Once in a while people talk about marriage. Is it something people should still do in this day and age? Up until recently I have thought.. Meh! Does it even matter? Lately though, I have begun to realize that maybe I didn't understand the question. So after letting that thought incubate, I now realize that we need marriage now more than ever.
First I must explain what marriage means to me. To me it used to mean what happens when you have a ceremony and sign some papers and then you get to share a last name and a bank account. Now I think that a marriage is something much more. It is like the birth of a new being.
When you commit to be in this type of relationship with someone, you commit to building something together that is greater than the two of you alone. You decide to love this person (please see my other posts about love), but there is more. It's like you put the needs of the marriage above the needs of the individual. This is huge, because the needs of an individual and the needs of a relationship can often be at odds with each other and the difference can be extremely difficult to see from the inside.
There will always be times when people are not at their best. There will always be times when people are jerks or don't understand or really really really fuck up. Individuals looking out for themselves will face all of these challenges differently then individuals in a marriage.
By the way.. I think you can have a marriage and not be married. I also think that it's very easy to be married without really having a marriage. But I do believe that a real marriage (with or without a piece of paper) is a prerequisite to a family (which is a whole other sort of entity like a marriage or a tribe).
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