How to Get Married

The dream is that they will teach us by example and encouragement and that, under the protection of their love, we will grow to our full potential.

In one way or another, we have all been inadequately parented; we have a panoply of unfortunate psychological traits; we are beset by bad habits; we are anxious, jealous, ill-tempered and vain. We will bring an awesome amount of trouble into someone else’s life by agreeing to be their spouse.

Typically, when asked why we are marrying someone, we feel pressured to respond by listing the ways they are lovely to be with. But a bigger, fairer explanation of why we’re with them, and why they might be a good spouse for us, involves exploring three questions: What might I learn from them? In what ways has my past constrained my choice of partn

The essence of ceremonies is an attempt to mark out an event from the flow of ordinary life.

The point of marriage is to be usefully unpleasant – at least at crucial times. Together we embrace a set of limitations on one kind of freedom – the freedom to run away – so as to protect and strengthen another kind of freedom: a shared ability to mature and create something of lasting value, one whose pains are aligned to our better selves.

Marriage sets up the conditions in which we can take valuable decisions about what to do with our lives that would be too risky outside of its guarantees.

Marriage may be summarised as the project of doing an utterly remarkable thing: surrendering at points our hungry claims to being loved in order to take on the new and unfamiliar burdens of actually loving.

To marry is to recognise that we require structure to insulate ourselves from our urges. It is to lock ourselves up willingly, because we acknowledge the benefits of the long term; the wisdom of the morning after the storm.