marriage

Marriage is a core component of the patriarchal system. According to Gerda Lerner's research on ancient societies, a woman could achieve at least some status, and with that, better treatment and privileges, through preserving her only capital _ her virginity _ and eventually offering it to just one man.

Oh, I simply can__ think. When I really want to depress myself, I think of all the brilliant men I know, married to their stupid wives. Enough to break your heart, it really is

It appears that ordinary men take wives because possession is not possible without marriage, and that ordinary women accept husbands because marriage is not possible without possession; with totally differing aims the method is the same on both sides. But the understood incentive on the woman's part was wanting here. Besides, Bathsheba's position as absolute mistress of a farm and house was a novel one, and the novelty had not yet begun to wear off.

But a girl__ love is not a woman__ love; above all, it is not a modern woman__ love. I, at thirty, cannot accept your views, adopt your methods, and believe your heresies, as you might be able to teach me to do if I were eighteen, - and if I loved you. I have found out my own life-truths, and they do not accord with yours.

I didn't appear to need anyone: I could do it all myself. I could do everything. I was both halves: did that mean I was whole?

Whom to marry, and when will it happen__hese two questions define every woman__ existence, regardless of where she was raised or what religion she does or doesn__ practice. She may grow up to love women instead of men, or to decide she simply doesn__ believe in marriage. No matter. These dual contingencies govern her until they__e answered, even if the answers are nobody and never.

Lucy could see that love unconfined, love outside convention, might well make a woman an unfit mother; you were one kind of woman or another: you were good or you were bad, as the world saw it, and no stations in between. They allowed you to choose; you could be the maternal or the erotic, but not a bit of both. The latter made you forget the former. Men married the maternal and then longed for the erotic. Or they married the erotic by mistake, and set about making it into the maternal, and then were just as disappointed.

And her work! Oh, the thought of being deprived of that! With only his love in return, his love and his amiable domestic tyranny!

The question I__ long posed to myself__hether to be married or to be single__s a false binary. The space in which I__e always wanted to live__ndeed, where I have spend my adulthood__sn__ between those two poles, but beyond it. The choice between being married versus being single doesn__ even belong here in the twenty-first century.

If I marry: He must be so tall that when he is on his knees, as one has said he reaches all the way to heaven. His shoulders must be broad enough to bear the burden of a family. His lips must be strong enough to smile, firm enough to say no, and tender enough to kiss. Love must be so deep that it takes its stand in Christ and so wide that it takes the whole lost world in. He must be active enough to save souls. He must be big enough to be gentle and great enough to be thoughtful. His arms must be strong enough to carry a little child.

All love on this earth involves choice. When, for example, a young man expresses his love to a young woman and asks her to become his wife, he is not just making an affirmation of love; he is also negating his love for anyone else. In that one act by which he chooses her, he rejects all that is not her. There is no other real way in which to prove we love a thing than by choosing it in preference to something else. Word and signs of love may be, and often are, expressions of egotism or passion; but deeds are proofs of love. We can prove we love our Lord only by choosing Him in preference to anything else.

The regrets about all she had let go flooded her. Where had all that enterprise gone? All that energy? Why had she never traveled? Or had more sex when she could? She had bleached and annihilated every waking moment of the last twenty years. Anything, rather than feel.

It never occurs to one to think whether she is pretty or ugly. One just surrenders to her charm.

She forgot: it was as simple as that. She just loved being with the guy. Possibly enough that not even their own wedding could screw it up.

Marriage isn't about Winning - It's about Lasting

The best gift you can give to your kids is a happy marriage.

Philosophically, I am a logical empiricist and materialist, and I am a veteran of over 400 radio and TV interviews and debates. I am a Christ-myth advocate and am pursuing research into how Christianity could have begun without a historical Jesus of Nazareth. I am married with one daughter and three grandchildren.

Even if we have grown so far apart that we don't recognize each other when we pass, we have this life, this block of time, and what do you think about that?