Found these passages meaningful...
CAMPBELL: ... But marriage is marriage, you know. Marriage is not a love affair. A love affair is a totally different thing. A marriage is a commitment to that which you are. That person is literally your other half. And you and the other are one. A love affair isn't that. That is a relationship for pleasure, and when it gets to be unpleasurable, it's off. But a marriage is a life commitment, and a life commitment means the prime concern of your life. If marriage is not the prime concern, you're not married.
MOYERS: Does romance in marriage last?
CAMPBELL: In some marriages, it does. In others, it doesn't. But the problem, you see, the big word in this troubadour tradition, is "loyalty."
MOYERS: What do you mean by loyalty?
CAMPBELL: Not cheating, not defecting -- through whatever trials or suffering, you remain true.
MOYERS: The Puritans called marriage "the little church within the Church."In marriage, every day you love, and every day you forgive. It is an ongoing sacrament -- love and forgiveness.
CAMPBELL: Well, the real word, I think, is "ordeal," in its proper sense. That is the submission of the individual to something superior to itself. The real life of a marriage or of a true love affair is in the relationship, which is where you are, too. You understand what I mean?
MOYERS: No, I'm not clear on that.
CAMPBELL: Like the yin/yang symbol, you see. Here I am, and here she is, and here we are. Now when I have to make a sacrifice, I'm not sacrificing to her, I'm sacrificing to the relationship. Resentment against the other one is wrongly placed. Life is in the relationship, that's where your life now is. That's what a marriage is -- whereas, in a love affair, you have two lives in a more or less successful relationship to each other for a certain length of time, as long as it seems agreeable.
from The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell
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CAMPBELL: ... But marriage is marriage, you know. Marriage is not a love affair. A love affair is a totally different thing. A marriage is a commitment to that which you are. That person is literally your other half. And you and the other are one. A love affair isn't that. That is a relationship for pleasure, and when it gets to be unpleasurable, it's off. But a marriage is a life commitment, and a life commitment means the prime concern of your life. If marriage is not the prime concern, you're not married.
MOYERS: Does romance in marriage last?
CAMPBELL: In some marriages, it does. In others, it doesn't. But the problem, you see, the big word in this troubadour tradition, is "loyalty."
MOYERS: What do you mean by loyalty?
CAMPBELL: Not cheating, not defecting -- through whatever trials or suffering, you remain true.
MOYERS: The Puritans called marriage "the little church within the Church."In marriage, every day you love, and every day you forgive. It is an ongoing sacrament -- love and forgiveness.
CAMPBELL: Well, the real word, I think, is "ordeal," in its proper sense. That is the submission of the individual to something superior to itself. The real life of a marriage or of a true love affair is in the relationship, which is where you are, too. You understand what I mean?
MOYERS: No, I'm not clear on that.
CAMPBELL: Like the yin/yang symbol, you see. Here I am, and here she is, and here we are. Now when I have to make a sacrifice, I'm not sacrificing to her, I'm sacrificing to the relationship. Resentment against the other one is wrongly placed. Life is in the relationship, that's where your life now is. That's what a marriage is -- whereas, in a love affair, you have two lives in a more or less successful relationship to each other for a certain length of time, as long as it seems agreeable.
from The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell
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