A Busy Weekend

Cartoonist Randy Glasbergen, creator of the syndicated comic strip, “The Better Half,” amongst others, has made a successful career parodying the institute of marriage in comics and cartoons. While his creations cover many topics related to marriage, one of his most common themes is lack of knowledge and communication about each other before marrying. In one of Glasbergen’s cartoons (pictured left), two women, apparently co-workers, are discussing their weekend. One relates to a coworker how she met a wonderful man, “fell madly in love, got engaged, had a lovely wedding and honeymoon. Then things turned sour, we grew bitter, separated and divorced. It was quite a busy weekend!” (Glasbergen). Combined with the casual, nonchalant atmosphere of the cartoon, these two simple, small sentences succinctly and effectively depict many of the problems in how couples approach marriage today.

In the cartoon, one woman states how “(W)e met, fell madly in love, got engaged…” but does not mention anything about who the man is (Glasbergen). There is no commentary on what kind of person he is, what he does for a living, is he funny, responsible, nice, or any other personality traits. There is nothing at all about why they fell “madly in love.” Glasbergen’s lack of this information in the conversation gives the impression that the couple lacked this information within their relationship before they married, and such failure to have this information about each other ultimately led to divorce.

The fact that Glasbergen uses the word “madly” brings the whole point into acute perspective: the entire concept of falling “madly in love” is a form of insanity. Insane, especially when as is so unfortunately common today, it happens over a very short time. Glasbergen successfully and clearly points out the ridiculousness of people rushing into marriage. Maybe if these two people had taken some time to genuinely get to know one another their marriage would have lasted longer – at least longer than one weekend.

The “lovely wedding and honeymoon” comment very clearly emphasizes another serious problem in how people approach marriage today: it is all about having a good party. Too often people think that by spending a lot of money on a big, fancy wedding and expensive honeymoon to exotic locations they are somehow starting their marriage on the right foot. Many couples will spend far more time – easily hundreds of hours – discussing the actual wedding and honeymoon than they spend discussing their marriage – or each other and their expectations. They may spend incredible amounts of energy, money, and emotion planning the “perfect” wedding yet only a few minutes or hours talking about far more important issues to a successful marriage – such as children and finances.

Finally, “things turned sour, we grew bitter, separated and divorced” over the course of the marriage. There is no commentary as to whether or not they tried to work things out, or why things turned sour (probably because the honeymoon was over!), although the clear point Glasbergen is making is the marriage failed because they rushed into it without any real knowledge of each other – or of marriage itself. At the same time, Glasbergen is showing, again by lack of providing the information, that this couple rushed into ending the marriage and once again, failed to communicate with each other in order to save a marriage that they were obviously ill-prepared to embark upon to begin with.

Without clearly stating so in his words, Glasbergen is depicting this women – and her former husbands – failure to take time to get to know one another before they married and how such lack led to the demise of the marriage. The style of the drawing, the atmosphere and location of this discussion between coworkers serves to enhance this point. Here are two women, obviously coworkers, discussing something as important and life-altering as marriage (and subsequent divorce) over cups of coffee during a short coffee break at work. Such important topic as marriage and divorce being casually discussed in just a few minutes in a location where deep conversation is unlikely possible further emphasizes the approach this woman took to her entire marriage: just a casual, quick moment in life. She spent a weekend meeting, entering a relationship, engaging, marrying and divorcing a man. She then spends less than a minute relating the entire thing to her coworker. Through this small cartoon, Glasbergen has effectively depicted today’s common fast-food approach to both marriage and the aftermath.

Works Cited

Glasbergen, Randy. “Cartoons about Love, Relationships, Dating and Marriage.” 18 June 2005. 2004. .

Written for Professor Ryan's Composition Class at Pikes Peak Community College, 22nd June 2005