On South Asia's Wedding Culture

 

60 is the new 80 thanks to Corona

 Patti Waldmeir in The FT

“Better be safe than sorry.” I have never believed that. 

I have lived my first 65 years often turning a blind eye to risk. I lived in China for eight years, enduring some of the worst industrial pollution on earth, despite having asthma. I risked damaging the lungs of my then small children by raising them in a place where their school often locked them in air-purified classrooms to protect them from the smog. 

Before that, I lived for 20 years in Africa, refusing to boil water in areas where it needed boiling, eating bushmeat at roadside stalls — not to mention the escapades that I got up to as a young woman in the pre-Aids era. 

But now, as I peer over the precipice into life as a senior citizen, coronavirus has finally introduced me to the concept of risk. Part of it is the whole “60 is the new 80” paradigm that the pandemic has forced on us — but most of it is that, whether I like it or not, I fit squarely in the category of “at risk” for severe illness or death if I catch Covid-19. 

I have diabetes, asthma and am finishing my 65th year. I don’t live in a nursing home, a jail, a monastery or a convent (as does one close friend with Covid-19), but according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), I still qualify as high risk because of my underlying conditions and age. 

So what do I — and people like me, I am far from alone — do now that the world is reopening without us? I’ve got some big decisions to make in the next few days. My youngest child is moving back to our flat outside Chicago after a month living elsewhere: does one of us need to be locked in the bedroom? Do I have to eat on the balcony for two weeks? 

There is no shortage of people, not least President Donald Trump, telling me that all this is simple: vulnerable people should just stay home. But what if they live with other people? What if those people have jobs? And what about our dogs? Our two old mutts are overdue for a rabies shot because the vet was only seeing emergencies. Is it safe for me to take them in now? Can my kids go to the dentist, and then come home to live at close quarters with me? 

I asked several medical experts these questions, and they all offered versions of “we haven’t got a clue”. Robert Gabbay, incoming chief scientific and medical officer of the American Diabetes Association, was the most helpful: “Individuals with diabetes are all in the higher-risk category but even within that category, those who are older and with co-morbidities are at more risk — and control of blood glucose seems to matter. 

“You are probably somewhere in the middle” of the high-risk category, he decided. My diabetes is well controlled and I don’t have many other illnesses. “But your age is a factor,” he added. Up to now, I’ve thought I was in the “60 is the new 40 crowd”: now I know there is no such crowd. 

The head of the Illinois Department of Public Health underlined this at the weekend when she gave her personal list of Covid dos and don’ts, including don’t visit a parent who is over 65 with pre-existing conditions for at least a year, or until there is a cure. Dr Ngozi Ezike also said she would not attend a wedding or a dinner party for a year and would avoid indoor restaurants for three months to a year — despite the fact that Chicago’s indoor restaurants reopen on Friday. 

I turned to the CDC, which initially said it would issue new guidance for “at risk” people last week, but didn’t. This would be the same CDC that I trusted when it said not to wear a mask — though 1.3 billion people in China were masking up. Today China, which is 100 times larger by population than my home state of Illinois, has less than three-quarters as many total pandemic deaths. (Yes, I know China has been accused of undercounting cases, but so has the US.) Masks aren’t the only reason; but they are enough of a reason to erode my trust in what the CDC thinks I should do now. 

It doesn’t help that the CDC website lists “moderate to severe asthma” as one of the primary risk factors for poor coronavirus outcomes — while the American Academy of Allergy Asthma and Immunology says “there are no published data to support this determination”, adding that there is “no evidence” that those with asthma are more at risk. Who’s right? 

I need to know: this weekend is the one-year anniversary of the death of my eldest sibling. I’ve chosen not to make the trip to visit his grave in Michigan. Next month, I turn 65, and I want to spend that day with my 89-year-old father: should we rent a camper van, so we don’t infect his household? I thought about a porta potty for the journey, since public toilets are apparently a coronavirus hotspot. When I started searching for “female urination devices” online, I knew it was time to ditch this new “better safe than sorry” persona I’ve assumed under lockdown. 

Maybe it’s time to remind myself of a fact that I once knew: that life is a risky business, and there is only so much I can do about that. I’ll die when it’s my time — probably not a day before or after, coronavirus or no coronavirus.

Forget the Markles – who in their right mind would want to marry into the royal family?

Mark Steele in The Independent





Oooo it’s so exciting, the great day is nearly here! For weeks the news has been full of stories such as “Residents at a nursing home in Keswick have joined in the celebrations by selling all their hearing aids and dialysis machines so they can afford the ingredients to make a giant apple crumble in the shape of Harry and Meghan”.

Kay Burley will tell us on Sky News: “You can see as you look around Windsor, even the flies are buzzing with a joyful air. The worms in the park are giving off a distinct glow this morning – they know this is a very special day indeed.”

Then Nicholas Witchell will report: “Prince Louis, one month old, is said to be ‘extremely thrilled’ about the wedding, and the palace has confirmed his poos have been especially runny the last couple of days in anticipation of the wonderful day.”

Every single broadcast of anything will be in honour of events at Windsor. The shipping forecast will go: “Finisterre, gale force 7, rising to 8, waves cascading like Meghan’s beautiful dress, undulating with magisterial glory. Hurricane later.”

Porn channels will mark the occasion by showing films in which the participants grunt the top 100 people in line to the throne during the action, timing the climax to coincide with His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.

One typical story was a report from Reuters that “a bakery in the picturesque town of Windsor, where Britain’s sixth in line to the throne will marry his American fiancée on Saturday, is serving up cappuccino and latte coffees topped with a frothy portrait of the couple”.

It’s delightful how many businesses have joined in the celebrations in this way, so you see adverts such as: “Celebrate the joy of the royal wedding by buying a commemorative garden fork from Homebase. What better way to be reminded of this magical day, than to be jolted back to that perfect moment every time you turn over the soil in your garden?” 

Maybe Windsor’s drug dealers can produce a royal wedding special edition skunk that gets you so out of your tree you imagine you’re Princess Caroline of Brunswick.

In a charming gesture, the homeless of Windsor are being moved out of their usual shop doorways for the occasion, and you can’t help imagining the joy of being homeless in Windsor and hearing the local authority tell you: “I’m afraid there aren’t any empty rooms in Windsor at the moment. There’s a dreadful shortage of property round here.”
But this royal wedding has attained a special feature, because it turns out the Markle family haven’t all behaved in the idyllic way we might expect. Luckily, our newspapers have reacted calmly, and soothed the situation with headlines such as “WEDDING CRISIS, FRUITBAT DAD RUINS EVERYTHING, WAR NOW CERTAIN”.

One Daily Mail columnist informed us Thomas Markle “seems to live off chicken tacos and six-packs of beer”. The evidence for this is he was photographed coming out of a shop holding a plastic bag. So you can understand the concern, because anyone who has ever come out of a shop with a plastic bag was clearly carrying something in that bag, so the most likely products were chicken tacos and a six-pack of beer, which they live on, exclusive to any other items.

Thomas Markle, like Meghan herself, has been divorced, and it is a dreadful worry that a dysfunctional family is being blended into a normal harmonious one.

This is why I’m sure newspapers will announce the Markles are “extremely concerned” about the family that Megan’s marrying into. And they’re “especially perturbed” that a prominent place in the ceremony has been given to Harry’s father, who demands someone runs his bath for him and insisted on dragging his mistress around with him throughout his first marriage. So maybe it’s for the best if he doesn’t go.

Instead many British newspapers are furious with Thomas Markle, and you can understand why, as they can’t bear anyone who might exploit this glorious occasion just to make some extra sales.

The behaviour of Megan’s dad must be particularly upsetting for the Windsors, as they’ve never taken the slightest interest in preserving their wealth, affecting a happy-go-lucky air, whose motto is “what’s mine is yours”.

Thomas Markle is also accused of using a royal marriage to attract publicity, and no one has ever stooped this low before. For example, Pippa Middleton’s column in Vanity Fair is nothing to do with the fact she’s Kate’s sister – she got the job because of her incisive analysis of the Japanese economy.

But to maintain the glory, we have to promote the idea these characters are special. They weren’t just born into a certain line – they’re in place through merit. The Queen is the monarch because she toiled so hard, starting out as a humble princess and working her way up.

Then we get the tales of how wonderful they are, so politicians give us snippets such as: “Did you know Her Majesty is a marvellous snooker player? Her safety play is simply marvellous.”

Then there’s calamity and disbelief if it turns out they’re like any other family, full of flaws and chaos, except even worse because they’re supposed to be divine. Maybe this is the trouble with royalists; they can’t stand the royal family. If they really cared for them, they’d be like the 52 per cent of the country who say they’re not interested in the wedding, and leave them alone to get married in Windsor Town Hall, with a reception above a gastropub where Thomas Markle could make a hilarious embarrassing speech, and present a buffet of chicken tacos and unlimited six-packs of beer.

Why are growing numbers marrying themselves?

More and more people around the world are choosing to "marry" themselves in symbolic ceremonies, and businesses are catering to the trend. But what motivates someone to say "yes" to themselves?

Didem Tali in The BBC
In the summer of 2000, New York-based performance artist Gabrielle Penabaz decided to throw a wedding party for herself while nursing a broken heart.

She carefully chose a location, flowers, a quartz ring, a sweetheart-neckline wedding dress and wrote thoughtful vows.

She even wore "something borrowed, something blue" on the day, even though the event was purely symbolic and lacked one crucial component: a groom.

Nonetheless, her friends and family attended and Ms Penabaz says she had the "best wedding ever". Since then she has been "officiating" at other people's self-marriage ceremonies as a form of performance art - a service for which she charges.

Her clients are usually single women, although people from all genders and marital statuses have taken part.

Image copyrightMARRY YOURSELF VANCOUVERImage captionWomen attending a self marriage ceremony in Canada

She claims to have "married" more than 1,500 people, typically in ceremonies like her own, with mock-up chapels, costumes, cakes and most importantly, vows.

"The ceremonies are usually very cathartic and all about self-love," Ms Penabaz says.

"80% of the people whom I married to themselves shed a tear reading their vows. They usually say things like 'I forgive myself' and 'I will no longer call myself ugly'."

Welcome to the world of self-marriage or "sologamy", which has attracted increasing attention over the last few years.

While it is not legal to marry yourself anywhere in the world, reports of people holding mock ceremonies go for several decades and can be found everywhere from Japan to Italy, to Australia and the UK.

The act has also been the theme of episodes of popular US TV shows such as Glee and Sex and the City, and there are now whole businesses - such as Ms Penabaz's - dedicated to helping people plan their solo events. 

Dominique Youkhehpaz officiated at her first solo wedding in 2011 at the US arts festival Burning Man and has since set up the consultancy Self Marriage Ceremonies.

She offers a 10-week online course to prepare brides or grooms for sologamy, costing $200 (£149), as well as private counselling sessions. Ms Youkhehpaz says she's worked with more than 250 clients to date and business is booming.

"A self-marriage ceremony can be anything from a simple ritual in one's bedroom to a more lavish celebration," she explains.

She also thinks it can be incredibly therapeutic for those who take part. "I have witnessed people leave abusive relationships, step more fully into their life's work or meet their beloved after marrying themselves."

Proponents say sologamy is about self-love, acceptance and claiming the social affirmation normally reserved for couples who wed.

While there are no official figures about those choosing to marry themselves, the interest comes at a time when the number of unmarried people is at record highs in many advanced economies, according to the OECD.

Image copyrightSOPHIE TANNERImage captionBriton Sophie Tanner tied the knot with herself after her partner cheated on her

Not surprisingly, businesses have been catering to this new market. In 2014, the Japanese travel agency Cerca Travel reportedly offered a two-day package for solo brides for upwards of £2,500. It included dress fitting, make-up and hair styling and a photo shoot.

Dan Moran, a Los Angeles-based jewellery designer, says he started receiving calls from clients wanting sologamy rings 18 months ago and wedding planners and photographers he knows are getting similar requests.

Most of his new clients are "urban, affluent and educated" women, and interestingly many are already married.

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"In the coming years, people who work in the wedding industry will definitely have to keep sologamists in mind and tailor their service," he says.

Certainly people are willing splash out on sologamy. Italian Laura Mesi wed herself at a "fairytale" event this September, complete with a white dress, three-layer wedding cake, bridesmaids and 70 guests.

The 40-year-old, who made the move after her 12-year relationship ended, spent £8,700 on the day.

Image copyrightSOPHIE TANNERImage caption"It was the best day of my life," says Sophie, here hugging her father - who gave her away
In the UK, Sophie Tanner married herself in 2015. "For me, it was an important ceremony that demonstrates my commitment to self-compassion, " she told the BBC.

"The wedding was the best day of my life, complete with vintage gown, teary dad giving me away, and dancing bridesmaids."

But not everyone welcomes the sologamy trend. Some call it narcissistic and others criticise it as a pointless submission to a patriarchal institution.

Karen Nimmo, a clinical psychologist in New Zealand, says: "Self-dislike is at the root of so many psychological issues, so where marrying yourself is about healing from past trauma or relationship issues it can be helpful.

"But it's important to make sure your other relationships are healthy. If you rely too much on yourself and constantly put your own needs ahead of everyone else you may be slipping into narcissistic territory - and that's an unhealthy and lonely place to be."

Alexandra Gill, co-founder of consultancy Marry Yourself Vancouver, accepts marrying yourself "kind of is" narcissistic, but adds: "Aren't all traditional white weddings also narcissistic?"

She also says that marrying yourself doesn't have to be taken deadly seriously.

Since 2011, her firm has helped solo brides plan their big days, but is now branching out to offer a "ladies' night" concept which celebrates "self-love and sisterhood".

"Let's face it, all women grow up with the fairytale wedding stories and the princess culture isn't going away anywhere," she says.

"But self-marriage ceremonies allow us to re-write this narrative in which we don't need a groom."

"Weddings have always been a female-centred celebration, anyway," she says.

"Many more women would love to marry to themselves, but they're just self-conscious about it."

Sex in the City's heroic protagonist Carrie Bradshaw, who wed herself in a 2003 episode of the series, would surely agree.

The con behind every wedding

Anon in The Guardian

A lavish wedding, a couple in love; romance was in the air, as it should be when two people are getting married. But on the top table, the mothers of the happy pair were bonding over their imminent plans for … divorce.

That story was told to me by the mother of the bride. The wedding in question was two summers ago: she is now divorced, and the bridegroom’s parents are separated. “We couldn’t but be aware of the crushing irony of the situation,” said my friend. “There we were, celebrating our children’s marriage, while plotting our own escapes from relationships that had long ago gone sour, and had probably been held together by our children. Now they were off to start their lives together, we could be off, too – on our own, or in search of new partners.”

It’s bittersweet, this clash of romantic hope and lived experience. I am living it now, yo-yo-ing between the wedding plans of my daughter and son, both in their 20s, and the fragility and disappointment of my own long marriage. My days seem to be divided between excited chat about embryonic relationships that are absolutely perfect, and definitely going to last for ever, and remote and cold exchanges with a husband who has disentangled himself emotionally from me, and shows no signs of wanting to reconnect (I have suggested Relate many times; he is simply not interested).

To some extent, this juxtaposition of young love and old cynicism was ever thus: throughout time, weddings have featured, centre-stage, a loved-up duo who believe their devotion to one another will last for ever, while observing from the wings are two couples 30, 35 or more years down the line, battle-scarred by experience, and entirely devoid of rose-tinted spectacles – the parents of the bride and groom. And in the generation of “silver splitters”, these sixtysomethings are more likely than ever to be in the process of uncoupling, at the precise moment when their offspring are embracing the dream of lifelong partnership.

So how do we reconcile our cynicism – or, at best, our scepticism – for marriage and long-term love, with our offsprings’ enthusiasm to tie the knot, and embark on a life of seeming marital bliss? On one level, the phenomenon is heartwarming. It is testament, you could argue, to the resilience of the human spirit: however difficult our own marriages turned out to be, we war veterans look at our kids staring into each other’s eyes, and we melt inside. Yes, we think to ourselves, we made mistakes; we took paths that turned out to be wrong. Even, we think, we made fundamentally bad choices: we married the wrong men.

As a result, love was seriously skewed for us: but in the next generation – we nod our heads vigorously to this, while cheerily agreeing to a no-holds-barred expensive wedding – things will be different. True love will be theirs; the fairytale that eluded us will work for them, at last.

What hokum. As the survivor of a difficult marriage, this much I know: the biggest burden is the disappointment. And it is a disappointment born on my own wedding day in 1985: more than three decades later, the hopes of that morning still glint from the shadows. The expectations heaped on us, including by my in-laws whose own miserable marriage still had another two decades left to torture them, are the ghosts around the sad embers of our once-glowing fire.
So what can we do differently? Here’s the truth of it, as a wise friend said to me recently: in the 21st century, in a world in which women as well as men have choices and independence and long lives (all good), it will be increasingly difficult for one individual to answer the emotional, spiritual and physical needs of another, across many decades. Life is different now: we have bigger imaginations, we have higher expectations, we have more opportunities and, crucially, those opportunities continue well on into our 50s, 60s and 70s – and for all I know, into our 80s and 90s too. Even more significantly, we women have these opportunities: for men, they are less of a novelty. But their more widespread existence is the agent of seismic change in intimate relationships. We no longer need to put up with misery; we can alter the way we live.

I suggest that we, the parental generation, take a subtle lead in being honest with our twenty- and thirtysomethings about the realities of relationships, and love, and longevity, and choices. That we stop buying into the burgeoning and ever-more-elaborate wedding industry, a giant luxury liner that sails full-steam ahead, oblivious to the lifeboats and shipwrecks all around it in the water. At least begin to ask questions of the commercial interest that operates that liner, of its intentions and its fallout (not to mention its profits). There is more than coincidence, surely, in the way we seem to invest more and more resources in marriages that are less and less likely to survive.

How we introduce these notes of caution into our children’s lives is a much more difficult task. As parents, we want nothing more than happiness for our offspring: none of us wants to burst their bubble, at the precise moment it is so expanded.

As so often with parenting, though, we have to take the longer view. Sometimes I think that, even though my children may not understand or welcome some of the messages they get from me now, with me in my mid-50s and them in their mid-20s, there may be moments in the future when what I said, or how I behaved, suddenly makes sense. Parenting means filling your children’s backpack with supplies, and some of the supplies down the bottom of the bag may not be needed for many years to come.

One important factor in all this was raised by Sylvia Brownrigg in these pages earlier this year, and it is this: children are not interested in their parents’ relationships. They’re not interested in their parents’ marriage (beyond hoping that it is incident-free, and as calm as possible) and they are certainly not interested in their parents’ other relationships, if those happen or are ongoing. So we cannot weigh them down with the detail of why our marriages are failing, or unhappy, or disappointing – and yet, we must somehow signal to them that life is a long journey, and that it may be a mistake to invest too much in one central relationship on into the far distant future.

We are pioneers, us fifty- and sixtysomething mothers; we are walking a tightrope, and it is difficult to get the balance right. Sometimes we wobble; sometimes we fall right off. But the fact that we are walking the tightrope at all is the important bit. We are trying to be authentic, to our burnt-out marriages and to ourselves, as well as to our children and the realities of their future.

And choices cut both ways, too. Remember those mothers at the wedding party? My friend, as I say, is now divorced; but the bridegroom’s parents are having counselling, and have not ruled out the possibility of sharing their lives again.

Being more ambitious for ourselves doesn’t mean our marriages can’t survive, but it does mean a bad marriage can only survive if it can change. And that surely is the message, and the hope, we want to give our children, as they taste the realities of long-term love, or long-term what-was-once-love, and what just possibly might be love once again.