Digital “I do’s”

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First there was online dating, and now there’s online marrying.

Technology has managed to permeate almost every part of our lives in the 21st century, so with email and Facebook and an app for this and that, it shouldn’t be surprising that there is a trend of people getting married across the world via the Internet.

Internet marriages have increased recently in immigrant communities. For example, a New York Times article followed Punam Chowdhury and Tanvir Ahmmed to their Skype session of “I do’s”:

These are called proxy marriages, a legal arrangement that allows a couple to wed even in the absence of one or both spouses. They date back centuries: one of the most famous examples was between Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, who were first married in her native Austria in his absence, before she was shipped to meet him in France. Proxy marriages via telegraph have also been documented.

As far as the United States is concerned, the digital marriage procedure hasn’t been fully adopted — for the most part, military men and women abroad seal the romance with their loved one via the Internet so as to leave loved one(s) with benefits if something happens to the military folk.

Read the article in full at the New York Times website.

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