Centennial Honors College
Western Illinois University
Undergraduate Research Day 2014
Podium Presentation
“I Do? I Did. Do You?”
Jill Larkins
Faculty Mentor: Barbara Ashwood- Gegas
English
This piece of creative nonfiction explores the paradox of failed marriages in the United
States to marriage’s enduring reign among our culture’s rites of passage. I explore a
number of discourses, from contemporary pop-culture references and scholarly
assessment, regarding the failure rate of marriages and the arbitrary, sometimes
absurd, means to ensure a couple’s success. I also share my own experiences as
skeptic, wife, and online-ordained minister, who has performed marriages since 2006.
The research serves to engage my curiosity of an ideal with somewhat insurmountable
odds, while offering no credible answer as to why couples are still willing to assume the
risk. This piece also accounts my journey in understanding marriage as a challenge I
was willing to take, my ambivalent acceptance of a couple’s willingness to try
“everlasting love” for themselves, and my role in entertaining that risk.