For whom the wedding bells toll

On Sunday, the lovely Snapdragon and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary.

“Let’s grill a chicken the way you like it and have a romantic candle-lit dinner,” she suggested.

“Why punish a poor chicken for our stupidity?” I countered.

Upon reflection, the past year was sheer hell, and I’m happily married. I can’t even begin to imagine how terrible it must be to be unhappily married.

All in all, I’m looking forward to many more years of marital bliss with my best friend, a beautiful woman and a worthy rival. Unlike Julius and Mmusi.

Marriage is not a step to be taken lightly. If you put a ring on another party’s finger, it is always a good idea to do it out of love and not just to spite a third party.

But there was no use telling this to the DA in the afterglow of the 2016 municipal elections.

If you build a marriage on lust, things tend to turn sour pretty soon – I’ve seen that often. Talk of land grabs will surface shortly after the honeymoon.

Such an issue has never surfaced between me and the lovely Snapdragon, although, to be fair, she does occupy most of the bed at times and refuses to move an inch. And the idea of throat slitting … it has never crossed my mind. And hers not too often, I believe.

I’m told that half of all marriages end in divorce. I’m cautiously optimistic about the odds that Snapdragon and I can make ours work.

Which doesn’t bode well for the union between Mmusi and Julius – Juju was, after all, caught flirting with the ANC last week.

Can that marriage be saved? A year and a previous failed marriage hardly qualifies me as an expert, but ignorance has never prevented us South Africans from giving an opinion.

I believe next year’s elections will be the litmus test for a lot of things in our beloved country. It will give an indication of how much of the public’s trust uncle Cyril managed to regain, of how many citizens have turned their back on the ANC and of the state of the Malema/Maimane union.

In my opinion, Mmusi and Juju will hesitate to extend their marriage to other areas. But who knows? Bigger miracles have happened.

Like Snapdragon and I surviving a year…

Dirk Lotriet. Picture: Alaister Russell

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