Shotgun Marriage

Back in the old days, shotgun marriage is a term used to refer to marriage resulting from pregnancy. I don’t know how the term comes around but I can imagine. Probably the shotgun barrel are not what the guy see when they are humping their future bride - most likely that comes after the parent got wind of the pregnancy. In countries like Malaysia where guns are outlawed, perhaps the similar term would be “parang” marriage.

I remember a time when it’s a trend for older woman to wed younger guy. That was about the time when our former Miss Malaysia Arianna Teoh got married to our F1 rejects Alex Yoong. People looked at them in awe, people talked about how older women have more experiences when it comes to enjoying the bedroom times – and they decided to follow suit. Younger dudes date older women willingly – but what they don’t get is older women usually have different needs - like the urge to tie the knot ASAP – therefore they ended up in the wedding altar – rather unwillingly. In essence, this sort of marriage is very similar to shotgun marriage, perhaps the notable difference is the fact that usually it’s the older bride who is holding the shotgun.

What these young dudes didn’t get also was the fact that in Malaysia, you can get married as easy as tossing a coin, but when it comes to divorce, you will tossing yourself into deep shit. Maybe you can use the shotgun, but then – usually it’s the older wife who keeps the gun. What started off as a great bedroom experiences with older woman usually ends in tragedy. But hey, if celebrities like Arianna and Alex can’t even keep their marriages, who are we pheasants to keep ours?

People learnt their lesson, so now younger dudes no longer looks for older women – except for some cases where the older women transformed into cougars and are immensely wealthy. In these cases, the dudes would eventually become a trophy husband if the older women don’t get sick with them. But there was no forcing here. Instead of shotgun, these are gold plated marriage. Lavish lifestyle awaits – only for young dudes who have six pack.

For those who doesn’t have six packs, they would rather wait – because the trend now is where older guy married younger women – much much younger women. Trendsetters, as we know, are always some celebrities. So it doesn’t come as a big surprise when Amber Chia married an older men who is even married before with kids. Lee Sin Je did the same, earlier.
Older men with baggage (kids from former marriages) – used to be shunned – suddenly become hot cakes. They get their trophy wife and lives happily ever after – just like the fairy tales they read to their kids from former marriage. But we all know fairy tales are craps, don’t we?

With our social network getting more complicated by the day, so is our relationship. Many people decide to wait till their 30s before getting hitched. Perhaps they have learned their lesson from history. Marriage is never designed for people below 30, just like Iphone4 is never designed for people above 60.

People are more careful with marriage nowadays. They prefer to take it easy. Let’s hope shotgun marriage is a thing of the past – with people getting more thoughtful and conscientious. But wait a minute…just last week, I heard of a friend getting married. The thing is they had just been dating for barely 3 months. Then there’s this girl who we always admire from afar. She just got married, people say, after meeting the now-husband in a beach party 2 months ago. Recently also, this gorgeous HR lady who we always drool after – she just changed her relationship status to “in a relationship”. Surprisingly all these people have one similarity, they are in their 30s.

Perhaps shotgun marriage is not dead after all. It just evolves into another form. Careful or not, desperate people are still desperate people.