The changing attitude of Larkin towards marriage

Throughout the poem, the speaker takes a cynical attitude towards marriage, seeing weddings as a “farcical” ceremony full of artificial costumes and embarrassing family members. He is also skeptical of the lasting love marriages supposedly honor, defining the wedding night not by romance but by the “religious wound” of the bleeding virgin bride. Though weddings are supposed to be the most special day in one’s life, all the married couples and their families look the same, interchangeable to the speaker. Furthermore, at the end of the poem, Cupid’s arrows transform into rain, suggesting that they hold a darker meaning, as well as a sort of immateriality.