Reflections of a stormy petrel

Marriage is about inserting yourself in the legitimate succession of your race, from your first parents down the generations. It is about having parents as well as hoping to have children. It is about legitimizing the results of sex and chance. It is about taking joint responsibility for them, and bringing one's own family and background into it (that is why wedding feasts involve every member of both families: because a marriage forges a permanent link between two previously existing families). But above all, it is about extending these families into the future. This is, I feel sure, the common denominator of marriage in every civilization and religion, certainly including the Jewish and Christian ones.