GENE DAMMON: Improving a risky investment

What is the riskiest investment a family can make these days? No, not stocks or bonds. Not even a variable-rate-mortgage-financed home. It’s their daughter’s wedding. There’s about a 50-50 chance the marriage will end in divorce, after which (most) all of those expensive wedding pictures won’t be worth burning.

Do you know how much weddings cost these days? If you’ve married off a daughter lately, you do. It is shocking! It can be done “on the cheap,” of course, but the little princess and her mom have some good arguments against that. “It’s once in a lifetime!” “We’ll never do this again!” and so on.

Unfortunately, that vow, “‘til death us do part” is one of the most commonly broken contractual agreements in America today. And there is absolutely no correlation between the cost of the wedding and the length of the marriage. If the marriage has produced any children, the kids of divorce have a good chance of being introduced to a brand-new lifestyle, called “hard times.”

When a catastrophe like Ike, Rita, or Katrina strike, we mobilize resources and move in to help the victims. In divorce, the catastrophe takes place mainly behind closed doors, and the damage is done before we have time to react. I would like to see a change in the way we approach this problem.

You know as well as I all the reasons for divorce in modern America. Let me suggest a plan that would alleviate many of the problems young couples encounter in our culture, giving them a better chance of surviving as a family, and benefiting our society in far-reaching ways.

“A big church wedding” is still the preference of most girls when thinking of marriage. Good, because my plan starts with a church. The pastor will want to do some pre-marital counseling, and at that time he can introduce the young couple to the “New Paradigm for Starting Married Life” (feel free to make up a better name for it). “Debt Free Marriage” has a nice ring to it.

The church will already have the plan in place, agreed upon and financed by the congregation. The attraction for the young couple will be a partially completed, small but attractive, “starter home,” or “garden home,” built at least in part by the same retired Baptist Men (or KC’s or similar group) that shows up after hurricanes to fix up damaged homes. It will require some “sweat equity” on the part of the couple, and they can live in the house for a few years (or forever, if later they want to buy it).

The women in the church are in charge of the wedding, unless they can hang, tape and float sheetrock. The bride will choose from an inventory of stored wedding furnishings, with a fixed limit on money spent by her family for “new stuff.” It all goes back into the inventory after the rice is thrown. 

If and when a child is born, the new mom stays home until the kid is in school. The church gives “their newlyweds” support of any kind needed, and the new family takes an active part in the life of the church. As long as the spirit of the arrangement is honored, the fewer the rules set out, the better.

If this sounds somewhat Utopian or unrealistic, you should remember that it was done pretty much this way in rural America for many generations before we all decided to move to the city and get cars and credit cards.  

There is a vast pool of untapped talent in our country, as people are capable of leading active, productive lives long after retirement. The two ends of the adult life cycle have much to offer each other, and we can help them get together. 

Gene Dammon of Port Neches is a contributing writer to the Port Arthur News. His e-mail address is: gene-san@sbcglobal.net.

Text Only