On Marriage (thing)

The Prophet
by
Kahlil Gibran

On Marriage

Then Almitra spoke again and said, "And what of Marriage, master?"
And he answered saying:
You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when white wings of death scatter your days.
Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

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.

Copyright 1923 - Kahlil Gibran

Comments:
This is the most overused passage of "The Prophet". Considering how many weddings there are every year that use it, it could be one of the most overused passages ever. If Kahlil could see the way it's used, he'd be spinning in his grave.

While people have it read at their wedding and think it sounds beautiful, they don't pay attention to its meaning. My first wife and I certainly didn't when the pastor read it at our wedding. We liked it, but it had nothing to do with the reality of our relationship. We were divorced in under five years.

Let me give you an even better example from a friend's wedding.

The officiator had just finished murdering this passage. He'd obviously never read it before - he kept stumbling over words and pausing in confusion. It took significant effort on my part to remain silent, to refrain from launching myself at him, to stop myself from snatching the book from his hands and reading it myself.

So, I was already feeling a tad edgy, when they brought out the candles. My soon-to-be fiancee gripped my hand like a vice. I'm not sure if she did this to keep me in my seat or keep herself in her seat. Either way, we both saw what was about to happen. Time seemed to both slow down and speed up, just like it always does when you witness a car accident or other catastrophe: we could see it coming, and yet we knew we could do nothing to stop it.

They lit their individual taper candles.
Oh, no.
The officiator said some nice words about these candles representing them.
Please, no.
He presented them with a single pillar candle.
I don't want to see this.
He said some pretty things about it representing their union.
Can't someone just tell me when it's over?
They lit the central candle from both their individual candles...
For the love of God, NO!
And then they blew out their individual candles.

We said nothing. The service continued, with everyone else apparently oblivious to the travesty they had just witnessed.

However, it wasn't all bad. It got me and my future wife started talking about marriage. She bought me a copy of the book and let me read passages to her in the evening. From there we moved on to short stories and other novels, and it's become one of our cherished evening activities together.

I write this on our first wedding anniversary. Needless to say, the pastor did not read this passage during our wedding. We would have had our own form of unity candle but they wouldn't let us use blowtorches to light an M-80, especially indoors.