2071 Bridle and Groom

The other day I was listening to a song on the radio. Which I often do. I find radio is the easiest way for me to be exposed to new music. Sometimes I don't trust recommendations from friends. Who made them music experts?

Anyhow, somewhere in the song the singer sang that he would be some imaginary person's groom. I had just come from a discussion about horses, so I thought he was offering his services as a horse helper. 

Odd when you think about it, that the word for a bride's mate would also be the term for someone who tends a horse. Not a very complimentary accouterment to the bride in question. 

"Hi, I'm the bride. This is my groom."

Lovely. Is that why he calls you a little filly? Has he been currying you lately? Strapping on the nosebag? Checking your frog for sawdust? 

The broader implication, that the bride, or women generally, need some sort of tending, kind of puts the marriage on a less than even foot to begin with. Especially as it implies that foot is part of a set of four on some sort of domestic animal.

Because free-spirited as horses can be, they are in the long run domestic animals, and require endless hours of slogging labor to schlep around bales of hay and shovel and cart off piles of manure. And although there are those that think that that is indeed a perfect metaphor for matrimonial incarceration, I beg to differ. 

Perhaps more marriages would thrive if one of the parties was not thought of as a domesticated animal and the other not thought of as its custodian. 

Although it does help explain the whole bridal the bride and bridle the harness soundalike thing.

America, ya gotta love it.