"WE LOVE EACH OTHER," HE SAID, AS I PUSHED HIS HEAD INTO THE TRIFLE

“It has always been a mystery to me why people marry,” said Mr Prendergast. “I can’t see the smallest reason for it. Quite happy, normal people... I don’t think that people would ever fall in love or want to be married if they hadn’t been told about it. It’s like abroad: no one would want to go there if they hadn’t been told about it.”

“I don’t think you can be quite right,” said Paul. “You see, animals fall in love quite a lot, don’t they?”

“Do they?” said Prendergast. “I didn’t know that. But then I had an aunt whose cat used to put its paw up to its mouth when it yawned. It’s wonderful what animals can be taught.” (Evelyn Waugh, Decline and Fall)

The reasons given for matrimony in the Prayer Book are:

1. The procreation of children.
2. A remedy agaynste sinne and to avoide fornication.
3. The mutual societie, helpe, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other.

Is that it? Are those still the reasons, or have they got some new ones? John Prescott, for example, is married; did he really have trouble avoiding fornication, looking like that? Is that what they're claiming?

There's money, of course. My grandfather advised me to marry someone rich. "The woman gets old and wrinkled," he explained, "but the money always stays beautiful." This was one of his favourite aphorisms, along with "There is no such place as Australia" and "Only poofs eat cheese."

Marrying for money, however, is a zero-sum game: the extent to which one party gains the other loses. It cannot therefore justify the institution of marriage unless it can be shown to somehow increase gross domestic product, which obviously it does not.

Tradition is a possible reason, if you value tradition for its own sake. But it would make just as much sense to sacrifice goats or take up Morris Dancing. More sense, in fact, because a goat has no legal claim on your assets.

So why do people still do it? I can think of two good reasons:

1. A sense of irony.
2. It’s a nice day out.

I tossed these ideas about at dinner the other night. "But Harry," someone snivelled, "we're getting married because we love each other." "That's a non-sequitur," I replied, and pushed his foolish head into the trifle.