Item from the Smart Marriages Archive, reproduced in the Divorce Statistics Collection
Letter From America: Mired in myths of matrimony and millions
Ramesh Chandran

02/27/2000
The Times of India

WASHINGTON: When George W Bush, John McCain and Alain Keyes -- the
Republican
presidential candidates -- were engaged in an engrossing televised debate
earlier this month, approximately three million viewers tuned into CNN to
watch
it.

Simultaneously, as though putting matters into sobering perspective, 23
million
Americans watched Fox Television, rivetted by the new show ``Who Wants to
Marry
A Multimillionaire?'' At the same time, ABC's ratings juggernaut, ``Who
Wants To
Be A Millionaire'' was drawing a huge viewership. But it was being run
close by
the maverick Fox channel which drew women between the ages of 18 and 34
in
hordes.

The new programme was branded by television critics as being one of the
zaniest
in recent memory. Fox devised a show in which a parade of young women,
would-be
brides, competed to be chosen by a multimillionaire and culminated in an
on-the-air wedding presided over by a Nevada judge. Needless to say, the
show
caused immediate revulsion among many women --specifically feminist
groups --who
felt these young women had agreed to be humiliated by competing to marry
an
unknown man and which simply led to reinforcing existing stereotypes of
women
being ``desperate'' to marry.

But for all their sense of outrage, young women comprised the largest
viewership. And Fox's website, www-whowantstomarry.com, predictably
enough,
crashed under the avalanche of requests from young women who wanted to
appear in
the next episode.

However, disaster was looming large for Fox which thought it had struck
gold
dust and a ratings bonanza at a time when when network television has been
feeling the white heat of competition from cable and Internet. The
network had
conducted coast-to-coast interviews to select 50 female contestants who
had to
pivot, swivel and utter such banalities such as ``I know how to treat a
man in
all ways''. Pre-nuptial agreements were signed all around and the women
would
bare their feet and washboard stomachs while the mysterious
multimillionaire sat
in the shadows watching intently, a voyeur along with 23 other million
viewers.

A San Diego-based real estate developer and motivational speaker,
43-year-old
Rick Rockwell chose a petite platinum-blonde nurse, 34-year-old Darva
Conger, a
Gulf War veteran to boot, to be his wife. Rockwell chose her from other
more
cerebral contestants who identified themselves as having a doctorate in
clinical
psychology, a Brown University graduate, a stunt woman and a computer
engineer.

The newly-betrothed couple could barely settle down when the irreverent
website
--www-the smoking gun.com alleged that Rockwell had battered and
threatened to
kill a former fiancee nine years ago and posted a copy of the restraining
order
issued against Rockwell by a judge. Deeply embarrassed, Fox promptly
cancelled a
re-run of the show and issued a statement which said ``in the light of
the new
information, a re-broadcast would be inappropriate''.

The 1991 restraining order petition alleged that Rockwell had slapped and
shoved
his former wife, entered her home without her permission and vandalised
her car
after she had told him she had no plans of marrying him. When Rockwell's
friends were interviewed, they expressed amazement that Rockwell had
``suddenly'' become a multimillionaire. For the moment, Fox announced it
had no
plans of finding other ``multimillionaires'' to be married to
unsuspecting women
live on television after its first attempt to blend greed, glitz and holy
matrimony collapsed like a fallen souffle. For Rockwell and his new
bride, the
one-week-long marriage foundered even before the honeymoon was over.

Even before more sordid aspects of Rockwell's past hit online chats,
there was
fierce criticism of Fox's tactics. Patricia Ireland, president of the
National
Organisation of Women remarked: ``It took something like this to make the
Miss
America pageant look good to me''. As other critics in more astringent
remarks
stated that the new Fox programme ``trivialised marriage'', some
satirists had a
field day debunking the programme. Sports writer and in-house humorist
of the
Washington Post Tony Kornheiser spoofed: ``I was moved by their sincerity
--especially when Rick said: `The person I ask to marry has my total
commitment
-- er -- what 's your name again?'''

Diana Sollee, director of the Coalition for Marriage, Family and Couples
Education remarked: ``The show made marriage into a big beauty pageant, a
coming-out party'' and added that shows such as Fox's reflected the fact
that as
a nation, America did not have a ``clue'' about how to make marriages
last. She
stressed: ``Marriage isin't at all a game of luck. The research is clear
and
compelling --marriage is a skill-based relationship''. Dorion Solot,
leader of
the Alternatives to Marriage Project in Boston remarked that the
popularity of
the Fox show is probably tied to ``two American myths -- getting married
and
getting rich -- so you've got this American Dream --the opportunity to
marry a
rich man.'' She said what was sad about the programme was it did not
address
fundamentals of marriage and trying to attain a `real relationship'.
Instead,
this was about ``spectacle and entertainment''.

The question that social commentators were pondering after two strangers
wed on
national television after a few minutes of public courtship was how many
of the
23 million viewers were startled to realise that the televised marriage
had
foundered after its first test of scrutiny. More seriously, some critics
such as
columnist Scott Shuger of the online magazine Slate questioned the
morality
behind the show when he wrote: ``How is this show with its explicit cash
and
property prizes for the women, not prostitution?'' However, Fox appears
unperturbed by the furore around it. The network placidly went back to its
staple of programmes among which included: ``Banned In America: The
World's
Sexiest Television'', ``Alien Autopsies'' and ``When Animals Attack''.


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