Sex and money. It’s funny how these words induced tumult in the open sky I called my 16-year-old brain. 

They were something I feared. Instead of the answer I expected to pacify my insecurities, my dad attempted to summarize the meaning of marriage in two words. 

And those words made me angry.

He crushed this elusive fantasy beneath his feet and raised even more questions into the storm churning in my head. Two minutes into my dad’s explanation, it was as if I had lost all air traffic control. Questions and answers flew by from different directions – conflicting with each other, causing others to blow up. How could he simplify something bachelors loathe and little girls dream of in two words?

I decided he couldn’t. Other than being pretty extreme, my father raised a point. After all, why are virginities saved and dowries paid? It seems as if it boils down to sex. And money. Surely there are people who marry for love, and stay together for that reason, right? 

But times have changed significantly. Two out of three women were married in 1960, whereas now it is only about half. 

The National Marriage Project by Rutgers University of New Jersey recorded that marriage rates have gone down and divorce rates have gone up. Fewer people identify their marriage as being happy, and more people live together without being married.

I tip my hat to the elderly couples who hold hands with wedding rings on their fingers and the homosexuals who took advantage of the absence of Prop 8 -- these people give meaning to holy matrimony. Marriage can be a beautiful thing. I can only hope people take it seriously and question their real reasons behind getting married. I feel as if not enough people do that anymore. Marriage is often a tool. 

A label. 

A myth. 

As humans, we are programmed to do two things: survive and procreate. All animals are, and though we like to think our progress separates us from such behavior, it’s what we’re supposed to do. But I’m not so sure a marriage certificate is a part of our DNA. 

I suppose it’s one of the wonderful things fixed into our culture to help us feel secure.

Forty years ago, success often rested in the growth of the family. Nowadays, the focus seems less on the family life and more on distractions, like jobs, or television.  

Why are fewer people putting a meaning to marriage now? Is it because what is supposed to make us more secure, more complete conflicts with contemporary society?  

After all, we have 24-hour drive-thru wedding chapels and people like Britney Spears and her 72-hour sanctified fling to thank for cheapening marriage.

It takes $55 to get married at the Clark County Marriage bureau in Las Vegas. But what does it take to make a marriage last?