Tying The Knot

My brother just got engaged. He has been dating his fiancée for about six years and decided that it was time throw bachelorhood to the wind and do it.

I can hear the male readers thinking, “Why,” and the female readers thinking, “Good for him.”

Some men and women are still far apart on the issue of marriage. It’s just our wiring and the way we look at things.

Women see it as Cinderella finally going to the ball and men see it as finally settling down and trading their freedom for the woman he loves. (Okay maybe that’s what I think men see.)

While tying the “not,” we say “I do.” One thing is for sure, it’s better not to be forced into a marriage than to do it for the wrong reasons.

Ideally we marry the person who reflects our Soul, but it doesn’t always happen like that. Sometimes that has nothing to do with it.

Some marry for companionship, to start a family, because marriage is an integral part of their cultural or religious beliefs and an essential part of their core value system, to share their lives together and travail through the good and bad times, or to fulfill each other as a couple.

According to statistics, married people live longer, have more stability and a greater sense of themselves. When a couple forms a partnership in marriage, each half combines to create a much stronger whole and they experience the shifting and changing experience of love within the bounds of commitment over time.

I always thought that if every man treated his wife like his girlfriend there would be more happy marriages. If women treated their husbands like their boyfriends, their husbands wouldn’t need girlfriends.

Men don’t usually show that they are happy to tie the knot, but my brother seems really happy about it. Maybe he’s just in a daze because there is so much to do for planning for a life together.

I wonder if men fantasize about the wedding or just the stag party? After all, tying the knot is a big commitment. Though it may vary, it is believed that “Tying the knot,” first started as a long standing Celtic tradition called hand fasting.

After the vows, the bride and groom's wrists are bound together with five colored ribbons, each symbolizing an aspect of marriage and their shared commitment.

It is also believed that illiterate sailors and soldiers of the past would send a piece of rope to their sweethearts when they wanted to get married.

If the rope came back with a knot in it, that meant the woman said, "yes" to the marriage proposal. He demonstrated this by tying two ornate knots in a length of rope. When the ends were pulled, the knots came together in the middle.

So what’s your view on marriage? Do you think it works or is it an antiquated institution?

I once heard that, “Marriage is not a word, it’s a sentence.” He seems really happy about it and I am happy for them both. As their engagement progresses, I will be covering different aspects of it.

Even if people choose not to get married, we always have the ability to work on the union of our Soul with the greater life force - - now that’s a match made in heaven.