should oftentimes be worked out. We need to focus on more stable relationships and how to build them. We need a society that rewards loyalty and stability and not one that is complacent and cavalier in these areas. We need to build, listen, get involved and do better. It starts with me, it starts with you.


WaleAyo.