I listen to the marriage vows
And I searched for a word,
It is so conspicuous by its absence
It is frighteningly absurd.
Which one of us in his right mind
Could ever agree to such?
“Unless” left out of the ceremony
Is really asking too much.
For better, for worst,
For richer, for poorer,
In sickness and in health,
To love and to cherish
Till death do us part.
There is an upside to this
But there is a downside also:
I am satisfied with the former
But the latter is a no-go.
We must rewrite these vows
And include the word “unless”
For the truth today is:
Marriages are a huge mess.
Unless is not in the vows
But it somehow gets in the marriage
And a lot are no longer together
Like the horse and carriage.
Unless she maintains her looks
I would have to leave
And unless she cooks and washes
I will no longer cleave.
Unless he works for more than me
He will have to go on his own,
Unless, of course, on the other hand
He owns our marital home.
Unless she fits in with my friends
This marriage will surely end,
And unless he keeps fit
I am getting off at the next bend.
“Unless” is certainly missing
From the marriage vows,
One cannot view these conditions
Without asking how.
What was good in the past
No longer holds up today,
Put “unless” in the marriage vows
Or marriage will go away.
This is the marital behaviour
That we are seeing here of late,
Hence, people are living together
And not tempting fate.
For some, marriage is a contract
With myriad conditions
So, unless “unless” is added in
There will be objections.
However, to the Christian
Marriage is a covenant:
The two shall become one flesh
And they must go the distance.
That distance is demarcated
By “until death do us part”,
For those who want to include “unless”
It’d be better not to start.
They would be leaving God out
And that’s the recipe for failure,
Marriages work better
Once Christ is in the picture.
Stewart Russell © August 16, 2020
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