I’m reading The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran and I appreciate what I’m reading on marriage–because the suggestion appears to have little to do with marriage so much as it has to do with maintaining a balance of individuality and togetherness within a relationship. There is everything right about commitment and love, but marriage…changes things and could delineate a shift in focus from the relationship as a fluid, malleable venture to the relationship as a static, structured possession. Why would we want to do this?
Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.