Say No to Joint Savings

“You have to be a cynic to be a journalist”. So said George Hook, in his raspy tone, during a talk to a group of journalism and public relations students in Dublin last week.

The reaction was mixed, to the talk itself, and more specifically to his comments. However, as we walked the daily walk down a tree-lined Leinster Road, a haven in an otherwise out of town ghetto, my friend Miriam; a journalist in progress, brought the subject of marriage to the table, for she was on her way to make a wedding purchase, for the requirement of her sister, not herself. And there we found ourselves, cynics in the making, speaking with negative expression as old Hook had insisted was necessary.

“I want to own [property] before marriage”, I announced, matter-of-factly. “Oh my goodness”, shrieked Miriam, usually calm and collected. “That is exactly how I feel. It’s like, no, I do not want a joint account", she added, aware that neither of us owned the desire to trade in our Volvos for Skodas as the divorce papers presented themselves. Of course, neither of us own Volvos now, but we shared the opinion that when we do, it’s til death do us part.

Call me pessimistic, or call me safe, but I would rather sit on that side of the verge. Maybe it’s something to do with working towards an artistic profession, whereby money doesn’t come easy, that I’m particularly fond of the idea of keeping hold of it when it eventually makes its way into my account.

I don’t want to spend many a year slaving at a middle market newspaper to enable me to afford a three-bed-semi to find myself suddenly in a bedsit when we have a severe disagreement over how many television sets should be in the house and suddenly realise it wasn’t meant to be after all.

Because in New Ireland, it comes down to the specifics in a relationship. And when the going gets tough, we’re all too familiar that there are few households on the commuter belt willing to stay together “for the kids”. No, sir, it’s bye-bye, Parochial Ireland.

They say pre-nuptials are unromantic, but as successful businessman and “face” of the music industry Simon Cowell told the Sunday Independent last weekend, “if I go into a relationship with an artist, we have a 100-page contract covering every eventuality, whereas with marriage you go into it with no contract, with laws that date back hundreds of years”.

One might expect, that a person like myself, who is as fond of little luxuries in life as much as the next potential media darling, to be perfectly satisfied to marry into a family that could offer to me the financial security, the kind that is so rarely available to artists of any kind. This is not my story, though. I choose not the easy ride, but that of eventual rewards.

And if there are luxuries in ten years time, at least I will know they are deserved. And if Miriam catches the bouquet at her sister’s eventual wedding, she can only hope and pray (or just hope, religion doesn’t exist in New Ireland) that the gent in question is willing to wait until the war-correspondent-to-be is stable in a Dublin 6 Pile of Bricks, enabling her to say an eventual “I do”. Except, of course, to a joint savings account at the AIB.