Always know the answer

Wednesday, January 11th, 2012 at 8:41 am

Stuff reports:

A hopeful groom-to-be suffered the most public of rejections when his proposal at a basketball game was blocked in front of hundreds of fans.

The young man got down on one knee at the UCLA game in California and pulled out a ring live on the stadium’s “mistletoe cam” just before Christmas.

“I knew I was going to do this the first day I met you, so I know this is going to sound corny but … will you marry me?” he said.

But rather than a happy yes, the young woman shook her head.

Her boyfriend could only watch in horror as she grabbed her bag and left the area to jeers from the crowd.

In politics there is a saying, that you should never ask a question that you do not already know the answer to.

I think the same maxim should apply to marriage proposals – or at least public marriage proposals.

A successful public marriage proposal can be sweet and endearing and a memory to last a lifetime. But you should not be doing it unless you are absolutely sure what the answer will be.

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Posted in Fun Things | 14 Comments »

Is marriage a historical relic?

Monday, June 20th, 2011 at 12:17 pm

That’s the question I pose over at Stuff.

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Posted in New Zealand, NZ Politics | 34 Comments »

Marriage in the United States

Friday, January 8th, 2010 at 1:07 pm

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Posted in United States | 122 Comments »

Mixed race marriages

Sunday, October 18th, 2009 at 4:00 pm

AFP reports:

AN interracial couple in Louisiana have been denied a marriage license by an official who considers their union morally wrong, according to local media.

“I’m not a racist,” Keith Bardwell, a justice of the peace in rural Tangipahoa Parish, told the Hammond Star.

“I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house. My main concern is for the children.”

Mr Bardwell told the paper that he believes interracial marriages do not last and that the children of such unions are not accepted by either the black or white community.

Now of course Bardwell is bonkers to think it is his job to decide whether or not a couple should be able to get married, based on his beliefs. He does the classic groupist error of applying a generalisation to everyone (and of thinking it is his decision anyway).

It did get me interested in what is the prevalance of “mixed race” marriages and whether or not their divorce rates are higher than “same race” marriages.

In NZ we have traditionally had a high rate of mixed race marriages, as all modern Maori New Zealanders have at least one European ancestor. I do wonder if we have current stats on this – presumably the census data could reveal this.

In the US, only 2.8% of black women and 6.6% of black men had a white spouse. While 41% of Asian women have a white husband and 36% of Asian men have a white wife. So a big difference in prevalence depending on the races involved.

In terms of divorce rates Wikipedia says:

Marital stability studies published on the Education Resources Information Center found that White female-Black male unions are more prone to result in a divorce than White-White marriages are, while Black female-White male marriages show similar or lower risks of divorce than White-White marriages.

So Bardwell is wrong with his generalisation also.

As I said, I would be interested to see what the prevalence of mixed race/culture marriages are in NZ, and if there are differences in the divorce rates. Anyone know of any studies already done?

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Posted in United States | 22 Comments »