The idea of marriage was meant to be fragrant. It is fetid instead. Money, the most divisive force today after religion, seems to govern it unbridled. Today it simply exemplifies trade.

The only purpose of life is to understand it. And the critical understanding to be derived is that there is a huge and destructive cost to the pursuit of success seen from the perspective of money only. This perspective is a serious social ill that the world is in an increasingly tighter grip of. An ill characterized by ever-shrinking personal time. An inordinate amount of time is spent making money and measly time is available to enjoy what it brings.

We seem to be in trade mode everywhere, every time. Trade is all-pervasive. It extends unconscionably beyond areas where it was intended to be confined. Our realm is full of trade. Of the devout making a variety of offerings to gods for the fulfillment of many needs and wishes. Of people helping only if helped. Of a parent promising a candy or a cycle to the child for good academic scores or disciplined conduct. Of lovers having expectations from each other. Of a friend sulking when a favor is unreturned at a crucial time. Of a slave aka employee giving up a lot of his today for the crumbs of a short tomorrow following the end of his work life.

But what is most notable in the matter of trade in the world is the basis of the world itself. Family, that is. And the basis of the family is the exalted institution of marriage.

The commerce of marriage is a very apparent and growing reality. You choose someone of commensurate financial status. If, as a woman, you aren't good-looking, you pay more as dowry to the man. If the man doesn't have a good enough job or wealth he doesn't get a good-looking bride or one from a financially well-off family. He or she can be of a glowing heart. But that is funnily irrelevant. Earlier generations were about getting a multipurpose machine for a bride for baby-making, cooking, washing, etc. In the countryside, the roles were much more.

And what about the occasion of the wedding? Is it an atmosphere of rich good emotions? Not at all. It is one of the most pretentious and disgusting ones with most guests seeing it as an opportunity to flaunt their social status through what they wear, in particular, the jewelry. This occasion often seems like a jewelry expo. There is hardly any emotional participation by most, except the families and intimate friends of the couple.

Let us get back to the point of the commerce of marriage. Today, it continues with greater vigor and is dictated by the impatience of how quickly you can build a dream home, buy that swanky car, enjoy frequently those foreign holidays, eat out through the weekend, etc. In short, how rapidly you can keep growing your social status. This means each other's choice is well paid or wealthy by birth. The multipurpose machine of the wife of yore is no longer so. Baby-making is all it is reduced to, and mostly just one baby at that which, however, rarely gets the extent of parental time that is critically needed but gets compensated with a shower of gifts, mostly gizmos. Different literal machines do the rest of the home functions that the wife of traditional conception once did. Needless to say, humans of today can be veritably counted among the machines with their well of emotions dried by the intense pursuit of wealth, which sadly is synonymous with success. And this flawed idea of success is the key to divorce from real happiness. 

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