Till divorce do us part

When God created the Earth (this is the part where the aethist segment of my readers switch to another window...) He decided it would be prudent to earmark the passing of one year with four seasons. We are all reasonably intelligent people, so we already know this. Unless you live in Sri Lanka, where the concept of winter is like the idea of an honest politician; non-existent. But then, we as humans have carried it much further.

Yes, we now have a season for everything. There are sports seasons for every, well, sport. We have a season of giving during Christmas. The season of colours in India during holi, as well as a season of lights. To those still struggling in the grip of universities and schools, we have exam seasons. Thanks to valentines day, we have a so-called season of love. And then there's marriage.

Ah, marriage. Some wonder why we have such gooey and bubbly feelings about marriage, when the very ceremony involves agreeing to the morbid statement of "till death do us part". Sort of tells you where its all going to lead doesnt it?

Those of you who know me personally know that marriage is a taboo subject for me. It's all well and good, and I'm not against it per say; I'm just not into discussing it right now. I'm in the prime of my life, for crying out loud! This is my time to enjoy life to the fullest, pack my bags every now and then and head out on some wild adventure, hunting wildebeast in the African plains or if all else fails, wild girls in the not-so-African plains of Colombo. The fact that I do neither, is a different and unrelated topic all together...

But as I was saying, I'm all for marriage. Marriage is a good thing! God was all for it as well, and so he gift-wrapped a wife for Adam in the shape of Eve. The fact that things went considerably south for Adam afterwards is, again, completely besides the point.

However, it is increasingly difficult to find fellow believers in wedlock. The media is no help whatsoever. The only thing that the average person loves to read about more than a celebrity dream wedding is a celebrity nightmare divorce. Jus recently the Sir Paul McCartney-Heather Mills divorce was all over the headlines, and not just because it was over. The attention was at the sum involved in the settlement. Apparently Ms Mills was seeking £125 million and only (yes, only) received £25 million. She was also 'outraged' that the judge had ruled Sir McCartney's asset value as £400 million instead of her estimate of £800 million.

Mind-boggling numbers. And there are so many more, such as Michael Jordan (£84 million, or $168 million), Neil Diamond (£75 million, or $150 million), Steven Spielberg (£50 million, or $100 million) and Harrison Ford (£42.5 million, or $85 million), all who are no stranger to the (financial) pain of divorce. You'd think that considering this was Harrison Ford's second wife, he'd know better!

Despite all this, we're all thrilled when celebrity couples DO get married. Maybe we're just excited to see how long it'll be before the pair are throwing money at each other instead of promises of never-ending love. In which case Pamela Anderson has provided ample material, getting married to Tommy Lee, Kid Rock and some other reject if I'm not mistaken. Not much odds for those marriages, one of them lasted only 2 months! And then there was Carmen Electra and Dennis Rodman. I mean, come on! That was doomed from the start! (Rodman - 6 foot 10 inches. Electra - 5 foot 3 inches. Go figure!) Recently it was Beyonce and Jay Z who got engaged, and I can already see the fallout from their divorce; both with new no.1 singles on the chart, titled "Bills Bills Bills (The divorce version)" and "99 problems (and the b**** IS one)". And if you've heard about Beyonce's on-stage persona known as "Sasha", you can only wonder who Jay-Z is actually getting married to....

Yet if we look real close, we do find a few sources of light in the murky darkness of celebrity marriages. Though of course, we hear less of them thanks to the media, just not interesting enough unless there's an affair with a personal assistant thrown in somewhere. Madonna and Guy Ritchie, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf, to name a few that come to mind.

But it was Daniel Craig who restored my faith in the sanity of celebrities; when asked about his engagement with girlfriend Satsuki Mitchell, he simply replied it was none of their business, and that he didn't believe in publicly announcing his marriage plans, as only members of the royal family do that.