Marry Yourself. Very Strange Indeed. Let us talk about it. Love

The concept makes perfect sense. If you are a self absorbed “me, myself and I” kind of person. At least you should love the one you are with. But the issue might be set up to ridicule same sex marriages and or traditional marriages. Let us explore the notion involved.

Our current use of the term marriage is still as much about blending ingredients as it is about a matrimonial issue. We will address the later later. In order to marry one must have two units, or more. I first learned marrying to fill the containers of condiments on restaurant tables. The boss said “marry up those tables” That meant to make sure all containers were filled full. That required adding new ketchup into the old half empty bottles on the table. (truth be told not a good idea and mostly prohibited by health officials)

So the idea of something being incomplete unless married with another is very normal and people should get that. A good recipe writer will use the term often. “add the ingredients into a mixing bowl and marry”. If they do not use the term they really do not have a handle on the notion. Blending is different. Mixing is different. Marrying is combining to create one. Mixing and blending are combining to create a new.

Marrying that attempts to get rid of one or the other is bad. That would be like the bride saying I am marrying him so I can change him into the man I want. Not a good idea at all. When we marry we take two ingredients put them together and maintain the essence of both. That is why the ketchup filling metaphor is so accurate. Two of the same married simply to make a one that is filled. Hopefully in a human marriage that would mean filled with love.

If you take the half filled ketchup bottle and marry it to itself it is still half filled. So the notion of marrying yourself must include a proposition that somehow we are two in one already. OK, that does not work because if we are both in the same body we are already married. I doubt they are speaking of schizophrenia. That would just be too weird.

Perhaps they are regarding an idea of loving one self. I am sorry but that does not fill the ketchup bottle. It simply and clearly is not a marriage. Unless the person is somehow two distinct persons that are not yet one. But that does not work because clearly they are of the same body.

So logically one cannot marry oneself.

That is an idea that makes some sense so as to understand the importance of loving oneself before one can truly love another. There is that inherent problem in this view. If you love your self to the point of marrying yourself then you are betrothed to yourself and cannot marry another. In other words if you are filling your ketchup bottle with love for yourself, there is no room for love of another.

I am a whole believer in filling our heart cups up with love so there is not room for hate, envy, greed etc. etc. But just go and assume you filled that heart cup up with love for yourself. Yikes. (you should look up the story of the Narcissus plant if you want to swing that way)

There are two kinds of people that real love cannot reach. Ones who have their heart cup filled with hate and ones who have filled it with love for themselves. Life teaches us that all others have some room to receive love from another. Empathy fits in that notion. And psychotic murderers who cannot feel for others are nothing but evil.

I took a test when I was around 13 and it was conclusive that I was such an extrovert that it was not healthy. This was truth. My school counselor was awesome and I was bright so he explained that I had to find joy within myself and not from others. Wow, it only took me another 30 years to accomplish that. Kind of!

I was youngest of six and attention to me was pretty large. I did not spend time alone much at all. Now all of the children I have raised and help raise and taught get “me time”. They say it is not good for a child to watch TV more than an hour a day. I really do not worry about that negative. Because all of my children are required to have an hour or more of my time per day. Just them with themselves, imagining, talking and thinking to themselves. Invariably they learn to like themselves during this time. Why not? They are all so special and cool. (I must admit they are also required to have dad time each day – just for me and I think they learn some love in that time too, I know I do)

Perhaps it is just a fad thing that has no real value. Like pet rocks or Beanie Baby’s. But I hope not. I have no malevolence towards the propagators and indeed the idea brings to the surface important notions of marriage. And so that is good.

“Marriage cannot be between two persons of the same sex. It cannot be between a man and his dog. It cannot be three people.”

Well now, really!? No it cannot be any of those if you speak in a limited sense and religious dogma attitude. And it should not be. Some folk think that way and that is good. I do not. I think churches have their rights to exclude anything that does not fit in with their traditional beliefs. That is a no brainer.

And people who “belong to a different church have their rights also”. If you really go traditional you go with children and wives being property of the man. That tradition destroys the notion of marriage as much as any new wave notions. So was traditional marriage horrible and wrong from its inception? No.

If there is an Archie Bunker out there married to an Edith then one really has to contemplate marriage. However that scenario worked for them. Bless those fictional folk. To me that was a notion that slapped traditional marriage in the face and was a wake up call for anyone who understands the notion of marriage.

Does all this mean that an historically accurate marriage is the only route? Oh my I hope not. My wife is all against marriages that are not traditional. And yet she bosses me around like a baby dictator who is a wife boss of the husband and thinks nothing of it. I do. And I am a traditionalist also. What hypocrisy we live in. If this was a traditional household she would do as she was told and never act independently and be subservient. I would divorce her in three seconds.

So marriage is what it is, and I like it. And I do not want a churchy person telling me that I must make my wife act like a wife in 0033. I am not interested.

I call BS and wrong and idiotic and worthless and horrible. OTOH for a 23 year old celibate male perhaps it would be a good idea. But I surely do hope he divorces himself rather sooner than later.