The Moment of Dream Come True

Marriage? Another Name Called Gambling

Marriage is a big gamble.  It requires good preparation, a wonderful plan, and full confidence, and then one can make a decision to gamble for the rest of his life.  Even after long years of dating, observation and precise evaluation, no one can guarantee that the prince and the princess will have a happy life forever, just as no one can be certain that he will win at gambling.  Although marriage and gambling have some parallels, they exhibit many essential and intense differences.

In general, marriage and gambling are similar.  To begin with, they are both unpredictable actions.  No one can use a scientific calculation to project their rates of success.  Second, both actions are high risk decisions.  From the TV news or newspapers around the world, people can easily find thousands of tragedies everyday in which one commits suicide or kills others due to his inability to accept the lose of love or to pay off his debts.  Furthermore, in both win or lose, people need to take responsibility for the results because their decisions were made of their own free will.  No one is forced to marry someone or gamble, normally.

In spite of these similarities, these two behaviors display several considerable differences. 

The first difference lies in the number of clues marriage and gambling present.  Before marriage, one can evaluate his partner by a number of clues.  The most important yet obvious clue is his family background; one can observe how his parents educate their children, how his partner interacts with his parents and siblings, and how well one likes his parents because the relationship between a man and his parents is critical for a happy marriage.  Another essential clue might be education.  Although his diploma shouldn’t be an obstacle for two people who deeply love each other, it might be a potential risk for a relationship to a certain extent.  For example, if the educational gap between him and his partner is too huge, that may indicate a discrepancy in values of life, job, finance, and children’s education.  In addition, one’s field and work values are also critical clues to be scrutinized.  For instance, to adapt to their field’s attributes and requirements, employees in Taiwan, especially those engineers in the electronic industry, regularly put in twelve or more hours a day at their jobs to maintain their competitiveness.  If their wives get off work as early as six in the evening, and if they are not considerate enough, they may feel dull and solitary at home.  Next, the wives may find it unnecessary for their husbands to either work overtime or come home so late at night.  If this discrepancy constantly occurs, it will seriously damage their relationship.  

In contrast, the clues of gambling, such as Bingo, Blackjack, Poker, Baccarat, Craps or horse racing are rather fewer.  In gambling, it’s not possible to observe whether the cards are going to be good or bad.  The only way that gamblers may get a hint is by estimating the ratio of cards mathematically.  Apart from that, they don’t seem to have other ways to foresee their destinies, which in most cases cannot help them much.

The second difference between marriage and gambling is addiction.  Before coming into a marriage, everyone, more or less, seem to have a fantasy about what a happy marriage is going to be like.  No one expects that their marriage will end in divorce or that they may need to remarry.  Instead, with patience, tolerance, mutual trust and understanding, people endeavor to work out their disagreements and keep a wonderful relationship.  Although all marriages go through good and bad times, if they stick out the rough times, they often find that the relationship improves again.  Sometimes, divorce is still an option, but it’s never pleasant; as a result, people are less likely to see divorce as a solution, or needless to say, to be addicted to it.  However, why are there a very small portion of people who get married for 7 or 8 times? According to the research by National Longitudinal Study of Marriage on the causes of divorce, people who generally have favorable attitudes toward divorce are risk takers.  “Socially,” says Alan Booth, a Penn State sociologist, “they are people who are somewhat isolated; they are detached; they move a lot; they are not involved in a church; they have less contact with their relatives; they are less likely to own a home.”  Therefore, it is apparent that the favorable attitudes toward remarriage of those who get married for many times are related to their compulsion or addiction but not related to their personality attributes and proneness.

Nevertheless, people might become addicted to gambling once they play.  If they win the first time, they might want to win more, and unfortunately if they lose, they might have an even stronger desire to reverse their losses.  A true story shared on Gambling Therapy.com, exemplified this.  Renee is a woman in the United States, whose husband has been a compulsive gambler for several years.  In the beginning, she didn’t realize how serious a gambling addiction was or could become, while her husband said it was purely recreational amusement.  As time went on, she found out that when her husband got off work, he went gambling everyday.  The situation got progressively worse since when he went, he usually didn’t come home for a day or two.  He was like a different person and started to hate himself.  Even though he lost hundreds of thousands of dollars, he still couldn’t stop gambling.   The case shows how horribly addictive gambling is.

Another difference between marriage and gambling is their results.  If people examine both behaviors for the results, marriage is a constant process of mutual giving and concession.  It is not about winning or losing, but about giving, understanding and compromising.  No one is really the boss in the relationship; what matters is which person is better at accomplishing something on a certain day.  “People who had been divorced were more likely to report not listening to what their spouse was saying or getting angry and losing their temper,” Booth explains.  As a result, people can see that if one tries to dominate the marriage and the other half is unwilling to compromise, they are likely to make their marriage end up in divorce.  In contrast, gambling is a win-or-lose game at which someone wins and someone loses.  There is only one consequence, a win or a loss, and there is absolutely no ambiguity in between. 

In addition, marriage and gambling are also dissimilar in their prices.  In a marriage, one pays a heavy price in life.  If people have no luck having a desirable marriage, sometimes they are reluctant to divorce partners they may not be compatible with, for they have a “thing” together – kids.  Some of them might choose to stick with their marriage until the kids grow up.  Thus, it is clear that the price people paying in an inappropriate relationship is incredibly immense and irrevocable.  On the other hand, in gambling, people usually only pay a price in money.  In general, people play for small stakes for amusement, or gamble heavily for exhilaration or because they are eager for money.  As the New Testament says, “Love of money is the root of all evil.”  Gamblers need to keep this warning deeply in mind to avoid losing all their property.

While sharing some common features, marriage and gambling are far apart from each other.  Although both behaviors are parallel in their uncertainty, their high risk, and their responsibility for the results, marriage and gambling are indeed very dissimilar in their number of clues, their addiction, their results and their prices.  By the above examples, knowing that marriage is very similar to gambling, people are able to build more confidence and patience in maintaining a relationship.  Therefore, while enjoying the happiness and satisfaction provided by marriage and gambling, one needs to be more aware of the high risks and the heavy prices they may cause.