Staff Editorial
The runaway bride of 2005, Jennifer Wilbanks, has made news again this week for suing her former fiancé for defrauding her of her share of book-writing proceeds. Never mind the fact that they could easily have made separate book deals and avoid the issue entirely. He could explain how awful it was to have his bride run off, claim abduction and sexual assault when found, and then admit to lying about the whole thing. She could likewise write her version of the events.
Instead, ex-fiancé John Mason sold the rights and bought a house in his name only and kicked her out when they split for good in May (to an observer it would seem that it finally hit Mason that she had ditched him and then lied about it).
How did it come to this? After all, Mr. Mason seemed to love Wilbanks beyond his common sense, saying that he would take her back despite the lying and fleeing. But it seems that money became a bigger issue, and they are drawing what should have ended as an embarrassing moment in humanity into an overblown example of relationships gone bad in America. Honestly, I don’t think there should be any money to fight over. Any profit Wilbanks makes in relation to the events concerning her false kidnapping should go directly to the police departments who wasted time and resources looking for her “kidnappers”. I am sick of this sexist bent that allows women who are “under stress” or “mentally/hormonally unbalanced” to get away with this sort of thing. Imagine if Wilbanks was a man, do you think this would have lasted as long as it has? If you said anything other than “no, they would toss that bum out on his butt!” than your deluding yourself.
But why do people really care about this story anyway? Is it because they’ve had enough of their own twisted lives and want in on the twists on others? Perhaps such lives wouldn’t be so twisted if the people possessing them obsessed over their own lives more than those of strangers.
If this tale is so important to the world that news organizations are still covering it (ironically including this one), why hasn’t anyone bothered to get a better picture of Wilbanks than that over-proliferated deer-in-the-headlights headshot? But since this story obviously hasn’t warranted much photojournalistic attention, why is it considered important? The only feasible conclusion is to dismiss the matter entirely. Men and women around the world skip out on their spouses-to-be just days before the wedding quite frequently. And people disappear without a trace on a daily basis. And runaways say they were abducted as a common escape from consequences. It should be no surprise that these circumstances should appear together.
And in any case, news coverage doesn’t do the “runaway bride” or her ex-fiancé any good—it just gives them more publicity benefits to fight over, and takes up media space that could be used educating the respective audience about world-changing governmental, international and societal affairs.