25 reasons to say “I don’t”

By Melinda Magsino

First published in Youngblood, Philippine Daily Inquirer

July 15, 1999

After the month of June when brides and grooms said nothing but "I do", it’s time to ponder upon 25 reasons one should say "I don’t":

1. Marriage is not a word. It is a sentence - a life sentence.
2. Marriage is very much like a violin, after the sweet music is over, the strings are attached.
3. Marriage is love, and love is blind. Therefore marriage is an institution for the blind.
4. Marriage is an institution wherein a man loses his bachelor’s degree and the woman gets her master’s.
5. Marriage puts a ring on a man and a woman’s finger, and two under their eyes.
6. Marriage certificate is just another word for a working permit.
7. Marriage is not having a wife or a husband, but also worries inherited forever.
8. Marriage requires four types of rings: the engagement ring, the wedding ring, suffe-ring and endu-ring
9. Married life is full of excitement and frustration: In the first year of marriage, the man speaks and the woman listens. In the second year, the woman speaks and the man listens. In the third, both speaks and the neighbors listen.
10. If it is true that love is blind, marriage is definitely an eye-opener.
11. Getting married is very much like going to a restaurant with friends; you order what you want, and when you see what the other girl has, you wish you ordered that.
12. It is true that all men are born equal. But some of them get married and then life becomes unfair.
13. There was this man who muttered a few words in church and found himself married. A year later, he muttered something in his sleep and found himself divorced.
14. A happy marriage is a matter of giving and taking: the wife gives her all and the man takes.
15. Son: How much does it take to get married, Dad? Father: I don’t know son, I am still paying for it? Son: Is it true, Dad, that in ancient China, a man doesn’t know his wife until he marries her? Father: That happens everywhere, son, everywhere!
16. A man once said "I never knew what happiness was until I got married- and then it was too late!"
17. Love is one long sweet dream, and marriage is the alarm clock.
18. They say that when a man holds a woman’s hands before marriage, it is love; after marriage, it’s self-defense.
19. When a newly married man looks happy, we know why. But when a man who is married for 10 years looks happy, we wonder why.
20. There was this lover who said he would go through hell for her. They got married and now he is there.
21. When a man opens the door of his car for his wife, it is either the car is new or the wife is.
22. If you want your wife to listen and pay attention to every word you say, talk in your sleep.
23. Marriage is like a cage: the birds outside are desperate to get in and those inside are desperate to get out.
24. Love is entirely a matter of chemistry. You can be treated like toxic waste.
25. Wife: I am an excellent housekeeper. Every time I got divorced, I keep the house.