Love and Marriage

Love and marriage have not traditionally gone together as the proverbial horse and carriage. Well, maybe perhaps in the sense that the cart has sometimes come before the horse with an unintended pregnancy before any vows. And that the horse has traditionally been the woman, a beast of burden for the carriage of the man.

Traditional marriage has been more typically an agreement about property, a pre-arranged contract. The woman becomes the property of the man she marries, given away by her father as his former property. Polygamy offered the opportunity to acquire an entire herd of so much chattel.

Heterosexual? Yes! Procreative purposes? Yes! Marriage? Yes! Traditional? Yes! Why could anyone have any problem with such traditional definitions of marriage? Well, where is the LOVE? The notion of two people loving each other as the basis of a marriage is not actually new, just not traditional.

In reality, human nature is not really in agreement with the popular, modern ideas we have in our culture about marriage... monogamy, until death, having kids, etc. Most married couples do not stay together until death and are not monogamous. Children come regardless of the institution of marriage and so many married couples either choose not to have children or are otherwise incapable of it.

On this Valentine's Day 2010, I would personally like to celebrate the notion of romantic, spiritual love as the basis for my marriage and for anybody else that has defied the odds of human nature and social sanctions. Let there be love.