Laura Ingraham wrote a book several years ago called Shut Up and Sing: How Elites from Hollywood, Politics, and the UN Are Subverting America. She also suggested that actors and actresses should act on stage and screen rather than take their frequently inane opinions so seriously.
Cameron Diaz obviously hasn’t read the book. Ms. Diaz, who is in an “awesome” relationship with Alex Rodriguez, who, I am told, is a basball player, has recently expressed her opinion on the institution of marriage. She thinks it’s on its last legs and that those legs aren’t as shapely as Ms. Diaz’s.
Noting that “when an actress-no an artist-the caliber of Cameron Diaz weighs in on the future of social institutions, America has an obligation to listen,” David Harsanyi has responded:
Women with higher education levels are increasingly marrying. These are also presumably women who are likelier to have the economic freedom not to be married. So why do they do it?
I found studies and stories claiming that married Americans are healthier – less likely to get pneumonia or develop cancer or have heart attacks or dementia – than non-married Americans. According to other studies, married people live more content lives and are less likely to commit suicide (granted, a pretty low bar of happiness, but still) or worry. Married couples are better off financially, and their children are usually more successful.
Why are couples staying together? Like Diaz, we can hypothesize. Perhaps the rise of connective technology has created marriages based more on compatibility than immediacy or luck. Perhaps we have readjusted to our life expectancy and marry later and thus more smartly. Whatever the reasons, marriage can bring a healthier life.
This is not a moral observation of a traditionalist, but indisputable. There is innate need pulling us to marriage. It’s been around from prehistory, and it has taken many forms – polygamy, polyandry and my historical favorite, polyfidelity – but it’s never been close to passing on. Today we’ve settled on monogamy, and it has brought great stability and structure to society. It’s probably busy readjusting rather than dying.
I’d prove this firsthand to doubters, but alas, Cameron, I am spoken for.
By the way, Ingraham fans were delighted at her witty and dismissive response to the non-witty Ed Schultz’s calling her a “slut.” A Washington Post blogger offers Schultz a helpful etiquette tip:
And in general, calling people sluts is not a good idea, even in the sense that one sometimes calls people cabs – “Oh, it’s past 8:00 p.m.; we should contact Mark.”