CNN spoke with four women who “married themselves” — a self-marriage officially referred to as “sologamy.”
The left-leaning news outlet painted “sologamy” as pertaining more to mental health and “self-love.” rather than an extension of living an “auto-sexual” lifestyle — being sexually attracted to oneself — which has been addressed in other news articles on the topic.
“The concept of self-marriage, or sologamy, has been around for years…No data exists on how many people celebrate sologamy with ceremonies, but the practice has been explored in a handful of recent news articles,” CNN reported.
The women interviewed “described the act as a symbolic expression of self-love and an affirmation of a deep meaningful relationship with one’s self.”
“They also say it has nothing to do with swearing off future partnerships with a spouse, which they say is a popular misconception,” according to the report.
One of the women, body image coach Danni Adams, told the outlet she took several years to invest in herself, go to to therapy, and “break generational curses” and “process trauma” before she decided she was ready to marry herself.
After the pandemic she married herself in front of roughly 40 people. The event included nine bridesmaids at a cost of $4,000. A friend officiated the ceremony, and Adams read her vows in front of a full-length mirror, according to the report. Following her self-wedding, she honeymooned in Tulum, Mexico.
“Everything that has happened to me in my past as a child, all the things that have harmed me, I was like, this is a restart at life. I get to own my life, my own joy, my own choices. And that’s what it was about,” she said, adding that marrying herself would not stop her from marrying another person in the future.
Ena Jones told the outlet about how she married herself on her 50th birthday in 2020, and how she plans to renew her vows to herself when she turns 55. She said she had wanted to marry herself since her husband passed away from cancer in 2016.
Her ceremony involved three-dozen guests who thought they were attending her birthday party. But Jones “emerged in a tiara and a knee-length white dress, carrying a bouquet of sunflowers, walking down the aisle on the arm of her husband’s father,” the report states. A three-tiered chocolate cake sat at the end of the aisle.
Jones said her marriage to herself “symbolizes [her] love for [herself] for the rest of [her] life.”
CNN noted that critics say self-marriage, which is not recognized by law in the United States, is narcissistic. In response, the outlet quoted a therapist who believes sologamy could be the manifestation of a “healthy form of narcissism.”
“It is actually a lack of self-love that leads to unhealthy narcissism,” therapist John Amodeo claimed. “We are then constantly needing validation from other to fill our inner emptiness.”