Strangers who wed for a reality TV show
Emma and James, both respectable professionals, did just that. And, guess what, it’s already falling apart
of sweat dribble off my face and onto my shirt.’ Who said romance was dead?
Interviews the couple have given since reveal that the rose-tinted sheen of their wedding day has faded further still. ‘ We don’t fancy each other!’ they declared, glibly, last month.
Emma admitted: ‘Physically, we’ve both said, if we met in the pub, we probably wouldn’t stop for each other. Obviously, attraction is very important and that can affect your sexual relationship, so we have some work to do in that area.’
She has also revealed the reality of what she was doing hit her halfway through the ceremony, which, in the end, her father didn’t support — or even attend. ‘If we don’t work, I am a divorcee for life,’ she said.
It certainly doesn’t sound promising — though viewers will have to wait until the end of the three-part series to find out whether Emma and James live happily ever after — and whether the science behind their pairing actually worked.
For the ‘science’ behind the concept — which required applicants to submit to months of tests and experiments involving everything from hip-to-waist measurements and intelligence tests to facial symmetry and video diaries — is presented as though it were foolproof.
One of the experts is so confident in the methodology that he declares: ‘We can predict who you will fall in love with better than you can’.
Leading the panel is Dr Mark Coulson, a professor of psychology at Middlesex University, who says he signed up ‘ because it’s time for science to put its money where its mouth is’.
Joining him are psychologist Jo Coker, evolutionary anthropologist Anna Machin and social visual anthropologist Andrew Irving, all of whom are quick to defend criticism that the show degrades marriage. ‘I’d say this is a very positive and productive way of thinking about marriage,’ says Irving.
Bizarrely, the fifth member of the panel is Reverend Nick Devenish, a Church of England vicar from the sedate Priory Church of St Mary and St Michael in Cartmel, Cumbria.
He’s married over 150 couples and says he agreed to take part because he heard ‘a cry for help from young people who have a serious intention and want to have a serious commit- ment to a life-long partner, but are finding it hard to find that person’.
It’s difficult to ignore the nagging feeling, however, that he is simply the respectable face of an otherwise unrespectable show. Somewhat tellingly, he didn’t conduct any of the ceremonies himself.
And there is something deeply unsettling about watching the experts clinically matching mugshots in a sterile conference room while their excited subjects go dress and suit shopping and celebrate their impending nuptials with emotional parents and friends.
As someone who got married six weeks ago, to a man I’ve been with for ten years, I can’t imagine anything worse. I feel sorry for those who feel tying the knot with a stranger is the answer. Maybe I should count myself lucky: there are 17 million single people in the UK, after all — more than ever before. But divorce rates, too, are on the rise, with 42 per cent of marriages breaking down.
‘I don’t know what the future holds,’ admits Emma Rathbone. ‘But I haven’t done this for a laugh or just to get on TV. I believe in the experts matching us well.’ For better or — perhaps more likely — for worse.