[av_one_full first min_height=” vertical_alignment=” space=” custom_margin=” margin=’0px’ padding=’0px’ border=” border_color=” radius=’0px’ background_color=” src=” background_position=’top left’ background_repeat=’no-repeat’ animation=”]
[av_heading heading=’ Wedding’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY SONIA D. DAQUILA
[/av_heading]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=’custom’ color=’#0a0a0a’]
Monday, February 27, 2017
[/av_textblock]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=’custom’ color=’#0a0a0a’]
“WEDDING” is a term interchangeably used with the term “marriage.” I am convinced, however, that wedding or nuptial is more cultural and ceremonial while marriage is in the legal context.
Yesterday, several Augustinian administrators and faculty members attended the Miranda-Gaton wedding ceremony at the Central Philippine University Chapel. Roma Miranda looked so beautiful in her wedding gown, and the teary-eyed groom seemed to be unbelieving she now belongs to him.
Along with Ma’am Vergie Salbosa, Dr. Doris Lauron, Dr. Stephanie Dadivas and Ma’am Grace Galon, I stood also as a principal sponsor. Thanks to the manager Mr. Robert Alor for a grand reception at Grand Pxing Hotel.
The words of the officiating pastor were short but worth reflecting. He talked about the six ingredients of a successful marriage. Etched in my mind, however, are four: acceptance, affirmation, forgiveness, and compliance with physical or marital obligations.
He claimed that when we accept each other in marriage, we surrender ourselves, even the exclusiveness to us of our own bodies and the exclusivity of us to our respective partners. Hence, “marriage is a special and inviolable contract between “a” man and “a” woman. Furthermore, surrendering means accepting, too, the good and the best in us.
What I like in the minister’s statement is that submission to husband equally applies to submission of the husband to the wife, admission or confession, recognition of faults and willingness to change. He prescribes affirmation of each other even once a day (a sincere one) because it helps build self-esteem and at the same time pushes up the one who gives it.
Last is non-denial of the marital obligations in sex, carried out consensually, as the human positive law prescribes, lest we invite infidelity or be accused of marital rape.
Despite sexual permissiveness today, sex is so special and sacred, designed for procreation, of begetting children.
This reminds me of Dianne, my fourth year college student who poured out her heart and tears in my office two days ago. She narrated how her parents, both medical doctors, built a name in Manila. How busy they had been, how his father pampered all of them and how devoted a father and loving husband he was. When her father passed away, the mother was left helpless, as if half of her also died.
I recall at this point a couple who decided to part ways and the son asked them, “You only think about yourselves, what about us, your children?”
Dianne asked, “Ma’am do I also have the right to be happy? My Mom always puts me down because I am not like her, an achiever…in many years I remember us eating meals together as a family very rarely. Ma’am, am I less important than their profession and ambitions in life?”
I called a psychologist who helped her unravel her past experiences and why a psychiatrist told her she is “bi-polar.”
Dianne left me in deep thought. Am I good mother, a good wife? Success, wealth and fame are blinding and we tend to forget what we are striving for. The romantic dreams of newly-weds, the meaning of love, of sex and the reason for marriage.
Roma is ushered in our community of married women. Good luck! Indeed it is true as you said, “I chose love.”
Pray a lot, but make it happen. Remember the words of wisdom shared to you in your wedding day. (delsocorrodaquila@gmail.com.ph/PN)
[/av_textblock]
[/av_one_full]
