Arbitration & Mediation

Zero sum game show: celebrities decide who?s right or wrong in The Marriage Ref

By Diane Levin

Billy Collins, a former two-term Poet Laureate of the U.S., penned these lines on the end of marriage:

Once, two spoons in bed
now tined forks

across a granite table
and the knives they have hired

Alas for many divorcing couples, sharp metal objects make an apt metaphor.

It’s also an image in keeping with the popular depiction of marital discord, which often frames it as all-out take-no-prisoners combat between two feuding camps.

Now, stepping into the marital fray is comedian Jerry Seinfeld, who will be hosting “The Marriage Ref“, a game/reality TV show in which bickering couples will submit their disputes to nonbinding arbitration before celebrity guests who will “comment, judge and decide who’s right and who’s wrong in real-life disputes between real-life spouses.”

Of course if you’d rather resolve your dispute anonymously, try the web site Sidetaker (“Let The World Decide Who’s At Fault”) and let the hive be the judge.

Full post as published by Online Guide to Mediation on February 16, 2010 (boomark / email).