Crazy Kids

There's a strange impetus in our modern society against the idea that marriage really lasts till death. After all, only 50% of marriages do. What does that make the people who try and get married, who try and make it last? It seems like it makes them a bunch of crazy kids, setting themselves up against the "wisdom" of the world that these things just don't last. Even The Office, one of the more optimistically romantic shows on television, has an episode where a character in relationship with another, upon hearing that her parents are getting divorced, remarks that it was her parents, or his. Now it's true that in this case the good doesn't last forever. Marriage was only designed to last until the Resurrection. But it's nothing but cynical to say that the good shouldn't be expected to last as long as it ought to last, that is, until one partner is dead. It betrays a despairing lack of hope for the Sacrament of Marriage, and the love that can flourish between two people even in today's "modern world." I'm on the side of the crazy kids--the ones who say "one partner, one marriage, we'll make it till the end," and whether or not I ever become one of them I will remain on their side. Now it's true that perhaps marriages are more in danger nowadays, but that's a reason for caution, for being properly crazy and not marrying based just one one's feelings, for actually making a commitment to routinely take care of each other. It is not a case for despairing of actually making that lifelong commitment; that despair is the abdication of responsibility, not the sign. So I'm going to stay on the side of these crazy kids, warring against this Satanic cynicism that's been somehow disguised as wisdom.