This Is the Shortest Marriage in the History of Matrimony

For something that everybody spends a whole lot of their life trying to sign up for, marriage doesn’t have a great track record. The approximately 50 percent divorce rate is bandied about constantly. It’s not particularly surprising. Plenty of people regret getting a tattoo, and that costs way less. Plenty of us probably know about a wedding that was called off as the date approached, and reality began to set in. Once the knot is tied, though, usually it’s in everyone’s best interests that the two give it a real go, if only so they don’t have to return their new Le Creuset.

Very short marriages do exist, however, and I don’t think I’d even really consider them that sad. Rip off that poorly considered, hastily placed Band-Aid before it really adheres to your arm hairs — and by arm hairs, I mean your personal finances and mortgage obligations. In the history of ill-advised marriages, though, I began to wonder, what’s the floor here? What’s the shortest amount of time anyone’s ever been married? And shoo, pedants, with your unrequested explanations of annulments and sham weddings. No one’s giving you Reddit gold here!

It turns out that the shortest marriage on record was a whopping three minutes, which means I’ve spent more committed time with most shits I’ve taken. The marriage in question occurred in a Kuwaiti courthouse, which, all things considered, is pretty convenient. It’s like crashing your car into a mailbox while leaving the body shop. Reportedly, immediately after signing their marriage contract, the bride took a spill on the pavement outside, and instead of reaching out a helping hand to the woman he’d looked to spend the rest of his life with, the groom called her “stupid.” 

In what was probably a pretty sound decision, she decided to turn this whole marriage around, walked straight back to the judge, and asked for an annulment. They complied, which they were probably pretty happy about as that just meant never having to turn in the paperwork. We can also assume that was a pretty awkward ride home, as I don’t think couples generally take separate cars to their own wedding.