| Develops relevant ideas about relationships. Sequences writing. Includes relevant examples. Argument follows an appropriate paragraphed structure with:
Uses an appropriate:
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“I take you, your television, your lounge suite, and your CD collection to have and to hold…” Are people are putting the important things first in their relationships? Attitudes to forming partnerships have changed so much and so quickly. There has been a major change of views even in the one generation between us and our parents. Maybe it is the materialistic super fast lifestyle we live in today that has put partnerships including marriage into the same category as buying a new consumer item for some people. We see something we like and we buy it immediately. When we decide to form a partnership, it ranks alongside the new DVD player in the priorities stakes. We can also be influenced by how relationships are portrayed on TV more than they are in reality. Pre-nuptial agreements can put material things ahead of a partner. It is almost as though what you have matters more than who you are. This is where those getting married state what their possessions are before they get married, so that if they split up there are no disagreements about who owns what. To me, this is giving up even before you have begun. Putting material things before your partner cannot be a good foundation for a lasting marriage. Marriage is supposed to be where two people promise to love each other and to spend the rest of their lives together, not worry about who owns the freezer and the washing machine. TV can also put out the wrong idea by showing marriage as a game. In Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire, a man [who just happens to be a millinaire] is able to pick and choose out of a swarm of women eager to become famous and find love. The women compete in a beauty contest among other things. The grand prize winner gets to marry a millionaire live on TV that they not only have never met, but have never seen. Once the lucky woman is chosen, the others are rejected. The producer of the show was asked if he thought the couple would stay married. He said he thought it would be a long shot, but that "They'd go away, come back and decide whether they liked each other or not." This sort of show gives out the wrong messages about the reasons for making a commitment to someone else. The millionaire chose his partner because of her looks. His new wife chose him because of his money. My fear is that people might take this sort of show seriously and apply it to decisions they make about their relationships. Some people might say that all aspects of our lives are changing faster than ever before, including relationships. They might say that we should realise that change happens constantly and that it is impossible to resist it. They might send a text or an email, not a rose scented love letter. They might use the internet to open up many new ways of forming relationships. It is easy to chat to someone on the other side of the world that you have not even met. The problem is that they are just virtual relationships, not the real thing where you get to know someone properly face to face. It is sad to see that forming partnerships can be influenced by all the wrong things. We need to get back to what really matters to making relationships last, like love and commitment. |
Writing conventionsareused accurately throughout: correct grammar, punctuation and spelling. (NB: a few random errors, or minor editing lapses, are acceptable.) |
Published on: 17 Jan 2011
