customs of marriage

I am living with the one I love for 6 years. This year we are getting married, finally. We finished school and I think this was a problem that we didn't get marry until now. We are living together for a few years and we discovered each other and I must say we know very each other. We are getting marry because we want to start a new family and the time spent together before marriage it a plus and an advantage. We will see hpw everything will go on in the future but I think we did in very right.

Years ago, when my young wife was Nursing, her Hospital Staff booked a trip to Trinidad and Tobago. The islands were especially lovely at that time as they were both uncrowded, and unspoiled. We had great fun around the pool watching young married nurses swim, drink, and carry on with strangers. Later, a party on the sand mixed excessive rum with over exposure to the sun. This excess kept many nurses in bed for the remainder of the holiday. A black Hindu taxi-driver toured us around the islands, telling of his happy marriage to a woman he had not previously met. He mentioned their enduring love, and told us many details of his life and their 12 children.

I thought marriage was a paradise on earth, an escape from a disciplinarian father but little did I know that marriage was the beginning of my hellish life on earth. I was not prepared to shoulder the responsibilities of being a dutiful wife and a mother. I was naive and accept that being married I have to remain loyal to my husband and to honor the marriage vows regardless of the situation I was in. It was a tough and rough road I walked throughout my marriage with a husband who only spend a good five years of the marriage with sober senses. Though my marriage is still intact despite all the ups and downs, I do respect the institution of marriage and the vows I took in church is irrevocable. The passage of time have long dissipated the love that once dominated the union but as the saying goes...'it is better to live with the devil you know than the devil you don't know.'

Interesting topic. I wonder this also.. since I 'knew' my ex for many years before we got married and didn't know who he was by the time the marriage ended. I wonder if it has to do with detachment and to think of it as a job or something.. I guess that would be my assumption. Maybe it's easier to not know them at all to not have so much expectations.

For me it is the reason in the bible said that because of the custom a girl ask first to there self if she want to subject his husband if not then they don't want to married yet.

I was married once and I was dating him for two years before I married. We ended up divorced. I am now living with my boyfriend for 5 years and we dated for a year before I moved in. The divorce did not occur with my ex-husband because we did not know each other well, it was more so because he did not know what he wanted out of his own life. I was never trained by anyone and in fact I was very young when I married and I jumped in and gave it my 110%. I did and learned everything along the way, and personally I was the best wife he will ever know. He has since remarried 3 times since our divorce and wishes he could recapture what we supposedly had. Too late! lol

I'm sure there are pros and cons to each form. We have to remember that for centuries marriage not not even about love, plain and simple it was always about money and power but not love first. I dated a guy from Malaysia(Indian)in college and his parents had an arranged marriage. He said his parents were happy together. Sometimes your family finds a good match for you, sometimes they don't. I think in some societies even if an arranged marriage is awful they still stay because of the pressure that it's for life and no matter how bad you have to stay because there is no such thing as divorce.

Hi savypat! I am very anxious to see what kind of responses you get. I have been very curious about the arranged marriage custom. I once read that the divorce rate is like 1%. Of course there are other things to consider because the rules are strict..but it was still amazing. I also read about the couples falling in love after the fact and think maybe there is something to learning about one another afterwards..takes longer to loose interest that way I guess. Then I have my own experiences..those are very different. I suppose culture and region plays a huge part in this whole thing. Great discussion!

For me becoming a wife was sort of the same as becoming a mother.....I just knew....with a few ideas and help from friends and family along the way.

I don't think that I would be able to live in that kind of a culture. I knew my husband very well before we decided to get married, we already had a daughter that was 19 months old when we got married. However, even before Kathryn was born, we learned as much as possible about each other. I think that knowing your partner's history is very important in making a relationship work. To be married to someone that I didn't know at all would be impossible for me.

Well I am sure in other parts of the world that is the custom, but here in the United States people nowadays tend to not bother getting married. I know in certain religions they have arranged marriages. I would never be able to survive that way. How could you marry someone you don't know or might night even like. I was married for over 17 years and it fell apart. Nothing is sacred in this world, not even marriage. Live with someone for awhile and see if it can work out.