A Quote by Germaine Greer

Marriage cannot be a job as it has become. — © Germaine Greer
Marriage cannot be a job as it has become.
May this marriage be blessed.May this marriage be as sweet as milk and honey.May this marriage be as intoxicating as old wine.May this marriage be fruitful like a date tree.May this marriage be full of laughter and everyday a paradise.May this marriage be a seal of compassion for here and hereafter.May this marriage be as welcome as the full moon in the night sky.Listen lovers, now you go on, as I become silent and kiss this blessed night.
For me, it's sad to say, but I would probably have a spiritual marriage but not a legal marriage, because I think so much about marriage starts to become about finances. It has nothing to do with God or feelings or the romantic side of marriage. It's about who owns what, who gets what? So what's the point?
Marriage is a unified institution. Marriage means a committed, legally sanctioned relationship between a man and a woman. That's what it means. That's what it means in the revelations. That's what it means in the secular law. You cannot have that marriage coexisting institutionally with something else called same-gender marriage. It simply is a definitional impossibility.
Politics is not really different from marriage. You cannot get things done in your relationship if you tell your wife: Look, if you haven't made the bed and if you don't get the food on the table, I will go and just hire someone and you will become irrelevant. That is not how you make a marriage work.
Marriage is not a natural phenomenon. It is artificial, arbitrary. And when it disappears you cannot do anything to bring it back. You can pretend, but that pretension makes you a hypocrite. And your pretension cannot deceive the woman, because she has known your love and the pretension cannot become the substitute. The only way is to separate - in friendship, because you have given each other so much.
Passion, sexual passion, may lead to marriage, but cannot sustain marriage. The purpose of marriage is the raising of children, for which patience, not passion, is the necessary foundation.
Marriage is a hell, but sometimes people need it. What to do? So I have to tell them to get into marriage. They need to pass through the hell of it, and they cannot understand the hell of it unless they pass through it. I am not saying that in marriage love cannot grow; it can grow, but there is no necessity for it. I am not saying that in love marriage cannot grow; it can grow, but there is no necessity, no logical necessity in it.
What do marriage vows show? They show that you may want to separate sometime in the future. If there is love between two people, the thought of taking vows never arises. This is only an indication of the absence of love. People do not marry out of love; they marry out of fear. If there is love on this earth, marriage will become redundant. When love is not, marriage is a must. We make arrangements for that which we cannot do. We make rules for that which we are not sure of.
When there has been a problem in your marriage, you cannot forever go on thinking, 'I am the most terrible person in the world and he is the most wonderful person.' You cannot live in a marriage that is unequal, because after a while, you are just worn out.
The friends of Job appear on the scene as advisers and "consolers," offering Job the fruits of their moral scientia. But when Job insists that his sufferings have no explanation and that he cannot discover the reason for them through conventional ethical concepts, his friends turn into accusers, and curse Job as a sinner. Thus, instead of consolers, they become torturers by virtue of their very morality, and in so doing, while claiming to be advocates of God, they act as instruments of the devil.
Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it. If we were born to paint, it’s our job to become a painter. If we were born to raise and nurture children, it’s our job to become a mother. If we were born to overthrow the order of ignorance and injustice of the world, it’s our job to realize it and get down to business.
We have forced everyone to go into marriage because of love. Because you cannot love outside it, so we have unnecessarily forced love and marriage to be together - unnecessarily. Marriage is for deeper things - even more deep: for intimacy, for a "co-inherence," to work on something which cannot be done alone, which can be done together, which needs a togetherness, a deep togetherness. Because of this love-starved society, we fall into marriage out of romantic love.
I am not against marriage -- I am for love. If love becomes your marriage, good; but don't hope that marriage can bring love. That is not possible. Love can become a marriage. You have to work very consciously to transform your love into a marriage. Ordinarily, people destroy their love. They do EVERYTHING to destroy it and then they suffer. And they go on saying, 'What went wrong?' They destroy -- they do everything to destroy it.
What is marriage, is marriage protection or religion, is marriage renunciation or abundance, is marriage a stepping-stone or an end. What is marriage.
You can block a marriage, but you cannot force a marriage.
Many couples permit their marriages to become stale and their love to grow cold like old bread or worn-out jokes or cold gravy. These people will do well to reevaluate, to renew their courting, to express their affection, to acknowledge kindness, and to increase their consideration so their marriage again can become beautiful, sweet, and growing. While marriage is difficult, and discordant and frustrated marriages are common, yet real, lasting happiness is possible, and marriage can be more an exultant ecstasy than the human mind can conceive.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!