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I don't know *why* it is that we have suddenly become so much more liberated than our parent generation (though I could probably spout hypotheses), but the fact is that we have. What this leads to is an emphasis on the self: I, me, mine, io solo uno. I'm going to do this because *I* want to, because *I* can; *I* deserve happiness, I *deserve* this or that. All of a sudden we're marrying out of *love,* or what we perceive to be love, because we think we deserve to be happy, we want to be happy.
But there's a problem--love dies. The intense, ecstatic eros, the "bells off San Salvador" that "salute the crocus lustres of the stars," all fade, and leave us with "Belle Isle, white echo of the oar!" Herakleitus and all that, the river of change, etc.: love dies, people drift apart, become different. It's human nature; we can only live among the gods so long ...
if we demand to be one of them, that is. Most lovers love because of the way it makes them feel; they like the way the other person makes them feel, physically and otherwise. These types of relationships are selfish, because the love involved is still a type of self-love. Each person has some agenda, some thing they want, and when they feel they are no longer getting it, they look elsewhere. Always there's that little niggling voice: *I* deserve better *I* *I* *I*.
These types of relationships are fine, but they are impermanent, and it is foolishness to enter into a lifelong contract based on this. Most people have such romantic notions of love and marriage; they expect things to be like they were when they first met, but that is impossible; so they change, diverge, divorce.
Marriage is for a different kind of love. It should not be a love focused on any one person, because in reality, such a concept makes no sense, outside of this self-oriented viewpoint. Why love another single person if not for the way they make you feel? And how could you ever love a human being for who they actually are? How could you love anyone's morning filthiness, the smells they leave in the bathroom, their unsavory habits? There have to be some *things* about them that you love, things that have nothing to do with how you feel, but things you feel to be worthy outside of you. And once you love these things in one person, how can you not love them in all people, depending on the degree to which they possess them?
Marriage is not about love of one person. It is about love of all people, love of what makes us human, love that truly transcends ourselves. It is a love of which sex and passing pleasure are insignificant parts. It is a state of life and death, of being and not-being, of tranquility and elevation, our natural state, the state of love. The reason the other person is necessary is because we need that other ocean of soul to get free of ourselves and our vast self- love, and we always need that intimate reminder of how beautiful the world really is.
I'm sorry that I don't have time to write this and rewrite it until it makes sense, but I'll probably be writing it, or something like it, all my life, so I have a little time yet. In the meantime, scoff, mock, disagree, call me whatever you want, I don't really care. The thoughts feel right, more or less, though I can't say them.
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