- Published: October 3, 2022
- Updated: October 3, 2022
- Level: Undergraduate
- Language: English
- Downloads: 25
The paper ” Las Vegas Marriage: Mockery of a Sacred Union” is a perfect example of a book review on sociology.
Joan Didion, through her essay ‘ Marrying Absurd,’ has expressed her opinion about the marriages in LasVegas. She has described the marriages in Las Vegas as a commercial event rather than a sacred union between two people. She has described the wedding ritual as a means of business and instant fulfillment of shortly lived desires. Her description gives a picture that people get married in Las Vegas not to commit on a long-term basis but to have fun, instant gratification, and a thrill of marriage. This makes the marriage a joke and not a serious relationship. Hence, Didion describes the marriages in Las Vegas as one of the gambling game.
Personally, I feel that people who are wealthy, extremely materialistic by nature and who can afford everything that money can buy, are the people who like to get married in Las Vegas style. I think that these people, under the intoxication of power, fun and sensory gratification, fail to realize that marriage is not just for fun but has its own commitments and responsibilities. Moreover, marriage has its own place in the structure of society. People who get married in Las Vegas seem to be forgetting about its importance in a building of good society and also a building of a family. By getting married just to have fun, they not only risk their own happiness but also jeopardize the lives of children who will be born out of such marriages. A marriage that is done in hurry and on a spur of a moment has no foundation of love and understanding and hence, is likely to fail.
The author thinks that marriages in Las Vegas have made a mockery of the sacredness of the institution of marriage. Everything about the marriage and wedding ceremony is unreal and sham. The tears, the emotions, the promises and the love that is expressed by a couple and their relatives are all fake and plastic. The author thinks that the Las Vegas marriages are absurd as they lack depth, seriousness and above all, the sacredness involved in the act of marriage.
