Together for Life

One page is turned and a new one is opened

One life fades away for a new life to take form

One journey ends and another one starts

And many similar slogans we hear, in glorious weddings, from speech givers who miss the essence of marriage.

The question that I will attempt to answer is very simple to ask, yet very difficult to answer: what is the essence of marriage?

A popular French wisdom says: “Marriage is about solving together problems we wouldn’t have if we were alone”. Humor is often the shortest and most gentle way to the truth… Behind this ironic humor lies another reality, potentially more positive and definitely harder to come by.

Here is the unwavering and uncompromised reality of the promise of marriage:

“Marriage is creation, the creation of a couple, of a family, of a society, and finally the creation of humanity

Marriage is also prosperity, the prosperity of love and beauty, and the prosperity of hope and life.

No pages are turned, no lives are fading away, nor any journey is ending. It is rather love seeking love; life seeking life and marriage is their privileged medium.

In marriage, we continue the road of love and complete the construction of our life.

In saying yes, we decide to join our hands in the hands of our beloved, in order to complete the making of the castle that will shelter our common future.

From that moment,

Together, we sculpt and lay the founding stones.

Together, we mix and add the cement of our cohesion.

Together, we generate the electricity that will illuminate our home.

Together, we create the love that will warm the temple of our family.

Together is easier and at the same time, together is more difficult!

Together, it is easier to carry the weights that each alone cannot lift. But together, it is more difficult to move these weights to the desired place at the desired pace.

In our togetherness, we will need to coordinate every step and every move. Often, in the tumult of our efforts, the words will be hard to find. We will be left with few signs to guide us in our progression. And sometimes even these signs are not perceptible. So, in these moments, we need to entirely feel the other person, the slightest beatings of her heart, the smallest whispers of his soul, and the most delicate of her emotions!

In these exact moments lies the challenge of this essential undertaking: marriage!

In each waking moment we strive to give joy to one another without counting, to protect each other and each other’s freedom, to renew everyday our love to each other, and most importantly, to preserve the family that we will create and build together! For that, we must use our five senses, our minds, our spirits, our souls and our hearts, and if, for a moment, we think that all these will not be sufficient to accomplish this sacred task, then we must borrow energy from the Sun, strength from the Earth, ambition from the Stars, grace from Heaven, Fire from Hell, and probably some of these thoughts I am sharing in this text."

This is, in my humble view, the essence of marriage; the rest is a misunderstanding, maybe for life, but a misunderstanding nevertheless…