"Engaged? Engaged?" By Sandra Carol Mers Clayton

       

             "Big" celebrity news: actors Brad and Angelina are engaged!     Uhhhhhhh ... they've been living together for, what ... seven years I believe I just read.  They have six children. They have several homes. They've had seven-years' worth of seeing each other as they are when they wake up in the mornings.  They've been playing house together for a long enough time now that's it's almost laughable to see the headlines:  "Brad and Angelina Engaged!"     "Engaged" for what?  They've already BEEN engaged in living together without the seal of marriage.  According to celebrity news reports they've made their could-care-less-about-marriage views well known over the years.     They've both been married before:  Brad once, Angelina twice. They were both involved in a marriage break-up: Brad Pitt's.  They started their affair, which ended Brad Pitt's five-year marriage, when they worked together on a film. I'd say that makes them "home-wreckers".  But we are all supposed to be SO excited that they are NOW "engaged".     A newspaper article states:  "The A-list celebrities have been partners since they began a relationship in  2005 while working on the film 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith'.  (The Wichita Eagle, 4/14/2012, "People In The News")     "Since they began a relationship" means since they began the illicit affair.  Since Brad Pitt became a cheating husband.  Since Angelina happily became "the other woman" in the illicit affair.     I suppose, as a believer in marriage, I am at least happy they ARE finally thinking of giving their kids a legal status, a "legally joined" set of parents who will have a harder time splitting up than if they were simply living together with no legal attachments.  Legal or not doesn't seem to make much difference to so many of the Hollywood crowd (nor to many others, for that matter), but ... who knows?     So.....................getting married?  Okay.  Good. Do it. Though Mr. Pitt's manager states that there is no wedding date set, but that the engagement is a "promise for the future".  Let's hope, at least for the six kids, that it's a NEAR future.     "Engaged".  Getting engaged, not so long ago, WAS a "big deal".  It was exciting, giving the couple something wonderful to look forward to.  It was a time of getting to know each other even better (and I don't mean sexually) as the couple dreamed and planned their wedding day and of their life together.     Getting engaged was a beginning - not a sealing-of-the-deal for a couple who has already moved in together.  However long or short the engagement was, it led to the "I do's" of the couple, which THEN led to the sleeping together.  The sex came AFTER the wedding, believe it or not, the way God ordained it.     Too many have it backwards nowadays.  Remember the old jump-rope chant: "First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage!"?  Now it is too often sex first (with or without love) and then, sometimes, the baby, too ... then moving in together (which, by the way, is completely to the guy's advantage in a number of ways - wake up, women!) ... then a few years later getting "engaged" (or not, as many women have discovered, after living together) ... which may, or may not lead to marriage eventually.      In such a situation I just fail to see the purpose of announcing an "engagement".  The couple has already BEEN engaged in living together like a married couple.  "Engagement", in this case, fails to meet the definition of the word as they are wishing it to be understood.     Which is why I can hardly get too excited over the big news of the already-living-together-for-years couple, Brad and Angelina, getting "engaged".  After seven years.  After six children. After years of letting us all know that "marriage papers" aren't important.  After the example they are to our youth.     If "engaged" is a beginning, a newness between a man and a woman who have fallen in love and are getting to know each other more and more, are looking FORWARD to moving in together and setting up housekeeping and "sleeping together", then announcing an engagement AFTER they've already become sexually active and moved in together seems a bit late.     The "newness", the "beginning", has already BEEN!  What do they look forward to?     Get married.  Okay.  Fine. I hope they do, even after seven years of already living together. I hope they stay married and give the six children a stable life.     But announce an engagement????  Uhhhhhhhhhh.........?