A good while back – as in, 2016, which was a surprise even to me just how far back it was – I wrote a short piece on why Taylor Swift may never get married, at least, not in any valid sense. This was back in the day when she was dating Tom Hiddleston, whom some may remember as the guy who played Loki in the Thor Marvel films. The validity of marriage pertains not only to Catholics, not even only to Christians, but to the pagan, unbaptized world as well. For marriage is a natural reality before it is a sacrament of Christ’s holy Church.
Now nearly a decade has gone by, and Swift is still single, still dating (currently an NFL player), still seeking. Jane Austen warned women that being ‘eight and twenty and no prospects’ was not all that pleasant place to be, what are we to say of Ms. Swift, now approaching the middle of her thirties? As Isabella Clarke reflects, her recent album is more jaded, with more than a hint of resentment at the men who have let her down. What did she expect, dating millionaire music and film stars who have no intention of ever binding themselves to what seems to them and their jet-setting lifestyle the humdrum homogeneity of home life? (Which Chesterton described as one of the greatest adventures upon which one can embark).
I do wonder how much of this is marketing on Swift’s part, and playing to the volatiles emotions of her legions of young-ish fans living vicariously through her own personal drama, many of them growing older with her. Taylor Swift has in the main not been a helpful influence in the formation of young women, and her lifestyle and message growing more deleterious with each passing song. 2008’s ‘Love Story’ has devolved into a 2024 ‘Love Tragedy’.
I just returned from a beautiful wedding of a young couple, both former students, who chose to commit themselves to each other, and to God, in a bond that will last unto death. May more choose the path that is now ever-less chosen. And for those who are left bereft, through no choice of their own, God always provides, with joy and grace in a sacrificial self-giving single life. For our end is not in this world, but the next, to which even marriage is ordered.
Would that Taylor Swift hears, and sings, that message.