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[av_heading heading=’ RAMBLINGS OF THE UNMARRIED | Itching’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”][/av_heading]
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“Experts on romance say for a happy marriage there has to be more than passionate love. For a lasting union, they insist, there must be genuine liking for each other. Which, in my book, is a good definition for friendship.” – Marilyn Monroe
HOW DO you know you are ready for marriage?
The common answer is, “You just know.”
Well, some can be clueless and this is why some wake up one day – already married.
Sometimes we think we are ready because we see this person so loving, sweet, good and with all these beautiful attributes.
Flerida Ruth P. Romero, in her study “Concerns and Emerging Trends on Laws Relating to Family and Children” published by the Philippine Law Journal, noted that marriages are not made in heaven – at least, not all marriages.
Every individual have their idiosyncrasies, foibles and peculiarities which may not be that all evident at the courtship stage but may manifest full-blown after marriage due to the stresses and strains of responsibilities unforeseen.
These may exhibit themselves even before the so-called “seven-year itch”. Should the couple, therefore, buckle down to the pressure of a marriage that has turned sour?
On the one hand, there is the interest of the State to preserve inviolate a marriage to protect this fundamental institution, the cornerstone of society. Still, are not the parties to a marriage entitled to happiness and the freedom to procreate as basic human rights?
Therefore, the State, through the official guardians of the morals, stability and harmony of the home and family, finds itself endlessly impaled between these two dilemmas.
Romero pointed out how State policies have tried to resolve this seemingly endless problem by laying down different options from time to time for the embattled parties to choose from. Our forefathers, even before the coming of the Spaniards, observed relatively lax moral standards. They observed both polygamy and divorce, as if divorce were not superfluous or irrelevant enough, with polygamy existing side by side with it.
But when the Spaniards landed on our shores bringing with them the stringent moral standards of the Catholic Church which prevailed over the legal system of the so-called “natives”, the era of the unity between Church and State commenced. This included the ban on absolute divorce, for the union of a man and a woman was a sacrament to be sedulously protected and upheld. For “what God hath put together, let no man put asunder.”
I can’t quite fully say that I am for annulment or divorce, considering that it is a common human trait to use certain privileges as an advantage for our personal whims. Hence, I have this strong feeling that if marriage is easily severed, people might just take marriage lightly, believing that anyway there’s a means to sever marital ties, so no worries.
One thing I know I am certain and that I can fully, and with conviction, say is that I stand for waiting (I hope not too long) for the right time, right person and right reasons to get married. I am conventional that way. I don’t know if that is how it should be or that is the right thing to do, but I know that the best always comes to those who patiently wait. (gordon.qg@hotmail.com/PN)
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