Has marriage become a joke? Nowadays, some young couples walking down the aisle seem to be vowing only "Until boredom do us part.".(Love And Lust)

Jason Alexander, Britney Spears' husband for just 55 hours, offered the following explanation of how he and the jeans-clad pop princess decided to become man and wife last New Year's: "We were looking at each other and said 'Let's do something wild and crazy. Let's go get married for the hell of it."

If it seems as if getting hitched has become the latest source of entertainment, that's because, well, it has. Immensely popular reality-TV shows such as The Bachelorette may be fun to watch, but they're giving the impression that you can pick the guy you want to spend the rest of your life with from a random pool of people chosen by Hollywood producers. (Even though, with the exception of Trista and Ryan, every reality-show union has gone bust.) "On TV, marriage has become a stunt or a lark, something to do for fun," says Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, PhD, author of The Divorce Culture.

Or is it that these television shows are merely reflecting the degeneration of marriage in the larger culture? A study released in 2003 by The National Marriage Project reports that one-third fewer Americans are getting married today than they were in 1970, and fewer of those who do many report being "very happy." Courtney Knowles of the Equality in Marriage Institute in New York City has a theory for the growing dissatisfaction with wedlock. "Our society is very different from when this institution was first born, so there really isn't a template for modern marriage," says Knowles. Lacking good guidelines, couples exchange their vows with the best intentions but still ...