Marriage Customs Quotes

Often a Christian man or woman falls prey to that cruel and vexatious spirit, wondering how to find marriage, who, when, where? It is on God that we should wait, as a waiter waits--not for but on the customer--alert, watchful, attentive, with no agenda of his own, ready to do whatever is wanted. 'My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him.' (Ps. 62:5 KJV) In Him alone lie our security, our confidence, our trust. A spirit of restlessness and resistance can never wait, but one who believes he is loved with an everlasting love, and knows that underneath are the everlasting arms, will find strength and peace.

I feel incendiary, a wildfire. My spirit licks at the gates of a very elaborate, customized, and distracting emotional Hades.

Most women sell sex; most of them just don’t take cash (nor do they each sell to more than one ‘client’ at a time).

If you're as detached as that, why does the obsolete institution of marriage survive with you?" Oh, it still has its uses. One couldn't be divorced without it.

Relationships are like countries. Friendships, families, marriages. Any deep, meaningful relationship tends to form its own customs. Its own language.

The bulk of the population of every country is persuaded that all marriage customs other than its own are immoral, and that those who combat this view only do so in order to justify their own loose lives.

If you go to Singapore or Amsterdam or Seoul or Buenos Aires or Islamabad or Johannesburg or Tampa or Istanbul or Kyoto, you'll find that the people differ wildly in the way they dress, in their marriage customs, in the holidays they observe, in their religious rituals, and so on, but they all expect the food to be under lock and key. It's all owned, and if you want some, you'll have to buy it.

Fallowing the custom, my great-grandfather was married young, at fourteen, to a woman six years his senior. It was considered one of the duties of a wife to help bring up her husband.

For untold ages the Indian race had not used family names. A new-born child was given a brand-new name. Blue-Star Woman was proud to write her name for which she would not be required to substitute another's upon her marriage, as is the custom of civilized peoples.

Your mother is in the bedside chair. She is wearing a dress printed with strawberries and birds. Using a long needle, she is stringing brightly colored origami cranes into garlands. You know what she's doing: It's a Japanese custom called senbazuru. If you make one thousand paper cranes, you can restore someone to good health. Though you cannot see him, you become aware of the fact that your father is sitting on the floor. He is folding cranes so that your mother can string them. This is marriage.

Until the sexual revolution, most people understood that customs and laws regarding sex were customs and laws to strengthen or at least to protect the family, and that the family was not something created by the State, but was its own small kingdom, a natural society, founded in the bodily nature of man.

Our self-made crises are custom-tailored, painstakingly crafted, and always fit perfectly.

Although this detail has no connection whatever with the real substance of what we are about to relate, it will not be superfluous, if merely for the sake of exactness in all points, to mention here the various rumors and remarks which had been in circulation about him from the very moment when he arrived in the diocese. True or false, that which is said of men often occupies as important a place in their lives, and above all in their destinies, as that which they do. M. Myriel was the son of a councillor of the Parliament of Aix; hence he belonged to the nobility of the bar. It was said that his father, destining him to be the heir of his own post, had married him at a very early age, eighteen or twenty, in accordance with a custom which is rather widely prevalent in parliamentary families. In spite of this marriage, however, it was said that Charles Myriel created a great deal of talk. He was well formed, though rather short in stature, elegant, graceful, intelligent; the whole of the first portion of his life had been devoted to the world and to gallantry.

The tradition amongst the Targaryens had always been to marry kin to kin. Wedding brother to sister was thought to be ideal. Failing that, a girl might wed an uncle, a cousin, or a nephew, a boy a cousin, aunt, or niece. This practice went back to Old Valyria, where it was common amongst many of the ancient families, particularly those who bred and rode dragons. The blood of the dragon must remain pure, the wisdom went. Some of the sorcerer princes also took more than one wife when it pleased them, though this was less common than incestuous marriage. In Valyria before the Doom, wise men wrote, a thousand gods were honored, but none were feared, so few dared to speak against these customs.

It got to be an American custom, like talk shows, Face the Nation, marriage counseling, marathon encounters, or zoning hearings.

What do you call the weak point?" He paused. "The fact that the average American looks down on his wife.

Ask yourself . . . What are my goals when I converse with people? What kinds of things do I usually discuss? Are there other topics that would be more important given what’s actually going on? How often do I find myself—just to be polite—saying things I don’t mean? How many meetings have I sat in where I knew the real issues were not being discussed? And what about the conversations in my marriage? What issues are we avoiding? If I were guaranteed honest responses to any three questions, whom would I question and what would I ask? What has been the economical, emotional, and intellectual cost to the company of not identifying and tackling the real issues? What has been the cost to my marriage? What has been the cost to me? When was the last time I said what I really thought and felt? What are the leaders in my organization pretending not to know? What are members of my family pretending not to know? What am I pretending not to know? How certain am I that my team members are deeply committed to the same vision? How certain am I that my life partner is deeply committed to the vision I hold for our future? If nothing changes regarding the outcomes of the conversations within my organization, what are the implications for my own success and career? for my department? for key customers? for the organization’s future? What about my marriage? If nothing changes, what are the implications for us as a couple? for me? What is the conversation I’ve been unable to have with senior executives, with my colleagues, with my direct reports, with my customers, with my life partner, and most important, with myself, with my own aspirations, that, if I were able to have, might make the difference, might change everything? Are

When she was taken too bad she went off quite alone to the sea-shore, so that the customs officer, going his rounds, often found her lying flat on her face, crying on the shingle. Then, after her marriage, it went off, they say." "But with me," replied Emma, "it was after marriage that it began.

I am certain one ought to be allowed to undo what one has done so ignorantly ! I daresay it happens to lots of women; only they submit, and I kick.... When people of a later age look back upon the barbarous customs and superstitions of the times that we have the unhappiness to live in, what will they say!

I knew it all, the whole drab compass of marital disillusion; we had been through it together, the Army and I, from the first importunate courtship until now, when nothing remained to us except the chill bonds of law and duty and custom. I had played every scene in the domestic tragedy, had found the early tiffs become more frequent, the tears less affecting, the reconciliations less sweet, till they engendered a mood of aloofness and cool criticism, and the growing conviction that it was not myself but the loved one who was at fault. I caught the false notes in her voice and learned to listen for them apprehensively; I recognized the blank, resentful stare of incomprehension in her eyes, and the selfish, hard set of the corners of her mouth. I learned her, as one must learn a woman one has kept house with, day in, day out, for three and a half years; I learned her slatternly ways, the routine and mechanism of her charm, her jealousy and self-seeking, and her nervous trick with the fingers when she was lying. She was stripped of all enchantment now and I knew her for an uncongenial stranger to whom I had bound myself indissolubly in a moment of folly.

It was a fact generally acknowledged by all but the most contumacious spirits at the beginning of the seventeenth century that woman was the weaker vessel; weaker than man, that is. ... That was the way God had arranged Creation, sanctified in the words of the Apostle. ... Under the common law of England at the accession of King James I, no female had any rights at all (if some were allowed by custom). As an unmarried woman her rights were swallowed up in her father's, and she was his to dispose of in marriage at will. Once she was married her property became absolutely that of her husband. What of those who did not marry? Common law met that problem blandly by not recognizing it. In the words of The Lawes Resolutions [the leading 17th century compendium on women's legal status]: 'All of them are understood either married or to be married.' In 1603 England, in short, still lived in a world governed by feudal law, where a wife passed from the guardianship of her father to her husband; her husband also stood in relation to her as a feudal lord.

...as I lay in that dark hour, I was aghast to realize that something within me, long sickening, had quietly died, and felt as a husband might feel, who, in the fourth year of his marriage, suddenly knew that he had no longer any desire, or tenderness, or esteem, for a once-beloved wife; no pleasure in her company, no wish to please, no curiosity about anything she might ever do or say or think; no hope of setting things right, no self-reproach for the disaster. I knew it all, the whole drab compass of marital disillusion; we had been through it together, the army and I, from the first importunate courtship until now, when nothing remained to us except the chill bonds of law and duty and custom.

I told him I had, perhaps, different notions of matrimony from what the received custom had given us of it; that I thought a woman was a free agent as well as a man, and was born free, and, could she manage herself suitably, might enjoy that liberty to as much purpose as the men do; that the laws of matrimony were indeed otherwise, and mankind at this time acted quite upon other principles, and those such that a woman gave herself entirely away from herself, in marriage, and capitulated, only to be, at best, but an upper servant, and from the time she took the man she was no better or worse than the servant among the Israelites, who had his ears bored—that is, nailed to the door-post—who by that act gave himself up to be a servant during life; that the very nature of the marriage contract was, in short, nothing but giving up liberty, estate, authority, and everything to the man, and the woman was indeed a mere woman ever after—that is to say, a slave. Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress (1724)

Clan custom and law held that it was the public declaration of intent and then living together that made a handfasting; the ceremonies simply bore witness to it and asked blessings and luck of the Powers on the new family. He knew Christians thought that the ceremony was the marriage, though.

You did not have to be the first company to produce the new kind of machine; sometimes, in fact, it was better not to be the first. But you had to produce yours before the new market really opened up and customers had made other marriages. For once they are lost, both old and prospective customers are often gone for good.

This world operates according to rules I was not around to vote on; marriages seems like on of those institutions that everybody agrees on but almost on one actually wants, like jobs, wars, or Christmas. In fact, I'd always resented monogamy for the same reason I hat Christmas shopping: if something's obligatory, it isn't a gift. 87

For within the very structure of family life, in families that do or did embrace the male religions, are the almost invisibly accepted social customs and life patterns that reflect the one-time strict adherence to the biblical scriptures. Attitudes towards double-standard premarital virginity, double-standard marital fidelity, the sexual autonomy of women, illegitimacy, abortion, contraception, rape, childbirth, the importance of marriage and children to women, the responsibilities and role of women in marriage, women as sex objects, the sexual identification of passivity and aggressiveness, the roles of women and men in work or social situations, women who express their ideas, female leadership, the intellectual activities of women, the economic activities and needs of women and the automatic assumption of the male as breadwinner and protector have all become so deeply ingrained that feelings and values concerning these subjects are often regarded, by both women and men, as natural tendencies or even human instinct.

Flo hated how public an event affection inevitably became. Marrying in a church while scrutinized by dozens of people struck her as a barbaric custom.

Naming something beautiful made it so. I'd seen this in the way the church spoke of marriage as a sacred institution and in the one man plus one woman bumper stickers people sported on their vehicles. The same ones my father would hand to any customer passing through his dealership service department. Naming something ugly had a similar effect. The sound of my mother's vomiting the night she drove me home had taught me this lesson better than anything else ever had. I was gay, had been named as such, a fact that once ingested had to be immediately expelled.

Japanese custom, a thousand paper cranes being made by one person before a wedding gives that person one wish to be carried to the heavens—usually the wish for a happy and prosperous marriage.

The bulk of the population of every country is persuaded that all marriage customs other than its own are immoral, and that those who combat this view do so only in order to justify their own loose lives. In India, the remarriage of widows is traditionally regarded as a thing too horrible to contemplate. In Catholic countries divorce is thought very wicked, but some failure of conjugal fidelity is tolerated, at least in men. In America divorce is easy, but extra-conjugal relations are condemned with the utmost severity. Mohammedans believe in polygamy, which we think degrading. All these differing opinions are held with extreme vehemence, and very cruel persecutions are inflicted upon those who contravene them. Yet no one in any of the various countries makes the slightest attempt to show that the custom of his own country contributes more to human happiness than the custom of others.

Afford a bride?” “Is this not your country’s custom as well?” “Ah, no. Do explain.” Becca hoped that this wasn’t what it sounded like, because if she learned men were buying women and forcing them into marriage, she was going to change her mind and burn the whole country down. “A man must offer his bride-to-be gifts and an assurance that he can provide for her. Her parents will not let him marry unless he can afford to pay for the wedding and buy a house.

All of both (Native American) sexes go about naked…They (women) have another custom, very shameful and beyond all human belief. For their women, being very lustful, cause the private parts of their husbands to swell up to such a huge size that they appear deformed…They (men) marry as many wives as they please; and son cohabits with mother, male cousin with female, and any man with the first woman he meets. They dissolve their marriages as often as they please…The women as I have said go about naked and are very libidinous, yet they have tolerably beautiful bodies and cleanly…When they had the opportunity of copulating with Christians, urged by excessive lust, they defiled and prostituted themselves.

Perry said today that his mother said "Girls look for infinite security; boys look for a mate. Both look for different things." I am at odds. dislike being a girl, because as such I must come to realize that I cannot be a man. In other words, I must pour my energies through the direction and force of my mate. My only free act is choosing or refusing that mate. And yet, it is as I feared: I am becoming adjusted and accustomed to that idea. And if I could be your companion I would laugh at those previous fears. I like what you heighten in me. And I am amazed that I, so proud and distainful of custom, could consider marriage an honorable and vital estate. But under certain circumstances I do justly consider it that.

We observe that all nations, barbarous as well as civilized, though separately founded because remote from each other in time and space, keep these three human customs: all have some religion, all contract solemn marriages, all bury their dead.

There is no way to directly oblige a woman to give birth. All that can be done is to enclose her in situations where motherhood is her only option. Laws or customs impose marriage on her. Anticonception means and abortion are banned. Divorce is forbidden.

And he had a couple of Bibles in need of customized repair, and those were an easy fifty dollars apiece – just brace the page against a piece of plywood in a frame and scorch out the verses the customers found intolerable, with a wood-burning stylus; a plain old razor wouldn’t have the authority that hot iron did. And then of course drench the defaced book in holy water to validate the edited text. Matthew 19:5-6 and Mark 10:7-12 were bits he was often asked to burn out, since they condemned re-marriage after divorce, but he also got a lot of requests to lose Matthew 25:41 through 46, with Jesus’s promise of Hell to stingy people. And he offered a special deal to eradicate all thirty or so mentions of adultery. Some of these customized Bibles ended up after a few years with hardly any weight besides the binding.

You might as well tell me there was nobody but Adam in the garden when Eve picked the apple. You say your wife was discontented? No woman ever knows she's discontented till some man tells her so. My God! I've seen smash-ups before now; but I never yet saw a marriage dissolved like a business partnership.

Yet, there is a Chennai that hasn’t changed and never will. Women still wake up at the crack of dawn and draw the kolam—the rice-flour design—outside their doorstep. Men don’t consider it old-fashioned to wear a dhoti, which is usually matched with a modest pair of Bata chappals. The day still begins with coffee and lunch ends with curd rice. Girls are sent to Carnatic music classes. The music festival continues to be held in the month of December. Tamarind rice is still a delicacy—and its preparation still an art form. It’s the marriage between tradition and transformation that makes Chennai unique. In a place like Delhi, you’ll have to hunt for tradition. In Kolkata, you’ll itch for transformation. Mumbai is only about transformation. It is Chennai alone that firmly holds its customs close to the chest, as if it were a box of priceless jewels handed down by ancestors, even as the city embraces change.

age, eighteen or twenty, in accordance with a custom which is rather widely prevalent in parliamentary families. In spite of this marriage, however, it was said that Charles Myriel created a great deal of talk. He was well formed, though rather short in stature, elegant, graceful, intelligent; the whole of the first portion of his life had been devoted to the world and to gallantry. The Revolution came; events succeeded each other with precipitation; the parliamentary families, decimated, pursued, hunted down, were dispersed. M. Charles Myriel emigrated to Italy at the very beginning of the Revolution. There his wife died of

There is a beautiful custom in India: On her first Makar Sakranti after marriage, the bride pretends to awaken her in-laws who pretend to be deep asleep. Similar thing happens between the Guru and seekers. God inside seekers is pretending to be deep asleep. God inside Guru pretends to awaken them. It's all a divine play.

In Ugandan society a girl who had reached puberty was eligible for a family-arranged marriage. The groom would bring wealth to the bride’s family in the form of cattle, goats, or land. My experience at the hands of Joseph Kony’s murderers and rapists had made a mockery of this custom. I hated the idea, and my father understood.

There is, I think, in either a man or a woman a tendency to feel affection for any child whom he or she has to tend. Even if nothing but custom and convention, or wages, have in the first instance caused an adult to have the care of a child, the mere fact of having that care will, in the majority of cases, cause affection to grow up.

Parts of rural China are seeing a burgeoning market for female corpses, the result of the reappearance of a strange custom called "ghost marriages." Chinese tradition demands that husbands and wives always share a grave. Sometimes, when a man died unmarried, his parents would procure the body of a woman, hold a "wedding," and bury the couple together... A black market has sprung up to supply corpse brides. Marriage brokers—usually respectable folk who find brides for village men—account for most of the middlemen. At the bottom of the supply chain come hospital mortuaries, funeral parlors, body snatchers—and now murderers. —"China's Corpse Brides: Wet Goods and Dry Goods" The Economist, July 26, 2007

The chief care of the legislators [in the colonies of New England] was the maintenance of orderly conduct and good morals in the community: thus they constantly invaded the domain of conscience, and there was scarcely a sin which was no subject to magisterial censure. The reader is aware of the rigor with which these laws punished rape and adultery; intercourse between unmarried persons was likewise severely repressed. The judge was empowered to inflict either a pecuniary penalty, a whipping, or marriage, on the misdemeanants; and if the records of the old courts of New Haven may be believed, prosecutions of this kind were not unfrequent. We find a sentence, bearing date the 1st of May, 1660, inflicting a fine and reprimand on a young woman who was accused of using improper language, and of allowing herself to be kissed. The Code of 1650 abounds in preventive measures. It punishes idleness and drunkenness with severity. Innkeepers were forbidden to furnish more than certain quantities of liquor to each customer; and simple lying, whenever it may be injurious, is checked by a fine or a flogging. In other places, the legislator, entirely forgetting the great principles of religious toleration which he had himself demanded in Europe, makes attendance on divine service compulsory, and goes so far as to visit with severe punishment, and even with death, Christians who choose to worship God according to a ritual differing from his own. Sometimes, indeed, the zeal for regulation induces him to descend to the most frivolous particulars: thus a law is to be found in the same code which prohibits the use of tobacco. It must not be forgotten that these fantastical and vexatious laws were not imposed by authority, but that they were freely voted by all the persons interested in them, and that the manners of the community were even more austere and puritanical than the laws.... These errors are no doubt discreditable to human reason; they attest the inferiority of our nature, which is incapable of laying firm hold upon what is true and just, and is often reduced to the alternative of two excesses. In strict connection with this penal legislation, which bears such striking marks of a narrow, sectarian spirit, and of those religious passions which had been warmed by persecution and were still fermenting among the people, a body of political laws is to be found, which, though written two hundred years ago, is still in advance of the liberties of our own age.

People who use their religion as a framework to kill people, simply , are not nice people. Yes, that's quite a stand I'm making, but the idea that people are systematically executed because they don't share your God is beyond barbaric. The fact that there are people in our own country who seem to tolerate that, while being intolerant of a Christian's biblical stance regarding gay marriage, makes me want to go to leave the United States and go to a more sensible place, like Texas. There are more things I refuse to tolerate (pretentious music criticism, clove cigarettes, slow-moving ceiling fans, restaurant hostesses who pretend they own the joint, people who walk and text on a crowded sidewalk, Hostess Snowballs, people who drop subzero in their conversation when they aren't talking about the Arctic winds, people who bring their own bedroom pillows onto flights, pharmacists who yell out your prescription in front of other customers, Time Warner Cable, Sting's chest hair) but I'll get into that later.... I may not do that...though, because I refuse to tolerate lists. They're lazy. And listy.

The conduct of a new sedoretu is to some extent, and wisely, prescribed by custom and sanctioned by religion. The first night after the ceremony of marriage belongs to the Morning and Evening couples; the second night to the Day and Night couples. Thereafter the four spouses may join as and when they please, but always and only by invitation given and accepted, and the arrangements are to be known to all four. Four souls and bodies and all the years of their four lives to come are in the balance in each of those decisions and invitations; passion, negative and positive, must find its channels, and trust must be established, lest the whole structure fail to found itself solidly, or destroy itself in selfishness and jealousy and grief.

ALEXANDRA To be natural and clean, like the water we drink, love must be free and mutual. But men demand obedience and deny pleasure. Without a new morality, without a radical shift in daily life, there will be no real emancipation. If the revolution is not to be a lie, it must abolish in law and in custom men’s right of property over women and the rigid social norms that are the enemies of diversity. Give or take a word, this is what Alexandra Kollontai, the only woman in Lenin’s cabinet, demanded. Thanks to her, homosexuality and abortion were no longer crimes, marriage was no longer a life sentence, women had the right to vote and to equal pay, and there were free child care centers, communal dining halls, and collective laundries. Years

I am certain that many things will change in the life of man. Rituals and customs will change, including the traditional form of the institution of marriage, and many values will be reconsidered. Only the two most fundamental values - Your gifts to mankind - will remain unchanged: the inconsumable passion for gene preservation and expansion of the scope of individual freedom of choice.

OPEN YOURSELF TO SERENDIPITY Chance encounters can also provide enormous benefits for your projects—and your life. Being friendly while standing in line for coffee at a conference might lead to a conversation, a business card exchange, and the first investment in your company a few months later. The person sitting next to you at a concert who chats you up during intermission might end up becoming your largest customer. Or, two strangers sitting in a nail salon exchanging stories about their families might lead to a blind date, which might lead to a marriage. (This is how I met my wife. Lucky for me, neither stranger had a smartphone, so they resorted to matchmaking.) I am consistently humbled and amazed by just how much creation and realization is the product of serendipity. Of course, these chance opportunities must be noticed and pursued for them to have any value. It makes you wonder how much we regularly miss. As we tune in to our devices during every moment of transition, we are letting the incredible potential of serendipity pass us by. The greatest value of any experience is often found in its seams. The primary benefits of a conference often have nothing to do with what happens onstage. The true reward of a trip to the nail salon may be more than the manicure. When you value the power of serendipity, you start noticing it at work right away. Try leaving the smartphone in your pocket the next time you’re in line or in a crowd. Notice one source of unexpected value on every such occasion. Develop the discipline to allow for serendipity.

Among the Mediterraneans,” wrote Seltman, “as a general rule society was built around the woman, even on the highest levels where descent was in the female line. A man became king or chieftain only by a formal marriage and his daughter, not his son, succeeded so that the next chieftain was the youth who married his daughter … Until the northerners arrived, religion and custom were dominated by the female principle.

Even if she could have got so far without a quarrel, still there would have been a great hue and cry about the marriage itself. First, it never happened. Secondly, how could there be a marriage between a princess of the Warrior Caste and a boy of the priestly Brahman Caste? Her readers would have imagined at once that the writer was preaching against our social customs in an underhand way. And they would write letters to the papers.

marriage is not a covenant between a man and a woman... Marriage is a covenant between a man and woman on the one side and their community on the other. To marry according to the law of the community is to become a full citizen; to refuse marriage is to be a stranger, a child, an outlaw, a slave, or a traitor. The one constant in every society of human kind is that only those who obey the laws, tabus, and customs of marriage are true adults.

Denial serves a very real, very necessary purpose. It allows addicts to revel in the ecstatic joy of their vices, free of guilt; free of worry. It lets the sweet customer service rep at Belk -- the one with the frequent black eyes that makeup just doesn’t quite seem to hide -- continue on in her marriage, hoping her husband’s tantrums are just a phase. It helped split the nation, bloodying battlefields from Vicksburg to Gettysburg as both sides denied the reality of brother killing brother.

This is their custom regarding marriage: it is binding only so long as the woman wishes to be bound by it. The woman chooses the man, although the man may court a woman he finds desirable, with gifts and deeds of war done in her honor. If an Outislander woman accepts a man’s courtship, it does not mean she has bound herself to him, only that she may welcome him into her bed. Their dalliances may last a week, a year, or a lifetime. It is entirely of the woman’s choosing. All things that are kept under a roof belong to the woman, as does all that comes from the earth which her mothershouse claims. Her children belong to her clan, and are commonly disciplined and taught by her brothers and uncles rather than by their father. While the man lives on her land or in her mothershouse, his labor is hers to command. All in all, it baffles this traveler why a man would willingly submit to such a minor role, but Outislanders seem likewise baffled by our arrangements, asking me sometimes, “Why do your women willingly leave the wealth of their own families to become servants in a man’s home?

Moreover, in accordance with a time-honoured custom, analogous to that which gave to the first meeting between two young people promised to one another in marriage the form of a chance encounter at a performance in the Théâtre du Gymnase, the dialogue in the course of which destiny was to dictate the word ‘War’ or the word ‘Peace’ was held, as a rule, not in the ministerial sanctum but on a bench in a Kurgarten where the Minister and M. de Norpois went independently to a thermal spring to drink at its source their little tumblers of some curative water.

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In the same quarter are other ancient temples, and not far off is the fountain now called Enneacrounos, or the Nine Conduits, from the form given to it by the tyrants, but originally, before the springs were covered in, Callirrhoe, or the Fair Stream. The water of this fountain was used by the ancient Athenians on great occasions, it being near the original city; and at marriage rites and other ceremonies the custom is still retained. To this day the Acropolis or Citadel is called by the Athenians Polis, or City, because that neighbourhood was first inhabited. (Book 2 Chapter 15.5-6)

WOMEN HAVE ALWAYS BEEN THE property of men. It’s a truth written into social customs, old legal doctrines, some would say it’s written into the very laws of nature itself. In the Bible, women are told that their husbands shall rule over them. Fathers give their daughters away on their wedding day. The new owner is the groom. Much of history is based on the practice. In Europe, kings gave their daughters as peace offerings to other nations. Peasants gave their daughters in marriage to landowners as a means of trading their way out of feudal servitude. In other lands, tribes and clans gave their women as sacrifices to their enemies or gifts to their heroes. A beautiful daughter was prized not because of who she was or what she was capable of, but for what she could be bartered for. The entire marriage ceremony, to this day, is a complicated, ritualized human sacrifice. It is a custom of bondage and ownership. The bride is adorned in the most intricate, delicate and expensive clothing possible. She represents wealth, a high dowry, a prized possession. She is walked down the aisle by her father, the current owner, and delivered, in payment for something, always in payment for something, to her new owner, her groom.

Humanae Vitae is important for yet another reason. Just as the National Socialists used nationalism and racism, among other levers, to overthrow Christian morality, in modern, liberal society the levers have been sexual liberation and consumerism. These two “freedoms to choose” have replaced objective morality with the dogma of whatever the customer, or the individual, wants is right. In opposing this attitude, the Church is often accused of being “opposed to sex.” Such an accusation reveals the incredible poverty of modern thought. Far from being opposed to sex, the Church affirms that sex is a definable thing: God made them man and woman. The Church affirms the twofold “unitive” and “procreative” purpose and virtue inherent in conjugal activity and cherishes the result: the bonding of man and wife and their commitment to raise their children. And as anyone remotely familiar with the paintings and sculptures in the Vatican can affirm, the Church celebrates the human body, celebrates the reality of sex and the erotic (in the same spirit as the Bible's Song of Solomon), and indeed celebrates marriage as a sacrament. It is modern, liberal secularists who are “opposed to sex” in that they attempt to blur the distinctions between male and female, ignore the objective meaning of sexual activity, and who think that its natural result should be freely and inconsequentially aborted if it cannot otherwise be prevented.

My family’s tradition of ‘matching-matching’ names is so obsessive, it’s against the order of nature. When my uncles Anil and Anant married, they took advantage of a heinous custom in Marathi weddings. After the pheras, a dish of uncooked rice is placed before the newlyweds, and whatever name the husband chooses to write in the rice becomes the new name of his wife. Because marriage in our culture is akin to buying a puppy at a pet shop and saying, ‘I am your new owner, and I shall call you Flu y.’ So Anil Adarkar brought home Asha Adarkar (née Kiran), and Anant Adarkar brought home Anita Adarkar (née Geeta). And to complete this picture of divine perfection they named their children Aniket, and Ashwini and Ashleysha, respectively.

It’s like I always say about the whole Jesus Christ thing. If he loves everyone, no matter what, then why is his love worth anything? I never understood that. If a teacher gives everyone in class an A, then the A loses its value. When a stripper tells every customer her “real” name because it makes each customer feel special, it isn’t special at all but just a manipulation. (Not to mention that “real” name is just a second fake name.) And men fall for this because they desperately need to believe a superhot half-naked chick wants them. Just like people desperately need to feel loved by someone, even if it’s love from a biblical character who inherently loves all creatures. I don’t want to be loved by someone who loves everyone. I want to be loved by someone who loves no one, because that makes the love special.

You mean nonmonogamy?" she said, neutrally. "No, no, no." I was now so nervous that I was almost tearful. "It would be our own thing, not that! We'd have to really talk about it, down the road. Make rules. When we know each other better." I saw us sitting on the living room floor in front of her cozy fireplace, drawing up our bylaws. Old wounds would be tenderly revealed, kinks admitted; there would be laughing and crying and pauses for self-regulation. Then, given all this information (and in the context of Harris and Sam), we would know what sort of specific, customized relationship was right for the two of us. And it could change! As we changed! I didn't say any of this, but I thought about it while she kissed me. Frankly, I was proud that I'd said anything at all and that it had gone so well— apparently, based on this kiss.

Brian Doyle about the Irish custom of “taking to the bed.” He says “In Irish culture, taking to the bed with a gray heart is not considered especially odd. People did and do it for understandable reasons—ill health, or the black dog, or, most horrifyingly, to die during An Gorta Mor, the great hunger, when whole families took to their beds to slowly starve…And in our time: I know a woman who took to her bed for a week after September eleventh, and people who have taken to their beds for days on end to recover from shattered love affairs, the death of a child, a physical injury that heals far faster than the psychic wound gaping under it. I’ve done it myself twice, once as a youth and once as a man, to think through a troubled time in my marriage. Something about the rectangularity of the bed, perhaps, or supinity, or silence, or timelessness; for when you are in bed but not asleep there is no time, as lovers and insomniacs know. Yet, anxious, heartsick, we take to the bed, saddled by despair and dissonance and disease, riddled by muddledness and madness, rattled by malaise and misadventure, and in the ancient culture of my forbears this was not so unusual….For from the bed we came and to it we shall return, and our nightly voyages there are nutritious and restorative, and we have taken to our beds for a thousand other reasons, loved and argued and eater and seethed there, and sang and sobbed and suckled, and burned with fevers and visions and lust, and huddled and howled and curled and prayed. As children we all, every one of us, pretended the bed was a boat; so now, when we are so patently and persistently and daily at sea, why not seek a ship? p. 119-20 Brian Doyle in The Wet Engine: Exploring the Mad Wild Miracle of the Heart, p. 90-91

But our ill fortune did not afflict the Portuguese in our town: they still shipped gold and wool to Porto and still sent hanbals, kiswas and other woven goods to Guinea. If anything, the drought and famine we were experiencing had only made their trade more profitable, because the price of the wool had fallen so low that they could purchase larger quantities of it. That year, a strange thing happened. The farmers who had neither the funds to pay the Portoguese tax nor grain to sell at marked had to give their children as payment. Girls of marriagable age were worth two arrobas of wheat; boys twice as that. A custom official of my acquaintance swore that he had seen three Portuguese caravels leave Azzemur, each carrying two hundred girls and women, who would be transported to Seville, where they would be sold as domestics and concubines. From that blighted time came the saying: when bellies speak, reason is lost.

Less is not known as a teacher, in the same way Melville was not known as a customs inspector. And yet both held the respective positions. Though he was once an endowed chair at Robert’s university, he has no formal training except the drunken, cigarette-filled evenings of his youth, when Robert’s friends gathered and yelled, taunted, and played games with words. As a result, Less feels uncomfortable lecturing. Instead, he re-creates those lost days with his students. Remembering those middle-aged men sitting with a bottle of whiskey, a Norton book of poetry, and scissors, he cuts up a paragraph of Lolita and has the young doctoral students reassemble the text as they desire. In these collages, Humbert Humbert becomes an addled old man rather than a diabolical one, mixing up cocktail ingredients and, instead of confronting the betrayed Charlotte Haze, going back for more ice. He gives them a page of Joyce and a bottle of Wite-Out—and Molly Bloom merely says “Yes.” A game to write a persuasive opening sentence for a book they have never read (this is difficult, as these diligent students have read everything) leads to a chilling start to Woolf’s The Waves: I was too far out in the ocean to hear the lifeguard shouting, “Shark! Shark!” Though the course features, curiously, neither vampires nor Frankenstein monsters, the students adore it. No one has given them scissors and glue sticks since they were in kindergarten. No one has ever asked them to translate a sentence from Carson McCullers (In the town there were two mutes, and they were always together) into German (In der Stadt gab es zwei Stumme, und sie waren immer zusammen) and pass it around the room, retranslating as they go, until it comes out as playground gibberish: In the bar there were two potatoes together, and they were trouble. What a relief for their hardworking lives. Do they learn anything about literature? Doubtful. But they learn to love language again, something that has faded like sex in a long marriage. Because of this, they learn to love their teacher.

There is some concern among the Brethren that some of you who are still single may not be moving in the direction of preparing yourselves to seek out and commit to an eternal companion. This applies both to young men and to young women. The greater burden, however, rests upon the young men because in our society it is a responsibility of young men to initiate activities that lead to courtship and to marriage. The doctrine of the Church is very clear and it anticipates that individuals will be married in the temple and rear a righteous family as guided by the inspired document we call "The Proclamation on the Family." . . . Speaking of the obligation of men to marry, President Joseph Fielding Smith taught as follows: "Any young man who carelessly neglects this great commandment to marry, or who does not marry because of a selfish desire to avoid the responsibilities which married life will bring, is taking a course which is displeasing in the sight of God. Exaltation means responsibility. There can be no exaltation without it. "If a man refuses to take upon himself the responsibilities of married life, because he desires to avoid the cares and troubles which naturally will follow, he is taking a course which may bar him forever from the responsibilities which are held in reserve for those who are willing to keep in full the commandments of the Lord. . . . "According to modern custom, it is the place of the man to take the initiative in the matter of a marriage contract. Women are, by force of such custom, kept in reserve. . . . The responsibility . . . rests upon the man." President Smith continued with the following advice to young women: "If in her heart the young woman accepts fully the word of the Lord, and under proper conditions would abide by the law, but refuses an offer when she fully believes that the conditions would not justify her in entering a marriage contract, which would bind her forever to one she does not love, she shall not lose her reward. The Lord will judge her by the desires of the heart, and the day will come when the blessings withheld shall be given, though it be postponed until the life to come.

Haven’t I tired you out yet, darling?” Ian whispered several hours later. “Yes,” she said with an exhausted laugh, her cheek nestled against his shoulder, her hand drifting over his chest in a sleepy caress. “But I’m too happy to sleep for a while yet.” So was Ian, but he felt compelled to at least suggest that she try. “You’ll regret it in the morning when we have to appear for breakfast,” he said with a grin, cuddling her closer to his side. To his surprise, the remark made her smooth forehead furrow in a frown. She tipped her face up to his, opened her mouth as if to ask him a question, then she changed her mind and hastily looked away. “What is it?” he asked, taking her chin between his thumb and forefinger and lifting her face up to his. “Tomorrow morning,” she said with a funny, bemused expression on her face. “When we go downstairs…will everyone know what we have done tonight?” She expected him to try to evade the question. “Yes,” he said. She nodded, accepting that, and turned into his arms. “Thank you for telling me the truth,” she said with a sigh of contentment and gratitude. “I’ll always tell you the truth,” he promised quietly, and she believed him. It occurred to Elizabeth that she could ask him now, when he’d given that promise, if he’d had anything to do with Robert’s disappearance. And as quickly as the thought crossed her mind, she pushed it angrily away. She would not defame their marriage bed by voicing ugly, unfounded suspicions carried to her by a man who obviously had a grudge against all Scots. This morning, she had made a conscious decision to trust him and marry him; now, she was bound by her vows to honor him, and she had absolutely no intention of going back on her own decision or on the vow she made to him in church. “Elizabeth?” “Mmmm?” “While we’re on the subject of truth, I have a confession to make.” Her heart slammed into her ribs, and she went rigid. “What is it?” she asked tautly. “The chamber next door is meant to be used as your dressing room and withdrawing room. I do not approve of the English custom of husband and wife sleeping in separate beds.” She looked so pleased that Ian grinned. “I’m happy to see,” he chuckled, kissing her forehead, “we agree on that.

And this, too, is something that the pagans understood. Consider the word integrity. It does not mean sincerity; that and a really fine pumpkin patch won’t get you much. The man of integrity is integrated. He does not make his moral decisions ad hoc, reckoning up advantages, or gauging his feelings. He sees, too, that all of the virtues are related to one another, and are meant to inform the whole life of a man. He therefore would no more cheat a customer than he would commit adultery. He would no more lie under oath than he would flee from his post in time of war. He would no more spread rumors about his enemy than he would sprinkle rat poison upon a beggar’s dish. His honesty is brave; his chastity is generous; his great-heartedness is clean. But the divorce regime teaches and rewards dis-integrity. And one can no more build a great nation or even a good, solid town upon dis-integrated people, than one can build a town hall out of straw, or a church out of dust. Again, the evil principle is that the sexual gratification of adults must be met; no customs or laws may stand in its way. The principle is a universal solvent. Nothing can contain it.

Hitherto all that has given colour to existence has lacked a history: where would one find a history of love, of avarice, of envy, of conscience, of piety, of cruelty? Even a comparative history of law, as also of punishment, has hitherto been completely lacking. Have the different divisions of the day, the consequences of a regular appointment of the times for labour, feast, and repose, ever been made the object of investigation? Do we know the moral effects of the alimentary substances? Is there a philosophy of nutrition? (The ever-recurring outcry for and against vegetarianism proves that as yet there is no such philosophy!) Have the experiences with regard to communal living, for example, in monasteries, been collected? Has the dialectic of marriage and friendship been set forth? The customs of the learned, of trades-people, of areists, and of mechanics have they already found been found and thought about? There is so much in them to think about! All that up till now has been considered as the "conditions of existence," of human beings, and all reason, passion and superstition in this consideration have they been investigated to the end? The observation alone of the different degrees of development which the human impulses have attained, and could yet attain, according to the different moral climates, would furnish too much work for the most laborious; whole generations, and regular co-operating generations of the learned, would be needed in order to exhaust the points of view and the material here furnished. The same is true of the determining of the reasons for the differences of the moral climates ("on what account does this sun of a fundamental moral judgment and standard of highest value shine here and that sun there?") And there is again a new labour which points out the erroneousness of all these reasons, and determines the entire essence of the moral judgments hitherto made. Supposing all these labours to be accomplished, the most critical of all questions would then come into the foreground: whether science is in a position to provide goals for human action, after it has proved that it can take them away and destroy them and then would be the time for a process of experimenting, in which every kind of heroism could satisfy itself, an experimenting for centuries, which would put into the shade all the great labours and sacrifices of previous history. Science has not as yet built its Cyclopic buildings; but for that also the time will come.

But won’t creation come to an end if there is no bond of marriage?’ ‘Why would it come to an end, Sita? Many creatures take birth and grow in this forest. They have no marital bonds, do they? There are people of different tribes whose customs are different from yours.’ ‘Does that mean human beings should live like animals, uncivilized?’ ‘Why do you look down upon animals, Sita? We should love animals and nature. We should worship them. We should befriend them. That’s the duty of humans. Ignoring that basic duty, you think what is written in books is civilization. Is that right? You have come to the forest from the city. Why insist so much on the civilization of the cities? Isn’t nature the best teacher?’ ‘I don’t understand your words. I feel they will cause harm to women.’ ‘They certainly won’t. When a child belongs to its mother, there is no harm in that. A situation where children ask their mother who their father is or where a husband asks his wife who fathered her children comes only in the lives of some women, Sita. Think of the predicament of those women, and you’ll understand my words.’ ‘Just because something happened to someone, somewhere, should people remain without marrying and bear children outside wedlock? Does it happen anywhere? Is that good conduct?’ asked Sita resentfully. ‘I don’t know if it is good conduct or not—I speak of what I know. It is only through experience that one understands the truth. And whatever you understand, you tell others.

I have fallen in love within the last month with a Romagnuola Countess from Ravenna--the Spouse of a year of Count Guiccioli--who is sixty--the Girl twenty--he has eighty thousand ducats of rent--and has had two wives before--but he is Sixty--he is the first of Ravenna Nobles--but he is sixty--She is fair as Sunrise--and warm as Noon--we had but ten days--to manage all our little matters in beginning middle and end. & we managed them;--and I have done my duty--with the proper consummation.--But She is young--and was not content with what she had done--unless it was to be turned to the advantage of the public--and so She made an eclat which rather astonished even the Venetians--and electrified the Conversazioni of the Benzone--the Albrizzi--& the Michelli--and made her husband look embarrassed.--They have been gone back to Ravenna--some time--but they return in the Winter.--She is the queerest woman I ever met with--for in general they cost one something in one way or other--whereas by an odd combination of circumstances--I have proved an experience to HER--which is not my custom,--but an accident--however it don't mater.--She is a sort of an Italian Caroline Lamb, except that She is much prettier, and not so savage.--But She has the same red-hot head--the same noble disdain of public opinion--with the superstructure of all that Italy can add to such natural dispositions.--To by sure they may go much further here with impunity--as her husband's rank ensured their reception at all societies including the Court--and as it was her first outbreak since Marriage--the Sympathizing world was liberal.--She is also of the Ravenna noblesse--educated in a convent--sacrifice to Wealth--filial duty and all that.--I am damnably in love--but they are gone--gone--for many months--and nothing but Hope--keeps me alive seriously.

The Search for Happiness Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of [children]. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate. —PSALM 127:5     Storm Jameson, a twentieth-century English writer, wrote, “Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed.” Parents want to make their children happy, employers want to make employees happy, married couples want a happy marriage, etc. “Just make me happy, and I’ll be satisfied!” Isn’t that what people (ourselves included) think and expect of others a lot of the time? Yet, we run into so many unhappy people—clearly these expectations are rarely met. Our newspapers are full of stories about unhappy people. They rob, they kill, they steal, they take drugs. They, they, they. Everywhere one looks, there is unhappiness. Then how does one become happy? I’ve found that happiness comes from one’s own perception. No one else is responsible for your happiness. Look in the mirror, and you can see who is responsible for your happiness! Gerald Brenan wrote: One road to happiness is to cultivate curiosity about everything. Not only about people but about subjects, not only about the arts but about history and foreign customs. Not only about countries and cities, but about plants and animals. Not only about lichened rocks and curious markings on the bark of trees, but about stars and atoms. Not only about friends but about that strange labyrinth we inhabit which we call ourselves. Then if we do that, we will never suffer a moment’s boredom.56 Happiness comes from within. It’s what you do: the choices you make, the interests you pursue, the attitudes you have, the friends you make, the faith you embrace, and the peace you live. You, you, you bring happiness to your life—no one else. Turn to the One who created you, inside and out, and follow His lead to happiness and wholeness.

The free man is immoral, because it is his will to depend upon himself and not upon tradition: in all the primitive states of humanity “evil” is equivalent to “individual,” “free,” “arbitrary,” “unaccustomed,” “unforeseen,” “incalculable.” In such primitive conditions, always measured by this standard, any action performed — not because tradition commands it, but for other reasons (e.g. on account of its individual utility), even for the same reasons as had been formerly established by custom — is termed immoral, and is felt to be so even by the very man who performs it, for it has not been done out of obedience to the tradition. What is tradition? A higher authority, which is obeyed, not because it commands what is useful to us, but merely because it commands. And in what way can this feeling for tradition be distinguished from a general feeling of fear? It is the fear of a higher intelligence which commands, the fear of an incomprehensible power, of something that is more than personal — there is superstition in this fear. In primitive times the domain of morality included education and hygienics, marriage, medicine, agriculture, war, speech and silence, the relationship between man and man, and between man and the gods — morality required that a man should observe her prescriptions without thinking of himself as individual. Everything, therefore, was originally custom, and whoever wished to raise himself above it, had first of all to make himself a kind of lawgiver and medicine-man, a sort of demi-god — in other words, he had to create customs, a dangerous and fearful thing to do! — Who is the most moral man? On the one hand, he who most frequently obeys the law: e.g. he who, like the Brahmins, carries a consciousness of the law about with him wherever he may go, and introduces it into the smallest divisions of time, continually exercising his mind in finding opportunities for obeying the law. On the other hand, he who obeys the law in the most difficult cases.

Missy and I became best friends, and soon after our first year together I decided to propose to her. It was a bit of a silly proposal. It was shortly before Christmas Day 1988, and I bought her a potted plant for her present. I know, I know, but let me finish. The plan was to put her engagement ring in the dirt (which I did) and make her dig to find it (which I forced her to do). I was then going to give a speech saying, “Sometimes in life you have to get your hands dirty and work hard to achieve something that grows to be wonderful.” I got the idea from Matthew 13, where Jesus gave the Parable of the Sower. I don’t know if it was the digging through the dirt to find the ring or my speech, but she looked dazed and confused. So I sort of popped the question: “You’re going to marry me, aren’t you?” She eventually said yes (whew!), and I thought everything was great. A few days later, she asked me if I’d asked her dad for his blessing. I was not familiar with this custom or tradition, which led to a pretty heated argument about people who are raised in a barn or down on a riverbank. She finally convinced me that it was a formality that was a prerequisite for our marriage, so I decided to go along with it. I arrived one night at her dad’s house and asked if I could talk with him. I told him about the potted plant and the proposal to his daughter, and he pretty much had the same bewildered look on his face that she’d had. He answered quite politely by saying no. “I think you should wait a bit, like maybe a couple of years,” he said. I wasn’t prepared for that response. I didn’t handle it well. I don’t remember all the details of what was said next because I was uncomfortable and angry. I do remember saying, “Well, you are a preacher so I am going to give you some scripture.” I quoted 1 Corinthians 7:9, which says: “It is better to marry than to burn with passion.” That didn’t go over very well. I informed him that I’d treated his daughter with respect and he still wouldn’t budge. I then told him we were going to get married with him or without him, and I left in a huff. Over the next few days, I did a lot of soul-searching and Missy did a lot of crying. I finally decided that it was time for me to become a man. Genesis 2:24 says: “For this reason [creation of a woman] a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” God is the architect of marriage, and I’d decided that my family would have God as its foundation. It was time for me to leave and cleave, as they say. My dad told me once that my mom would cuddle us when we were in his nest, but there would be a day when it would be his job to kick me out. He didn’t have to kick me out, nor did he have to ask me, “Who’s a man?” Through prayer and patience, Missy’s parents eventually came around, and we were more than ready to make our own nest.

conflict arises when they need to divide

The two were wed in August 1561, during a weeklong bacchanal that included a jousting tournament and a public bedding (a charming custom in which bride and groom were conveyed to their chamber by jovial wedding guests, dumped into bed amid much ribald joking, and left to consummate the marriage while folks sniggered outside the door).

The portion of Islam has been given to us through the Sunnah: Worship Rituals i. The Prayer ii. Zakāh and Sadaqah of ‘Īd al-Fitr iii. Fasting and I‘tikāf iv. Hajj and ‘Umrah v. Animal Sacrifice and the Takbīrs during the days of Tashrīq Social Sphere i. Marriage and Divorce and their relevant details ii. Abstention from coitus during the menstrual and the puerperal period Dietary Sphere i. Prohibition of pork, blood, meat of dead animals and animals slaughtered in the name of someone other than Allah ii. Slaughtering in the prescribed manner of tadhkiyah by pronouncing Allah’s name Customs and Etiquette i. Remembering Allah’s name before eating or drinking and using the right hand for eating and drinking ii. Greeting one another with al-Sālamu ‘Alaykum (peace be to you) and responding with Wa ‘Alaykum al-Salām (and peace be to you) iii. Saying al-Hamdulillāh (praise be to Allah) after sneezing and responding to it by saying Yarhamukallāh (may Allah have mercy on you) iv. Keeping moustaches trimmed v. Shaving pubic hair vi. Removing the hairs under the armpits vii. Paring fingernails (cleaning it) viii. Circumcising the male offspring ix. Cleaning the nose, the mouth and the teeth x. Cleaning the body after excretion and urination xi. Bathing after the menstrual and the puerperal periods xii. Ghusl-i Janābah xiii. Bathing the dead before burial xiv. Enshrouding a dead body and preparing it for burial xv. Burying the dead xvi. ‘Īd al-Fitr xvii. ‘Īd al-Adhā

Many social and political changes have swept the world clean of the apprehension of sacred things: the rejection of custom and ceremony; the conversion of marriage into a defeasible contract; the relaxing of the laws governing, sexual conduct and obscenity; the decline of faith and saintliness. As those changes take their effect, the experience of erotic love becomes darigerous and uncertain in its outcome. Our responsibility retreats further from the confused terrain of sexual experience, and threatens even to void it of desire. Hence, it might be said, my ability to reflect, in so neutral and philosophical a fashion, on the nature of this phenomenon is perhaps already an index of its decline: of the fact that desire does not, now, have the importance for us that formerly caused men to conceal it in poetry or overcome it through prayer. What we understand of our condition may also pass from us in the act of understanding. For we were never meant to have knowledge of this thing; we were meant only to be subject to its command. No phenomenon, perhaps, illustrates more profoundly the great poetical utterance of Hegel; that When philosophy paints its grey in grey, then has a shape of life grown old. By philosophy's grey in grey it cannot be rejuvenated but only understood. The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the gathering of the dusk. On the other hand, it is a century and a half since Hegel wrote those words, and life goes on.

Modern people rarely marry to enhance the economic relationship between their families, and since the ancient custom of arranged marriage is effectively obsolete, the expectations of married life have changed profoundly.

In fact, the traditional institution of marriage that we inherited from ancient societies was never designed to provide intimacy, companionship, mutual attraction, or sexual satisfaction. Traditional marriage evolved in agricultural societies as a way to create lifelong partnerships, establish mutually beneficial economic relationships between families, and maximize the stability of land ownership in agricultural society. These goals were achieved by a set of customs that made both men and women socially, economically, and psychologically dependent on each other. And it was these customs—not lasting affection or mutual attraction—that ensured the permanence of marriage.

In a section titled “Performance Factors,” Clint had been asked to indicate areas in which I’d exhibited significant strengths, as well as any areas needing development. There were only two areas in which he felt I needed development—organization (probably because he’d ridden in my car) and working more closely with third parties—but he had indicated six major strengths. The first three were creativity, achievement of objectives, and quality of work. No surprises there. The next three strengths—adaptability, communication, and autonomy—seemed a bit ironic. I scrolled down and saw my overall score: Very Good. By definition, this score meant that I had “exceeded objectives in several areas and required only occasional supervision.” I didn’t appreciate the real irony of Clint’s assessment until I looked at my stakeholder map and considered how I might have scored had Kristen conducted a similar evaluation at home. What score would I have received for adaptability? The review form defined this as “being open to change with new circumstances.” Going with the flow. We had just begun to work on my openness to change at home, and I was still learning how to adjust to this new mind-set. Meanwhile, at work, I presented myself as nothing if not adaptable. “Sure, I’ll take a new position on the marketing team.” “Of course I can stay until midnight tonight. Whatever it takes.” “Certainly, Clint, I’ll travel to customers every week. Anything else?” At home, Kristen asked me to help fold laundry and my head almost exploded. I guessed that I would receive Needs Development for that one. How about autonomy and initiative? Clint seemed to think that I was bursting with it, but Kristen would have offered a different opinion. “Initiative? Please. How is me having to remind you to turn off the television and play with the kids initiative? I’ll put you down for a Needs Development,” I imagined her saying. Achievement of objectives would have gotten me a high mark with Kristen, until I scrolled down farther and read the definition, which included the phrase “gets things done efficiently and in a timely manner.” I thought of the Christmas decorations drooping from our eaves. I thought of the countless times Kristen and I had been late for an engagement and she’d found me standing in my boxers in front of the mirror making faces.

… about sixty thousand Indians and half-breeds… absolute savages… our inspectors occasionally visit… otherwise, no communication whatever with the civilized world… still preserve their repulsive habits and customs… marriage, if you know what that is, my dear young lady; families… no conditioning… monstrous superstitions… Christianity and totemism and ancestor worship… extinct languages, such as Zuñi and Spanish and Athapascan… pumas, porcupines and other ferocious animals… infectious diseases… priests… venomous lizards…" / —... Unos sesenta mil indios y mestizos..., absolutamente salvajes... Nuestros inspectores los visitan de vez en cuando... aparte de esto, ninguna comunicación con el mundo civilizado... conservan todavía sus repugnantes hábitos y costumbres... matrimonio, suponiendo que ustedes sepan a qué me refiero; familias... nada de condicionamiento... monstruosas supersticiones... Cristianismo, totemismos y adoración de los antepasados... lenguas muertas, como el zuñí, el español y el atabascano... pumas, puerco—espines y otros animales feroces... enfermedades infecciosas... sacerdotes... lagartos venenosos...

I’m not the one to encourage marriage as a blanket solution for all adults. Many people need to sort out themselves before joining with another being. However, the Lord God said in Genesis 2, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.’” He stopped center stage and looked out over the church. “For so many generations, we’ve misconstrued and undervalued the purpose—and benefit—of marriage. If we are seeking and/or working toward our purpose as men, God will custom design ‘help’ for us.

I had long since wished that they would have been born with a dictionary sized how-to guide in my placenta. It would have been custom printed for each child by God. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. I’d been forced to walk through the minefield of parenthood feeling like I was blindfolded and hopping on one leg. Surely my kids should understand that I was trying to know what I was doing, but the verdict still seemed out at the moment.

The Hayekian position really comes in two quite different versions, one much more sweeping than the other. In its strong version, the Hayekian argument implies that no reforms of long-standing institutions or customs should ever be undertaken, because any legal or political meddling would interfere with the natural evolution of social mores. One would thus have had to say, a century and a half ago, that slavery should not be forcibly abolished, because it was customary in almost all human societies. More recently, one would have had to say that the federal government was wrong to step in and end racial segregation instead of letting it evolve at its own pace. Obviously, neither Hayek nor any reputable follower of his would defend every cultural practice simply on the grounds that it must exist for a reason. Hayekians would point out that slavery violated a fundamental tenet of justice and was intolerably cruel. In calling for slavery’s abolition, they do what must be done if they are to be human: they establish a moral standpoint from which to judge social rules and reforms. They thus acknowledge that sometimes society must make changes in the name of fairness or decency, even if there are bound to be hidden costs. ... Hayek himself, then, was a partisan of the milder version of Hayekianism. This version is not so much a prescription as an attitude. Respect tradition. Reject utopianism. Plan for mistakes rather than for perfection. If reform is needed, look for paths that follow the terrain of custom, if possible. If someone promises to remake society on rational or supernatural or theological principles, run in the opposite direction. In sum: move ahead, but be careful.

and for the first time since learning of Krissa's marriage, he began working on a lyric. It was about loss, but not private loss, not loss of a romantic love. This was public loss, the lost innocence of a country at war few believed in, the loss of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Kennedy—of a king young men could believe in. It was about hungering to live with a tradition one could value, about longing to pay heed to customs that one could respect. It was called "My Grandfather's Chocolates." In the last stanza the grandson's regret and bitterness blazed into anger, fury at the generation who squandered their traditions. And as Quinn worked and reworked those lines, he knew that he was coming as close as he could to writing about Krissa.

வாழ்க்கைகாகச் சடங்குகள்; இதுதான் உண்மை. சடங்குகளுக்காக வாழ்க்கை என்பது நமக்கு வேண்டா.

To lovers out there … Social media standards destroy relationships and marriages. What you need to understand is people are not the same. Everyone has their own unique custom features, which is created by their experience that makes them behave or act different than others. Whatever you read online or anywhere might not apply to all man or women even thou it applies to Peter or Mary.

Other research has shown that when the number of genuinely positive statements on a team outweigh the number of negative statements by three to one, those teams outperform otherwise comparable groups on measures of profitability, customer satisfaction, and 360-degree reviews.3 This research is consistent with John Gottman’s popular research on marriage, in which he has learned to predict divorce with 94 percent accuracy based largely on the ratio of positive to negative interactions.4

Quaker prohibitions (no music, no dancing, no novels, no theater, no destruction of animal life for pleasure), the peculiar Quaker customs (no separate salaried ministers, no officiated marriages, baptisms, or funerals, the use of singular “thee” and “thou” instead of the inaccurate plural “you”), and Quaker social activism (refusal to pay taxes for support of ministers, abolitionism, equality of women, pacifism) are all founded on simple positive religious principles. “God has given to all,” says Clarkson, “besides an intellectual, a spiritual understanding.  .  .  .  This spirit may be considered as the primary and infallible guide—and scriptures but a secondary means of importance.”5

In 1952, a year after becoming Chabad’s leader, the Rebbe undertook to send a newly married couple to serve as shluchim in Brazil. Unlike the Lipskers, in this case the bride and her parents, all three Lubavitchers, were very unhappy with the Rebbe’s request. The father, who held a key position for the movement in Israel, couldn’t comprehend the idea of his daughter and son-in-law moving to a country with little Jewish infrastructure in place, and he wrote to the Rebbe to express his unhappiness. We possess no copy of the father’s letter, but the basic content of what he said is clear from the Rebbe’s response (when the letter was published, the Rebbe, as was his custom, omitted all names). The father, clearly pleased about the marriage, wrote that the family’s “happy event was [now] disturbed” by the news that the couple were to be sent abroad. It seems apparent from the Rebbe’s response that the father made no effort to disguise his displeasure at what the Rebbe had done. The Rebbe was in no way apologetic. He wrote in his capacity as a leader, in a sense as a military general who understood the need to deploy his troops where they were most needed, to “a place where your son-in-law and your daughter can fully utilize their potential.” The Rebbe acknowledged that moving to a foreign and largely nonobservant Jewish community requires a certain measure of self-sacrifice (mesirut nefesh), but he then posed a rhetorical question intended to overwhelm any further opposition. To paraphrase: “If one can’t expect such self-sacrifice from a graduate of our yeshiva, one who is a child as well of such a graduate and who is married to the daughter of such a graduate, if even from such people one can’t ask for a measure of self-sacrifice, then upon whom can one rely?” The Rebbe proceeded to offer both a carrot and a stick. Thus, he assured the father—knowing that the letter would be read by his daughter as well—that the couple would flourish in every meaningful manner by undertaking such a mission: “The vastness of the good fortune that will result if they accept this offer, including good fortune in a physical sense, is obvious to me.” On the other hand—and the Rebbe stated this as a fact, not a threat—refusing such a mission would cut the couple off from the work of the Previous Rebbe (who had died just two years earlier), and, by implication, from the Rebbe himself. Although he expressed “shock” that an offer to spread “the light of Torah and Chasidus” to unknowledgeable Jews could lead to the parents feeling that their happiness had been “disturbed,” he also set down, near the letter’s end, his trademark conclusion: “As stated above, I am not giving an order, Heaven forbid. This is only a suggestion.

The verb is present tense, “I do not know a man.” The passage does not say “I have pledged never to know a man” or “I will never know a man”; and (3) Even Roman Catholic theologian Ludwig Ott recognizes that the idea of a vow of virginity, made popular by Augustine (four centuries after the time of Christ), cannot be made to fit the context. “However, the subsequent espousals can hardly be reconciled with this” is his comment.[8] Ott is correct: the idea of a “married virgin” as Keating puts it is an oxymoron. Matthew speaks of the time “before they came together,” which is what would really make no sense if there was no intention of entering into a real marital relationship. The idea of a married virgin is simply out of harmony with the Bible’s teaching concerning the nature of marriage (let alone Jewish custom of the day). As Paul taught (1 Cor. 7), there is a marital debt involved (v. 3)[9] that would preclude the idea of a married virgin: the man’s body is not his own, but is his wife’s, and vice-versa. Sexual relations are completely natural in the married state, and, in fact, are assumed if a true marriage exists. If a person wishes to be a virgin, she should remain unmarried.[10] The idea of a virgin entering into an engagement with a man, even though she intends to remain celibate, is simply an attempt to make the biblical evidence support a doctrine created long after the apostles had finished writing Scripture.

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Despite the brightness of the sun, I shivered in the brisk November air, for I had not taken a cloak with me when I had left my parlor. As if by magic, one fell about my shoulders, and I knew without looking that Narian had joined us. His mere presence bolstered my courage and brought my thoughts into focus. I scanned the throng of eager Hytanicans, some of whom were gathered inside the Central Courtyard with more outside its walls, then raised my hands to quiet them. Taking a deep breath, I began to speak. “Spread the word. Tell your families and friends. Let it be known across the Recorah River Valley that I am proud to be Queen of this Kingdom of Hytanica!” Cheers exploded, rising and falling in waves, and I let myself enjoy the sights and sounds of victory for several minutes. Then I once more raised my hands to quell the crowd. “Be it known that Commander Narian stands with me as a loyal citizen of Hytanica. Without him, I would not have been able to travel to Cokyri and safely return. And without him, I would not have been able to begin negotiations for lasting peace with the High Priestess. I believe a trade treaty that is fair for both of our countries will soon be signed. Regardless, we stand here now and forevermore as a people free of Cokyrian rule.” Jubilant shouts greeted these words, and I took Narian’s hand in mine, raising it high into the air. The people did not know that we were in love. They did not know that we were bound to each other according to Cokyrian custom and would soon be joined in marriage under Hytanican law. But this was a step forward, and that was enough for now. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my mother appear at Narian’s other side to likewise take his hand and hold it aloft in a show of support. When the rest of my family followed her lead, my father next to my mother, Miranna and Temerson at my side, tears spilled down my cheeks. I met Narian’s mystified blue eyes and smiled, then gazed out at our people, a member of a united royal family, the man I loved among us. When the noise had subsided, I addressed the sorrow that hid beneath the joy, for it was essential to pay tribute to those who had fought bravely and tirelessly, but had not lived to see this day. “We all know the terrible price that was paid for our freedom. Remember those who died in the war. Honor them in your hearts, and join with me in honoring them with a memorial on the palace grounds. Let those who gave their lives for this kingdom never be forgotten.” I paused, permitting a moment of silence for our lost loved ones, then finished, “Embrace your families. Return to your homes. And know that you go in peace.” This received perhaps the greatest response of anything I had said, and to the tumultuous cries of my tired but elated people, Narian and I reentered the palace.

He was probably never married. Some suppose that he was a widower. Jewish and rabbinical custom, the completeness of his moral character, his ideal conception of marriage as reflecting the mystical union of Christ with his church, his exhortations to conjugal, parental, and filial duties, seem to point to experimental knowledge of domestic life. But as a Christian missionary moving from place to place, and exposed to all sorts of hardship and persecution, he felt it his duty to abide alone.357 He sacrificed the blessings of home and family to the advancement of the kingdom of Christ.358 His "bodily presence was weak, and his speech contemptible" (of no value), in the superficial judgment of the Corinthians, who missed the rhetorical ornaments, yet could not help admitting that his "letters were weighty and strong."359  Some of the greatest men have been small in size, and some of the purest souls forbidding in body. Socrates was the homeliest, and yet the wisest of Greeks. Neander, a converted Jew, like Paul, was short, feeble, and strikingly odd in his whole appearance, but a rare humility, benignity, and heavenly aspiration beamed from his face beneath his dark and bushy eyebrows. So we may well imagine that the expression of Paul’s countenance was highly intellectual and spiritual, and that he looked "sometimes like a man and sometimes like an angel."360 He was afflicted with a mysterious, painful, recurrent, and repulsive physical infirmity, which he calls a "thorn in the flesh, " and which acted as a check upon spiritual pride and self-exultation over his abundance of revelations.361  He bore the heavenly treasure in an earthly vessel and his strength was made perfect in weakness.362  But all the more must we admire the moral heroism which turned weakness itself into an element of strength, and despite pain and trouble and persecution carried the gospel salvation triumphantly from Damascus to Rome.

in Hawaii there is an ancient custom of adoption called hanai. In a Hawaiian marriage, when you become “related” to the in-law family, you are then considered one family, and you would not “war” against each other. The same is true in hanai—if you place your child with another family, the two families become connected, and are considered one large extended family.

Two Valentines are actually described in the early church, but they likely refer to the same man — a priest in Rome during the reign of Emperor Claudius II. According to tradition, Valentine, having been imprisoned and beaten, was beheaded on February 14, about 270, along the Flaminian Way. Sound romantic to you? How then did his martyrdom become a day for lovers and flowers, candy and little poems reading Roses are red… ? According to legends handed down, Valentine undercut an edict of Emperor Claudius. Wanting to more easily recruit soldiers for his army, Claudius had tried to weaken family ties by forbidding marriage. Valentine, ignoring the order, secretly married young couples in the underground church. These activities, when uncovered, led to his arrest. Furthermore, Valentine had a romantic interest of his own. While in prison he became friends with the jailer’s daughter, and being deprived of books he amused himself by cutting shapes in paper and writing notes to her. His last note arrived on the morning of his death and ended with the words “Your Valentine.” In 496 February 14 was named in his honor. By this time Christianity had long been legalized in the empire, and many pagan celebrations were being “christianized.” One of them, a Roman festival named Lupercalia, was a celebration of love and fertility in which young men put names of girls in a box, drew them out, and celebrated lovemaking. This holiday was replaced by St. Valentine’s Day with its more innocent customs of sending notes and sharing expressions of affection. Does any real truth lie behind the stories of St. Valentine? Probably. He likely conducted underground weddings and sent notes to the jailer’s daughter. He might have even signed them “Your Valentine.” And he probably died for his faith in Christ.

Sinta She succumbed to typhoid at twenty-six, Sinta, my part-time Photoshopper, fluent in HTML, clubbing and 'just having fun'. Her Koran thumping Sumatran parents believe their kafir daughter's gone to Jahannam, that fiery place of punishment, for rashly fucking before marriage; the red spots that erupted like lava on her chest and abdomen, to be taken as cautionary signs. Her father, Abdullah, a customs officer, said at her funeral, when they laid Sinta's near skeletal body into the grave, "Our daughter chose *Jahannam over Jannah, and now she pays the duty. Allahu Akbar."*

The patronage of devadāsī troupes by Muslims is also found in Qanoon-e-Islam, or the Customs of the Moosulmans of India (Shureef and Herklots 1832, lxxxii). This account notes that mēḷams are generally invited to perform at weddings, and mentions the nutwa (naṭṭuvaṉār) who leads the troupe. Professional dancers in Tanjore also performed in Muslim homes, particularly at the time of marriages. A mid-nineteenth-century painting from Tanjore currently held at the Victoria and Albert Museum (2006AV2428– 01) depicts a Muslim marriage procession led by dancers performing in the “Hindustānī” style. The participation of Tanjore’s devadāsīs in Muslim weddings is also confirmed by musicologist B. M. Sundaram: “In Tanjore, there were some devadāsī dancers who used to give regular performances in the homes of Muslims, whenever marriages take place there. When someone in those Muslim families died, it was a custom for the devadāsī who danced in these homes to gift a goat for the [funerary] meal … It shows a mutual respect, a mutual affinity.” (Sundaram, personal communication)