The Guardian

My advice for a good marriage? Don’t start with a dream wedding | Nina Caplan

When I learned to ignore my inner Barbra Streisand, I realised the truth about long-term love. No wonder the middle-aged are the most happily hitched
Licensed to dream: Omar Sharif and Barbra Streisand in the 1968 film of Funny Girl Photograph: Snap/Rex Shutterstock

“What people fail to realise,” my newlywed friend remarked as we discussed my upcoming nuptials, “is that when women say they want to get married, they generally mean they want a wedding.” To which I would add: or security, or reassurance, or even – whisper it – status. Somewhere within a lot of young women – and we were young, barely into our 30s – there’s a (“Oh how that marriage licence works / on chambermaids and hotel clerks”). Even if they’ve never seen Funny

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