From The Living Church-My social media feed was all atwitter this week with the story of a 38-year-old British woman named Sophie Tanner who “married herself” in a ceremony two years ago. She has recently released a book related to the experience.
“I literally had the idea when I was lying in bed recovering from flu and a bad relationship,” says Tanner about her decision to say I do to herself. “Everyone celebrates getting together with someone and getting married, but there’s no milestone in society that celebrates escaping something awful or returning to your own happiness and contentment.”
For Tanner, this action, which she initially considered “lighthearted” but came to find more deeply meaningful, is a way of coping with dashed expectations. Western society has become increasingly individualistic, but the pressure to marry has continued, despite high divorce rates and changing attitudes about sex. Marriage is often presented today as the answer to loneliness, the happy elixir that can fill the emptiness that so many of us experience. “Love is love,” say advocates of various kinds of changes to our understanding of marriage, but hidden behind that assertion is the notion that “happiness is happiness.” This is the fundamental idea behind almost all modern thought about marriage. Stripped of its procreative and unitive principles, all that remains of marriage is the hope that Individuals might find a way to share in a feeling of contentment. And, it is cruel for us to deny anyone opportunities for happiness, whatever those opportunities may be.
More here-
http://livingchurch.org/covenant/2017/06/02/marrying-myself-and-the-cult-of-personal-happiness/
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