Marriage

Marriage... Weddings... Words that make me escape family gatherings, outings and simple get-togethers. They bring out the "relativephobia" in me since my brother and cousin got married. It stresses me to explain to them that I'm not in a hurry to have a ring on my finger and that I'm still enjoying my singlehood. They don't understand it, and they couldn't accept my reasons. They're suffering from a fear that I'd turn into a spinster, something that I find very funny since I'm not a bit worried about it.

In the past, I perceived marriage as a romanticized law justifying men's act of demonstrating their superiority over women, legalizing their ownership over them for the purposes of sex, genetic propagation and slavery. Back then, I didn't comprehend the need for two persons (a man and a woman that is) to be bound in marriage. I upheld my stand that I could be a complete woman without tying myself to a man. I believed that single motherhood is better and more convenient for me.

I remember a discussion I had with a man about marriage. We were discussing it, and I told him with such confidence and faith that maybe marriage was created to make sure that two very different and opposite beings could possibly stay in one house and have reasons to stay together for whatever. Contracts in marriages, I elaborated, were conceptualized so that the married couple could have a reason to fight for each other, stay together and see beyond each other's imperfections for as long as they both shall live.

For all those years that I held on to this logic, I didn't consider my parents and the reason why most people want to tie the knot. I overlooked love, the very reason why two persons decide to live together for the rest of their lives. It might have been an influence of the radical and liberal thoughts I've learned in college.

But years have honed my young mind. Life has exposed me to the reality of everything around me. It opened me to the line that separates truth and idealistic concepts. Experiences came my way to teach me how to live life and how to look at it. Life has made me realize that there are more to this life than myself.

My idea on marriage changed consequently. Now I view it as a sacred vow and calling. The words, "Husbands come enmasse but the good husband comes from God," have become something I hold on to more as a promise than as a justification of my waiting. Truly, marriage is a partnership between two persons who love each other and who have decided to go through life together...to have each other to hold through thick and thin, in sickness and in health... Come to think of it, the sanctity of marriage is that, having two people who are different in many ways bound in love and blessing of God to be together and fulfill a certain purpose as one. That's why I view it now as something beyond love. However, love must be present because it vanishes inequities, prejudices, and selfishness. It forgives and strives to be better every day. It makes people fight for a relationship, a partnership, until the end. It gives them the courage to risk and change for the better.

That is why, I'll say, I'm waiting for that time, that chance to find and be found by the man whom I'd keep for the rest of my life. For these reasons, I am waiting patiently for him to arrive; he will be the somebody who'd be worth-fighting for. He will be the one I'd decide on everyday to love.

Wedding is not the all and the end of all. It is the start of many beginnings. So for now, I'd prepare myself for that moment to come, hoping that when it does I'd hear him say he's received the answer to his prayers. I hope that he'd be so blessed to have me as I shall certainly be to have him in my life.

Here's the point of view of a single woman on marriage...