Fox News reports that a new marriage-vow fad is on the rise:
In some weddings, “’til death do us part” is going the way of “to honor and obey” — that is, out the window.
Vows like “For as long as we continue to love each other,” “For as long as our love shall last” and “Until our time together is over” are increasingly replacing the traditional to-the-grave vow — a switch that some call realistic and others call a recipe for failure.
This fad stands in even greater contrast to the LDS “for time and for all eternity” than does the “’till death do us part.” Let’s hope that it doesn’t make the transition from fad to trend.
The article interviews “wedding expert” Sharon Naylor who declares:
“People understand that anything can happen in life, and you don’t make a promise you can’t keep. When people get divorced, they mourn the fact that they said ”til death do us part’ — you didn’t keep your word in church (if they had a church wedding). Some people are in therapy because they promised ‘til death do us part’ — it is the sticking point in the healing of a broken marriage. The wording can give you a stigma of personal failure.”
I think that the fact that Naylor is described a “wedding expert” and not a “marriage expert” communicates tomes.
Most disturbing to me is the phrase “…anything can happen in life, and you don’t make a promise you can’t keep.”
It used to be that people said “you don’t make promises that you don’t intend to keep.” In order to avoid being hypocrites we are now told that we shouldn’t promise to do anything that we cannot guarantee that we will actually do. The meaning of hypocrite has been changed from someone who makes promises that he or she doesn’t intend to keep to someone who makes promises that he or she intends to keep, but cannot guarantee 100% will be kept.
This is a subtle bit of sophistry that wrests the concept of hypocrisy to devilish effect. It represents the abandonment of ideals and idealistic goals. Those who honestly try for an ideal and fail are seen as hypocrites, while those who refuse to try because they might fail are considered honest.