When couples first get married, there is this strong commitment to the other person, the undying love and commitment which make the absence of the other person an obvious death warrant. They go on making the commitment to each other and making all these promises that are supposed to stretch through the entire future no matter what the prevailing climate may be. They call it their song of and for love and we all dare not bother their happiness a happiness that leads them into a union or an institution that is supposed to bind them with all their dreams , expectations and so on, for ever; marriage.
They do well, and I applaud them. The challenge in this is that while commitment is made to either party, almost none is made to the institution into which they are throwing themselves into. Almost none is made to the marriage they are getting in to. While they promise to treat each other well and to cherish each other, they do not at the back of their minds, promise to cherish and protect their marriage. Most are only awakened to the marriage when they already feel like getting away from the other person and therefore the marriage. Couples are then forced to choose between the marriage and the partner they are in it with. I think this is such a terrible choice to make and one that makes the boundaries difficult to draw.
They chose each other, and they determined to walk together and now that they are seated at opposite ends of the same table, they realise that they did not choose the marriage, they thought they did, but they did not, they only chose each other. The trauma is not only in all the pain they are feeling right now, but in the small mistake they made when they failed to chose the marriage as well.
Each once in five years the state comes to us and they ask us to choose them, they make all these promises and apologies for all the times they did not see us as they had to. By that time we have all tested the union and come to our conclusions. They take all the resources they should have used over a period of five years to make us better and pour them on us in just a few months. The reality is that they are not even pouring that money on us, they are pouring it on themselves once again. Some would call them greedy idiots but in reality, they are more than that. They are people that have chosen themselves over the nation and they are asking the nation to choose them over itself.
We all soon realise that this choosing is not fair at all and therefore some us attempt to choose else where. But they will tell us that this is infidelity and they vow to save us the embarrassment. They will make sure that they choose for us, they will bend our will and corrupt those that are weak at heart. They will blind us with fake diamonds and fake certificates of marriage. They will instruct the marriage counsellors and the officials officiating the wedding that things have to be a certain way, theirs.
My fear is domestic violence, when one spouse so neglects the other and the commitment the both or one of them realises that they made, the other spouse is sent into a corner of error. This union has got to be made and kept by both; it’s not just a commitment to one another, but the union into which they both get.
In all our choosing, I pray that we all choose the union above the other party and that the freedom to check where we stand together is protected always and by all.
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