Marriage: just business as usual
ENGLISH poet, John Lyly, intoned the notion that all’s fair in love and war. But then, when he walked the earth, marriages were mostly arranged and relationships built on the basis of power, property and the accumulation of wealth.
Hence why his (albeit superior) compatriot in literature, Sir William Shakespeare’s plays from the same time are littered with tales of tragedy and deception: far from the loved-up romantic fairy tales films dictate as the norm nowadays, back then, sharing a bed with someone you called “husband” or “wife” more often than not made them your immediate foe. One to whom you said “I do” in order to secure a better position within the social strata – only to spend your life being betrayed or dabbling in your own games of deception to maintain said position. Particularly if you moved in the celebrity circles of the day, namely the royal courts.
Fast-forward some 500 years, and the landscape of VIP love has undergone a massive shift. Or has it? From the likes of Scott Disick (whose repeated infidelity and disinterest in Kourtney Kardashian made it obvious to anyone with eyes that he was only in it for the fame), Casper Smart (who, like his namesake, was something of a ghost before he began dating J-Lo) and Blac Chyna (otherwise referred to as the “who she be?” plastic doll and baby mama to, first rapper Tyga, now Rob Kardashian – brother of Tyga’s current squeeze, Kylie), to pretty much every one of the women featured on The Real Housewives of… series, when there’s money, fame and status involved, plenty of people are still gleefully willing to sell their souls.
And that’s not even to speak of Beyonce, who is forever squeezing her sour lemons regarding her (as it turns out, not so idyllic) marriage to music mogul Jay Z in public of late. But she’s not alone in her “jilted wife” journey.
After 33 years of matrimony (their warped version of one, at any rate), Sharon Osbourne has finally called time on her relationship with Ozzy. Apparently, this “rock ’n’ roll mom”, half of Heavy Metal’s Golden Couple, is “devastated” after she discovered the former Black Sabbath frontman had been stepping out on her with a hairstylist.
Forgive me, though, if I don’t erupt into a frenzy of shock and disgust on Bey and Shazza’s behalf. After all, Ozzy has hardly been the paradigm of moral virtue during his decades in the public eye (there’s a reason he’s known as The Prince of Darkness) and – more importantly – this is not the first time he has strayed!
Sharon has previously caught him in compromising positions with the children’s nannies – twice! – and lest we forget, she herself was the result of Ozzy’s irrepressible roving eye. (Ozzy walked out on his first marriage to Thelma Riley – to whom he was hitched for 11 years and who is also mom to three of his children – to hook up with Shazza.)
As for Queen B, again, why all the angst? Rumours of Jay Z’s penchant for dipping his pen in other ladies’ ink pots have swirled since the day this duo became the Power Couple of the music biz, so just why did she think getting him to “put a ring on it” would suddenly curb his appetite for infidelity?
The more appropriate question, however, would be, knowing what manner of man they were getting involved with, why did they choose to stay?
Well, the telltale signs are in the titles, it seems… GOLDEN couple; POWER couple…
Sure, as singular entities, both women are sassy, successful lasses in their own right. But it’s the being-part-of-a-twosome bit that really flung them into the stratosphere of stardom.
And when you’re playing in the popularity big leagues, what’s love got to do with it?
LARA DE MATOS