Marriage Monitors
In many parts of the world, most aspects of our lives are regulated by the state to one degree or another. From the everyday domestic routines of waste disposal to the once-only logistical rituals of our deaths. And of course, what we have to do to marry. Much of the time we no longer notice such regulation, so taken for granted it has become.
The pandemic has changed all that. Sudden and severe regulations are imposed overnight. We board an airplane prepared for one set of immigration regulations, only to find these have changed by the time we land. If we are allowed to take off at all. For the most part, by most people, the new dispensation of extreme and rapid regulation has been accepted – even when it comes between us and our loved ones, as they die or as we marry. But we are ever more aware of how they shape our lives, both in their observance and in their breach.
In this funky Micro Dose, one of our young correspondents explores how pandemic-related regulations have changed the rhythm of our marriage celebrations, in sometimes absurd ways.
