Grrrr

Here are the author's credentials:

Jennifer A. Marshall is director of the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at the Heritage Foundation (heritage.org) and author of Now and Not Yet: Making Sense of Single Life in the Twenty-First Century.

So this woman is meant to be a defender of marriage. She believes in the dignity of the institution.

In discussing today's big event, she flashes back to the wedding of Charles and Diana:

Marriage is a promise. Not just between one man and one woman, but to the community at large, to generations past and to those yet to be born. Wedding vows set apart this lifelong, life-giving relationship from all others.

That’s why we cheered in 1981, even though, to quote ABC’s Green, “marriage and the family have fallen on hard times.”

How much more so in the 30 years since: The bitter, postmodern ending to Princess Diana’s own fairy tale is an apt metaphor for the troubled state of marriage today.

Marshall is quite right that marraige is a promise to the community and by making such an appalling hash of theirs, Charles and Diana debased marriage and betrayed their family and friends. There is nothing here to celebrate. Ideally such things would be passed over in silence but ...

Marshall is quite restrained compared to Mona Charen who had this to say after Elizabeth Taylor died:

... though she endured a great deal of ridicule for her — was it eight marriages — she explained that she just couldn’t bring herself to have “affairs.” If she was romantically involved with someone, it had “to lead to the altar.” Seems quaint today.

Quaint? No. Immature. Stupid. Foolish. Trite. All those words come to mind.

Look. Marriage is a serous thing. It's always better to not make the vow than to enter into the thing without the seriousness it requires. If you have an affair, you can repent and go to confession. If you marry foolishly and split, you debase yourself, you debase your spouse and you debase the institution.

The dress, the big church, the pomp and excitement. It's all wonderful but, as the Serpentine One always says when we lead marriage prep classes, the only thing that really matters is the vows. Learn, understand them and say them and mean them.

And if you can't, just have the affair. I'm serious. That will be a sin but it is a much lesser sin than entering into marriage the way Charles, Diana and Elizabeth and her various husbands did.