Friday, September 02, 2005

Biblio-marriage

Falstaff raises an interesting question here - Is it legal to marry a library?

I am not entirely sure. Doesn't a library have hazaar number of books? So would that be polygamy then? Which ofcourse is illegal. So maybe one can marry one book at a time and then divorce it as soon as you are done with it and move on. But would you have to pay alimony then? And what if you are one of those people who actually want to have your old books around you so that you can re-read it whenever you want to?

Is this a public library that we are talking about where people pay to borrow books? In that case, doesn't a library become a prostitute then? Then a library should be in prison regardless, there is no question of one being able to marry it. On the other hand, if this is one's private library, one lends books to people all the time. Is spouse-swapping(one book at a time maybe) legal? Maybe. After all, we are talking of consenting adults here.

Most importantly, what does the Bible say about library-marriage? I don't rememeber anything specific but I would like to be sure. For all I know there will be major backlash against library-marriage and people might say that me(or anyone else) marrying my beloved library affects the sanctity of their marriage. I surely wouldn't want to destroy someone else's marriage.

All this is too confusing for moi. Might as well stick to the boy, you think?

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Yeah yeah, Friday evenings are like that. Moi off to Austin, TX in a couple of hours. Do have a great weekend!

1 comment:

Falstaff said...

I think the source of much of your confusion is the fact that you're seeing the library as a collection of books rather than as an independent entity that the books all belong to. Think of the library as a person who has a lot of books (let's call her Llib - the opposite of Bill - neat no?). You can't go around marrying each book in the library, any more than you can go around marrying individual organs of a person (unless of course you're Tommy Lee). No, my idea is basically to marry the library as what my accountant calls a going concern (which is about the best description of a fiance I've come across yet).

So even if she (it) is a public library, people could still borrow books from her - that's a service that Llib provides - it's her source of income. There's nothing sexual about it (I don't know what you do with your 452 books, but my relations with mine are strictly platonic), it's just her career.

The key point, of course, is that in the absence of a pre-nup, all the books the library owns now become joint property. And should you and the library decide to part ways (because her long silences get to you, for instance) then you get to keep half the books. It's like marrying someone with a lot of books, only better, because they all come pre-arranged according to the Dewey Decimal system. Joy!