The Wedding

In D.H. Lawrence's short story, The Fox:

"She looked up at him with tears running from her eyes, a senseless look of helplessness and submission.  She would never leave him again.  He had won her.  And he knew it and was glad, because he wanted her for his life.  His life must have her.  And now he had won her.  It was what his life must have.

But though she belonged to him, though she lived in his shadow, as if she could not be away from him, she was not happy.  She did not want to leave him:  and yet she did not feel free with him. . . He had won her, he had her with him, she was his wife.  And she - she belonged to him, she knew it. But she was not glad.  And he was still foiled.  He realized that though he was married to her and possessed her in every possible way, apparently, and though she wanted him to possess her, she wanted it, she wanted nothing else, now, still he did not quite succeed.

Something was missing.  Instead of her soul swaying with the new life, it seemed to droop, to bleed, as if it were wounded."

It is a fact that the institution of Marriage was adopted by the Church and State to sanctify the family and raise the standards of our culture respectively.  The State did not want to assume the burden of caring and providing for illegitimate children born out of wedlock.  The Church declared it was a couple's moral obligation and duty to assume all responsibility of children born from the copulation of two individuals. Nature played her part too.  She cleverly enticed the young to believe their hormone explosion was a sign of falling in love - not sex - love.  And so many of our youth become trapped in a marriage with all kinds of commitment before they even know what has happened.  Painfully, they must face  their fragile illusions about love and life.  

Often, the real love  comes later - but this is where the grief begins.  People are legally married, already have children, are entrapped in financial obligations, and committed to jobs and a lifestyle very few are content with. 

While our school systems presently educate our very young (10-16) about the birds and the bees, offer sex counseling, and free condoms as a buffer for becoming infected with HIV - the statistics inform us nothing is really changing.  While people are still marrying - they are also divorcing.  So much for the percentage that are trying to play it straight.  Conversely, there is still a large percentage of alternative or unconventional  life styles that people assume which often promote disease, addiction, and poverty.  One of the saddest reflection of this segment of society are the unwed mothers who give birth to babies they cannot keep. 

The pain, the disillusionment, the hardships . . . still  do not seem to be the powerful lessons we might think they are to discourage these  scenarios from perpetuating. Why is this so? Perhaps it is mainly an awareness issue - and then once obtaining this awareness - a discipline.

Do we still cherish the same romantic illusions  as did our grandparents and parents:  respect, commitment, honor, unconditional love.  Do you think love will last forever?  How do young adults feel about love and the commitment of marriage?

Sex Without Love
Sharon Olds (1942)

How do they do it, the ones who make love without love?  Beautiful as dancers, gliding over each other like ice-skaters over the ice, fingers hooked inside each other's bodies, faces red as steak, wine wet as the children at birth whose mothers are going to give them away.  How do they come to the . . .  come to the . . .  God . . .  come to the still waters, and not love the one who came there with them, light rising slowly as steam off their joined skin?  These are the true religious, the purists, the pros, the ones who will not accept a false Messiah, love the priest instead of the God.  They do not mistake the lover for their own pleasure, they are like great runners:  they know they are alone with the road surface, the cold, the wind, the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardiovascular health - just factors, like the partner in the bed, and not the truth, which is the single body alone in the universe against its own best time.

The Greeks understood the different phases of love.  They put love at the very core of ethics while most modern theories relegate it to the margins or ignore it altogether.  The ancient Greeks distinguished:

Eros: This word is the root of our word, "erotic."  It means sexual desire or attraction. Plato, and much, much later, Sigmund Freud, claimed that eros is the motivation behind many more of our choices and actions than we usually recognize.  Eros is the most closely related of these three types of love to what we usually mean by "romantic" or "erotic" love.

Philia: forms part of the root of our words, "philosophy" and "philanthropy."
It refers to love within groups of intimate associates and generally means "friendship."  Aristotle insisted that "no man would choose to live without friends," and he meant by "friend" a person with whom one had a long- lasting, fulfilling relationship full of high regard.  The "philosopher" is the "friend of wisdom", a person who cares for wisdom and wants to live his or her life sharing in it.

Agape: What we would now call "brotherly love."  It is the kind of love that one can and possibly does feel for everyone, or for the whole world - for "thy neighbor," in general.  If "God is Love,"  as the Biblical claim goes, then He is agape love.

Focusing on the theme of Love and happier relationships - are there solutions? Possibly. We look to our religious educators and  professionals for help.  We are   hopeful  that education will give young people a different perspective of life, love, and responsibility before they have experienced too many disappointments resulting in a great deal of bitterness and baggage for the next (if there is one) relationship.  Knowledge,  experience, and responsibility  comprise a powerful package towards getting people on the right track.

Astrology and the Horoscope
I would strongly advocate that young people be educated before getting married.  Mandatory Psychology and Astrology courses  would be most beneficial.  The astrological chart based on empiric information, shows the psychological dynamics within each person's psyche.  Before becoming involved with another, it is very important to know and understand yourself, your strengths, weaknesses, talents, capacity for love,  sexual drive, etc.  The chart is also able to determine and describe the parents' marriage and how much he/she was affected by the family dynamics.  Was the childhood  positive or negative - nurturing or disruptive?  This will  determine how much unresolved baggage a person brings into his/her own relationship.  I do not think young people would be so eager to jump into a sexual or marriage commitment if made aware of all the complications and issues that must first be resolved individually.

While I do not maintain that Astrology or Psychology have all the answers that will insure happy, productive "forever" relationships, I  strongly believe, as an Astrologer, that the horoscope is the truest and most reliable tool we have today (bar none)  for giving tremendous insight into a person's psyche and behavior as well as the ability to compare the energies of two people to determine if they are compatible. In addition, it will suggest if a person is ready or suited to make a commitment.  Since life is a learning experience, as we mature, we become more aware and usually our requirements are different from those of more youthful days.  Most important, we cannot really love another until we accept and love ourselves - a lifetime endeavor.