Rules Of Engagement Psychology

Season 3, episode 14 of The Secret Life of the American Teenager, entitled “Rules of Engagement,” has led me to a new understanding about the choice to have Amy and Ricky break up in the series finale episode. The word engagement comes up in the relationships between Amy and Ricky, Ben and Adrian, and Anne and George, Amy’s parents. The latter of the three couples, however, ends their engagement to be remarried, while the two former have just begun a courtship that leads them to become engaged. Nevertheless, these two relationships also end after the couples realize that they are not in love and only got married because they thought that they were in love but were really remedying an unplanned pregnancy. These two couples parallel the four …show more content…
It is fitting, then, that at this point the relationships established during the first half of the show (Amy and Ben and Adrian and Ricky) have switched partners to endure these new bonds through the second half of the series. Like in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the four lovers in Secret Life wake up to find their perfect match. While Ben likes Adrian because she is “full of life, fun, crazy, carefree, and beautiful,” Adrian admires Ben for his “confidence, considerate [ness], and dignity.” Therefore, marriage becomes less of a long shot since they complement each other’s character and have a baby on the way. Yet, Adrian calls the night Ben gives her the ring “a dream,” mirroring the line in A Midsummer Night’s Dream: “It seems to me/That yet we sleep, we dream.” Mesmerized by the ring’s beauty, Adrian too cannot discern whether she is still asleep and dreaming, and so the dream of being married to the father of her baby leads Adrian to overlook not being in love with Ben. In the next scene, Amy and Ricky have a parallel exchange as they plan their first