TIME Cover: Wedding Over Marriage

This is the TIME magazine cover (February 27, 1995) mentioned in the previous post (Marriage = Wedding?); it was chosen to illustrate the topic of “strengthening marriages” (click on the image to go to the TIME Cover Archive).

While the accompanying articles are about marriages (Gleick, 1995; Van Biema, 1995), the primary association this cover image conjures is of a wedding. What we see is not the complexity of an ongoing marriage but the plastic representations of the happy couple that crown the wedding cake. The cake toppers – a classic bride and groom, united and brought close by the bouquet they hold – pop off the cover, the figures noticeably white against the calm blue backdrop. Such a couple in white symbolizes a traditional American white wedding much more than it depicts an actual marriage.

What catches viewers off guard is the rough kitchen twine wrapped around the bride and groom, tying them to each other. The twine symbolizes the attempted strengthening of the marriage by such means as creating legal hurdles to divorce or extensive counseling before marriage (Gleick, 1995). The rough nature of the material, and the fact that it ties the couple together (possibly against their will) puts the image’s emphasis more on the prevention of divorce, rather than the offer of better relationship tools before the wedding.

The twine measure looks improvised, even desperate, and this discordant tone in turn makes the blue somber and wistful, adding a tinge of sadness to the wedding party, which even the warm yellow glow lighting them can’t dissipate. In fact, the couple looks trapped in the spotlight, caught in the twine, and the groom looks distinctly worried or ill at ease. The groom seems dubious of the matrimonial bond already, kept in place solely by the twine, while the bride, still in her veil, looks uncomfortable as well. The marriage this wedding is supposed to start appears over before it truly began.

The image fails to capture the full complexities of marriage and, unlike the articles it accompanies, it also fails to include the additional family members who might be affected by the state of the matrimony: the children. Weddings are the start of a marriage and so symbolize the beginning of family, not its growth or development. The image of the happy couple on the cake has no space for children, yet children are affected by their parents’ relationship. Does tying the bride and groom together really benefit their (unseen) children?

Giving couples the relationship tools to grow and nurture healthy and strong marriages might be a better way to help their children. The cover image would have done more to support the articles if it had emphasized these aspects of marriage, rather than the child-free wedding day, made permanent by the application of kitchen twine (no divorce for you).