![]() ‘Sologamy’ is the latest relationship trend not only in Europe and the United States but also Japan. ![]() I was motivated three-quarters by what C W Mills in 1959 called the ‘sociological imagination’ – the capacity to discern the link between our everyday experience and wider society – and one-quarter by unbridled curiosity about the intricate workings of modern love. This improbable 4.5-minute ceremony was the way I capped off a 10-week online course on self-marriage, which I took this spring. I formalised my vows with karaoke, offering a musical and performative statement of intent in front of the assembled (and mostly unwitting) witnesses. Moreover, there was no bridegroom: I was, as it happened, getting married to my own self – with my husband and our two children watching from the front row. There were no bridesmaids, no public registrar, let alone a priest or rabbi, and no papers were issued at the end. My dress was black and I kept my sunglasses on. There were some 500 guests in attendance, most of whom I’d never met before and would never see again. The ceremony took place at the Karaoke Pit in Berlin’s Mauerpark, a dilapidated concrete amphitheatre in the middle of the former no-man’s land between East and West Berlin. Unlike my first wedding, in a town hall 11 years ago, this one was strictly informal. This summer I got married for the second time.
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