by Mark Bearing

Created on: February 21, 2011   Last Updated: February 22, 2011

As I get older it seems that each year that passes by more and more people that I know are getting married. I am not sure if marriage is really the thing for me. It isn't that I have anything against the union of two souls that complement each other in such a way that promotes a better life for each and I certainly do not disapprove of the advantages of sharing life's burdens with another financial and emotional. Honestly, my only real issue with marriage is that it is religious in its origins but in America, religion is only the ceremonious aspect of the bond. In this country marriage is political, it is a contract created by the legal system to bind two citizens together so that their burdens are now forced upon each other under penalty of law.

If I am to believe that there is a soul mate out there for me, a person who truly provides for me that which I cannot live without, then I want marriage to be what it was originally founded upon; a promise. Promises don't seem to mean as much these days when contracts or laws can provide a stronger hold because of their legal consequences. But in my mind's vision of what true love is, the loss of that love because of breaking something as fragile as a promise seems far worse than any fine or term in prison can do to me.

I hope that one day I can find a woman who makes me want to stand up in front of everyone I care about and say to her face that I promise to keep her heart as close to mine as possible and to have such a fidelity that shows I will never put either of us or the love we share in a position where her heart, which carries all the happiness and goodness and innocence and potential of our lives inside, would be put at risk. I'd promise this on an alter not so that god would hear my promise but so that she could see that I am doing this in front of all the people I know that believe in me and trust that I would never break a promise less I would risk their love along with hers.

When you think of marriage in these terms and not the religious or legal ones, to me it seems much more important. I may one day discover that every couple that chooses to get married does believe what I have just stated; but for now, I haven't seen any sign that this is the case. Yes, the love is there in many of the friends I have seen get married but the promise doesn't show. Many might wonder how I can know what goes on in there private lives or what they feel inside for each other and I will admit that I probably can't know that. But what I do know is what most people understand and that is that half of all marriages end in divorce. If you expand that to a population that cannot be measured like total long-term (one year plus) relationships, it is not unreasonable to assume that over 90 percent of these relationships end in "divorce" or separation.

I do not wish to change subjects here so I will conclude with the point I wished to make at the beginning. The point is that if you're getting married for any reason other than to prove to the world that you can keep the most important promise ever made for the rest of your life than you shouldn't be doing it. Pre-nups, courthouses, reverends, mothers, fathers, children here, or children on the way mean nothing if you cannot keep that promise.

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