A Freebie Worthy of Deebye

[Occhidiangela]

Second, we no longer live in anything like the environment where our notions of marriage evolved. People used to live in close proximity to extended family. That part of the ceremony where the witnesses vowed to aid the couple was important. It meant that there was a support system for helping work out problems. Now we (generally) live in nuclear families that are far from extended family. We have to hire marriage councillors instead of consulting 'Aunt Maggie' and 'Uncle Frank', or parents or grandparents. Heck, in many cases we don't even really know our spouse's extended family at all.

In principle, bingo. Caveat: sometimes extended families can add friction to a marriage when one or the other won't cut the umbilical. That dagger has a two sided blade. This argues for getting to know your prospective spouse and his/her family very well before marriage decision. Short engagements strike me as being, in Treebeard's words, "hasty."

Third, there remains this fairy tale notion that marriage is a 'happily ever after' thing.   No matter how much you love someone, you are going to disagree at times.   And you have to spend energy on working it through.   You have to compromise.   You have to *gasp* work at it.  A lot of marriages go bad because people don't spend that time and energy.   They merely bail out instead.
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Yep, gotta lay a hearty "Amen" there, and observe that arguments about having an Ostrich as a pet become just another issue to agree, or disagree, on while feathering the nest.

*ducks* (A goose might get me lights punched out . . .)

What's that, Ref, a two minute minor for that fowl?

Occhi