on [the ridiculousness in] matrimony

I'm not as focused on this post as I should be, because I have a tune stuck in my head (aptly for this post, "You Are The Woman" by Firefall). But I have so many things to say that I hope I say them all. This post is divided into sections to give due attention to all the things that were running through my head yesterday while being a bridesmaid for my cousin:

On General Discomfort:
We were in the hotel from 9.30am to get dressed and made up for a wedding at 5pm. I thought that the fact that we were in dresses would make life infinitely easier (no worrying that someone will step on your sari and that it will land in a heap at your feet) but I was wrong. The dress laced up like a corset, and for the life of me I do not know how women of yesteryear could even SLEEP in these lace-up chest-constricting contraptions. Because the dress was strapless, I'd had it laced up as tight as was comfortably possible, but it soon stopped being at all comfortable. I couldn't stand because of my heels. I couldn't sit because the whalebone-substitute-thing dug into me. I couldn't walk because either I or someone else stepped on my dress which trailed in a silver-grey cloud behind me. And as I became grumpier and grumpier, I wondered why ANYONE would go through this kind of discomfort in an effort to get hitched. Much better to run away and elope. We must have taken fifty million photographs with the happy couple. Our make up was touched up at least four times by the three make up artists (one of them had had his eyebrows done! I've never met a man who'd had his eyebrows done before. It was most unusual looking.) and the flower girl was a precocious chatterbox. Fortunately I have forgotten my extreme youth enough to believe that I was never as incorrigible as that, although I most certainly was. So yes. I resolved to have a comfortable wedding when I find whoever it is I will eventually get married to. The truth is, though, that I will have no say in the matter. My mother and aunts will take over and it was be just as much of a hassle. HURRAY.

On Eligible Partners:
This is ridiculous. I wrote a rant and deleted it because I didn't want to sound harsh and critical. I'm not being harsh and critical. I just find that people's logic in this country isn't very logical. But I was just talking to one of my friends at the wedding, and her discussion with someone else sums the whole thing up quite neatly. So you narrow down the list of who really is the perfect partner (by Sri Lankan standards) you end up with no one. Weed out everyone who isn't of your religion (Christians constitute possibly 6% of the country...oh blimey!), isn't living in the Western Province (what are the chances of meeting someone from the other side of the country?), doesn't have English language proficiency (no, really. We're snobs like that. I can't see a viable marriage with someone who can't speak English like it's second nature to him.), all the people who never made it past their O/L's (I don't know about this one. This is on my friend's list, but depending on the intelligence of the person, I think I can deal with no education past secondary school if said person has clear-cut goals for self.), and most importantly all those dubious sorts who Do Not Meet With Parental Approval. Who do you have left? Bloody nobody.
Here's the other ridiculousness. Parents have issues with children going out with other children at a Young and Tender Age. All right. I can deal with that. When is it actually all right, though? My parents always seem so amusingly relieved every time I come home and tell them that no, there are no American boys I would like to bring home for them to meet. (I mean, you can't TRUST these foreigners, can you? All that white skin! It can't be right. And no, my parents don't actually say this. This is just my sarcasm.) But do the maths. I'm older than most of my class. By the time I graduate I'll be almost twenty four. I'll probably hang around a few years and then go to grad school. At that rate I'm not going to meet any Sri Lankans until I'm about thirty. By that time they'll be begging for grandchildren. Even half-white ones. Even illegitimate ones. I don't want to be more than thirty years older than my first child, for heaven's sake. Also, on a more practical level, childbirth starts to become a wee bit difficult.
The point of these ridiculousnesses is that sometimes these notions have no practical application.
Also there is the problem of how the older one gets, the more picky one becomes; the more concerned with Flaws He Must Not Have. All boys in general become disturbingly unappealing. At this rate, I'm not going to have to worry about parental approval. I am going to have to adopt.

On the Ugliness of Life [a slightly religious rant, so if you're not interested, reading ends here]:
You know the bit where the priest talks about how people shouldn't try to pull apart two people who have been brought together by God? I can't remember the wording. I sometimes wonder how many marriages God is actually sitting and groaning to Himself, thinking "Don't do it, you silly fools!" Does He bring together people who are enmeshed in abusive relationships? Relationships in which someone dies in the most tragic way possible a year after the wedding celebrations? Given the fact that I do believe in the existence of a God, and the fact that we supposedly have free will, here's one my puzzlements as a believer trying to sort things out. To what extent does God actually have a hand in certain things? Does He put little pieces of advice in our path, and then sigh to Himself when we don't heed Him, and then proceed to work with what He's got? Would you have not married the potentially abusive man had you listened a little harder to Him, or was that ugliness a part of your life so that you would be prepared for something that would happen later in your life? Another battered person to strengthen, or someone else to advise? All this assumes one is a Christian to begin with.
I'm also disturbed by how it must feel to be a divorcee at a wedding. Especially weddings in this country. Or to be someone who lost your spouse in tragic ways. Do you feel a pang of pain? Or jealousy? I kept looking at these people and thinking about it. It got really uncomfortable.

The food was really good though. I'm going to have good food at my wedding. I like my victuals. My mother has already said quite cheerfully that she likes the Cinnamon Grand best of all the hotels she's been to for wedding receptions, so THAT is clearly not an issue. But really, bachelors these days are going to have to do a better job of presenting themselves as being eligible.