Why do people get married

Just like faith the question of why do people get married will only come to the nonbelievers. A person who believes in God will never ask themselves why they believe. They may have debates about what is the best way to worship that God or what is the will of God for their lives or even to what extend is God willing to get involved in their lives, but they will never ask themselves why they believe in God. And the same is true with why do people get married. People who want to get married never question that desire and at best have an unconscious fear of even thinking about it. It is only people who don’t want to get married or who do not have any specific feelings about marriage that ask this particular question. And it is not really one that can be answered just like there is no way to explain to someone who doesn’t believe in the Christian God why it is important to eat little pieces of bred and have sips of wine during praying. However this very aspect of Christianity is one that may prove useful in finding a manageable, comprehensive answer to why do people get married.

In order to understand why do people get married let’s quickly have a look at why Catholics go to mass. A few days before Jesus was killed he was having supper with his disciples and knowing he would die he gave them some of the bread on the table to eat and some of the wine to drink telling them to do that in his memory after he was gone. If you think about it and try to put yourself in the shoes of someone who knows they are about to die than you are probably going to see the simple beauty of such a ritual. Those were very simple times, very poor for the fledgling Jewish nation so Jesus just looked around and tried to create a simple ritual that simple people could perform often and that would remind them of the things he had taught.   A much more advanced culture, developed by a richer nation over thousands of year created the Tea Ceremony ritual. And at its basis the marriage ceremony can be seen as just as a ritual which you may like or not but one that is endemic to most societies rendering any rational answer to the question of why do people get married mute.

But that is not the only answer we can hope to gain to why do people get married because the significance of the ritual in general is one that can be extrapolated to the specific case of marriage. The ritual in general is a partially conscious method of covering the gap between the known and the unknown. A person may be afraid of dying and their entire life they may go to church or to the temple or to the mosque and pray and do everything that is written in their holly book. That is not a ritual because that person actually believes that those acts guarantee them that they will be in a better place after they die. But the tea ceremony, for example is something that allows someone to do a completely banal action but in a fashion that they are completely absorbed by the mundane. And that is the essence of the Zen teachings: an enlightened person, Buddha if you will, is one who is completely focused in the present moment, the only place where one can be completely immersed in God. So the ritual of the tea ceremony allows the practitioner to be Buddha like even if for just half an hour. How does that correlate to to why do people get married?

The people that are getting married and their loved ones do not know the future just like the ZEN students are not enlightened. However the parents would like to know their children will be safe even after they will be gone, just like the couple getting married is hoping their relationship will last and will constitute the refuge of safety and warmth that their home represented growing up. And because they have no control over that future, are not aware of what it holds and would like to somehow influence it in some fashion they go through the ritual of marriage. They might not even be able to answer the question of why do people get married or why they themselves are getting married or they might have different apparently illogical answer like for love, security, family, fear of loneliness and so many others.

But if you are going to look at most of the answers given to the question of why do people get married you will notice that they can all be summed up by the conscious or unconscious beauty and security of the ritual. Why to Zen students have tea ceremony? Because in that brief period they are enlightened or close enough to it that they know Buddhahood can be attained. Why do people get married? Because they love each other? Would the act of getting married add or subtract to the way the feel about each other? No, but it would make them feel like they have a chance of loving each other for the rest of their lives. Would it provide any type of security, that the other one will be there warding off loneliness and helping them through their difficult times? No, but then again nothing would and getting married seems to be a promise not only of one to another but a guarantee from whatever deity might have requested the ritual in the first place that it will protect them as a couple and help them enjoy old age together. So if you are honestly asking yourself why do people get married then you are probably never going to be able to actually believe in any of these “magical” effects of marriage but just like the Zen student you might realize that there is beauty in the ritual itself derived precisely from the fact that it has no objective applicability.