I've been contemplating marriage.
Before you panic, I mean in the way that a crime novelist contemplates murder: with a view to its narrative possibilities rather than to actually committing it.
For, as you will soon discover, in the Battle of the Sexes, I've been pretty much reduced to the role of war correspondent.
My construals, if such they are, have been prompted by Spookie's announcement in the pub on Sunday night.
He and Mrs Spookie, he told us, have been celebrating 10 years of wedded bliss.
"Pity", he added, "that we've been married for 25 years".
"And", he went on, "we've only had one row in the whole time. It's still going on".
Chopper, who, in his time, has seen Mrs Choppers going in and out like a fiddler's elbow, said he was going to cut the whole process short next time.
I quote (you can tell by the funny marks around the words):
"I'll just find a woman I can't stand and buy her half a house".

All of this made me wonder why people commit the crime of marriage.
As the previous Mrs Sledges can attest, I'm extremely bad at this particular malfeasance and have vowed to reform, giving it up along with other things that (a) I'm bad at and (b) should be criminalised.
Like tennis, morris dancing and the WA sway -- veering to the left when taking a right turn.

Part of this train of thought -- now rapidly backing into a siding I fear -- is connected with the recent debate over same-sex marriages.
Why is it that, no matter how bad they are for them, people seem to want things they can't have?
Like all those women who want to be priests for god's sake?
Until all of this came up, I was seriously considering padding up for the other side simply to avoid further recidivism -- though I'm reliably informed that it's an acquired taste.

On second thought (singular) then, marriage is probably less a crime and more a rampant mental illness.
It afflicts persons who haven't quite grown up properly and miss their mummies and/or daddies.
The therapy, which will surely be listed in the next edition of the APA's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, is aply termed "adultery".

And just as some people appear to thrive on their illnesses (hence "to enjoy ill health"), I have seen happy marriages.
They were in the Longyearbyen Museum of Frozen Curiosities in Spitsbergen (NB the correct spelling thereof).

Sledge