Love and Marriage

We begin with the last issue first. Aside from extreme cases, in which it turns out that a marriage partner is iresponsible or pathologically materialistic, it seems inconceivable that one could plan to marry solely for practical reasons. It is within the realm of possibility that one might wish to avoid marriage for practical reasons. But--except in the cases of fortune hunters or gold diggers--planning a marriage only around practical concerns is inconsistent with a marriage rite that anticipates togetherness as the decisive feature of living in wealth and poverty, sickness and health, with the partners expected to cooperate in whatever practical issues might arise. That idea is summed up in the musical film Funny Girl when the mother of Fanny Brice discourages Fanny from helping her husband Nick financially. Instead: "You should talk together what he should do."

The notion of togetherness is embedded in all concepts of love. The Greek word philos, which means dear or friendly, combines to form the word philosophy (in Greek love and wisdom), and wisdom conveyed to one's fellow human being can be construed as an expression of love.

Eros, the name of the Greek god of love, denotes sexual love. It finds ubiquitous expressi

. . .
sensuality could encompass. That view emerges by negative example in Alice Walker's short story "Roselily," in which a new bride in rural Mississippi is an unwed mother of four who is marrying a Black Muslim and on the point of relocating to the South Side of Chicago and an entirely new structure of life. Roselily is ambivalent; he already has rules about music, dress, friends. The closing narrative image is that she will spend married life walking several steps behind him. On the other hand, Roselily is grateful to be seen "in a new way" (Walker 749), grateful to be rescued from sewing-mill work, grateful to have a sense of being understood as both person and as social construct--all practical concerns. The wedding kiss--"passionate, rousing" (Walker 750)--suggests that eros will figure in married life. Whether eros will overcome ambivalence is unclear, but the new life, by its very strangeness, will mandate creativity. A third kind of love that has a Greek etymology is agape, defined literally as love feast. Its connotations are somewhat complex but tend to resolve in a creative principle. In Catholic tradition agape is analyzed as Graeco-Roman funerary ritual but has also been linked to the celebration of the Eucharist, or th
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
South Chicago, Standard Version, , Juliet Romeo, Plato's Symposium, Fanny Brice, Euripides' Alcestis, James Version, Leclercq Christian, Alice Walker's, love, practical reasons, married life, notion togetherness, romeo juliet, vow love, marriage practical, funny girl, marry love, practical concerns,
Approximate Word count = 1214
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)

More Essays on Love and Marriage