A Love Letter

Dear John,

I love you more than I can ever begin to tell you or I can ever begin to put into words. Words are not even enough to explain how I feel about you. From the first moment you held me in your arms, when you asked if you could hug me, I knew that with you I would be safe and be loved.

You are my world. You are the love of my life.

You mean so much more to me than I can ever begin to tell you. I don’t know what I’d do if one day you’d just suddenly fall out of love. You truly are my everything. You are the first thing I think about when I wake up and the last thing about before I go to sleep, and I would not want it any other way.

I promise you I will love you to the very end of time and I want to spend the rest of my life with you and to make you so very happy. I love you honey more than anything, more than life itself… This I say from the very bottom of my heart. I love you, and I always will.

Love always,

Elizabeth xoxoxo

MAKE EVERY DAY VALENTINE’S DAY

Getting romantic just one day a year will not keep your relationship healthy, so…

NOTICE THE SMALL THINGS. Every single issue or gesture makes a difference. Negative small things can add up to big problems, while positive ones can build closeness even better.

TAKE OFF YOUR MASK. Many of us act out a one-sided persona because we think it is what our partner likes. But a lasting relationship needs you to show your true desires and feelings.

FIGHT STEREOTYPES. We all pick up unconscious “scripts” (from television, magazines, family) of how we think couples should act. These can suffocate a relationship. Think about what you both really want, and then start from there.

SUPPORT EACH OTHER’S DREAMS. Each of you will bring ambitions from your single life. Apart from those incompatible with partnership (such as taking your life savings to a casino), it is very important to support - and make sacrifices for - each other’s dreams.

ALLOW FOR SEPARATENESS. The growth of a relationship depends partly on the growth of the individuals. If you want to do things separately sometimes, it does not mean there is something wrong. Most breakups are mainly due to suffocation, because the couples do the activities together, until they get sick and tired of each other.

to Wed or not to

Some people have told me they see no reason to get married. Others feel that one should get married so their life together can fully begin. Some have told me that weddings are a huge waste of money and that they should have spent the money on something else. If you want to get married but are thinking money wise, why not tone it down a bit? You do not have to have a huge wedding party nor do you need to have a huge reception. You could easily get by with only your closest family and friends and your day would be just as special.
Or if you decide a wedding is not for you why not do a commitment ceremony? This says that you are serious about eachother and want to share the rest of your lives together and are commited but you are not legally bound to eachother as the government does not see you married.
Either way you decide to go any wedding or commintment ceremony will be perfect. The thing that makes it perfect is who you are spending the rest of your life with not the kind of money you spent or people who are there.

Marriage

Marriage is a social union or legal contract between individuals that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged by a variety of ways, depending on the culture or demographic. Such a union may also be called matrimony, while the ceremony that marks its beginning is usually called a wedding and the marital structure created is known as wedlock.

People marry for many reasons, most often including one or more of the following: legal, social, emotional, economical, spiritual, and religious. These might include arranged marriages, family obligations, the legal establishment of a nuclear family unit, the legal protection of children and public declaration of love.

Marriage practices are very diverse across cultures, may take many forms, and are often formalized by a ceremony called a wedding.The act of marriage usually creates normative or legal obligations between the individuals involved. In some societies these obligations also extend to certain family members of the married persons. Almost all cultures that recognize marriage also recognize adultery as a violation of the terms of marriage.

External recognition can manifest in a variety of ways. Some examples include the state, a religious authority, or both. It is often viewed as a contract. Civil marriage is the legal concept of marriage as a governmental institution irrespective of religious affiliation, in accordance with marriage laws of the jurisdiction. If recognized by the state, by the religion(s) to which the parties belong or by society in general, the act of marriage changes the personal and social status of the individuals who enter into it.

According to Confucius, “Marriage is the union (of the representatives) of two different surnames, in friendship and in love, in order to continue the posterity of the former sages, and to furnish those who shall preside at the sacrifices to heaven and earth, at those in the ancestral temple, and at those at the altars to the spirits of the land and grain.

In lexicography, words have often changed and expanded in accordance to the status quo. According to the first edition of Webster’s Dictionary of the English Language published in 1806, marriage was defined as “the act of joining man and woman…”[7although this failed to recognize other types of marriages, such as Polygyny, Polyandry, etc.[citation needed]

By 2009, all major English language dictionaries dropped gender specifications, or supplemented them with secondary definitions to include gender-neutral language or same-sex unions.

Although the institution of marriage pre-dates reliable recorded history, many cultures have legends concerning the origins of marriage. The way in which a marriage is conducted has changed over time, as has the institution itself.

One of the oldest known and recorded marriage laws is discerned from Hammurabi’s Code, enacted in ancient Mesopotamia (widely considered as the cradle of civilization). The legal institution of marriage and its rules and ramifications have changed over time depending on the culture or demographic of the time.

Various cultures have had their own theories on the origin of marriage. One example may lie in a man’s need for assurance as to paternity of his children. He might therefore be willing to pay a bride price or provide for a woman in exchange for exclusive sexual access. Legitimacy is the consequence of this transaction rather than its motivation. In Comanche society, married women work harder, lose sexual freedom, and do not seem to obtain any benefit from marriage. But nubile women are a source of jealousy and strife in the tribe, so they are given little choice other than to get married. “In almost all societies, access to women is institutionalized in some way so as to moderate the intensity of this competition.” In English common law, a marriage was a voluntary contract by a man and a woman, in which by agreement they choose to become husband and wife. Edvard Westermarck proposed that “the institution of marriage has probably developed out of a primeval habit”.

European marriages

For most of European history, marriage was more or less a business agreement between two families who arranged the marriages of their children. Romantic love, and even simple affection, were not considered essential.Historically, the perceived necessity of marriage has been stressed

In Ancient Greece, no specific civil ceremony was required for the creation of a marriage - only mutual agreement and the fact that the couple must regard each other as husband and wife accordingly.Men usually married when they were in their 20s or 30s and expected their wives to be in their early teens. It has been suggested that these ages made sense for the Greek because men were generally done with military service by age 30, and marrying a young girl ensured her virginity. Married Greek women had few rights in ancient Greek society and were expected to take care of the house and children.[Time was an important factor in Greek marriage. For example, there were superstitions that being married during a full moon was good luck and, according to Robert Flacelière, Greeks married in the winter.[29] Inheritance was more important than feelings: A woman whose father dies without male heirs can be forced to marry her nearest male relative—even if she has to divorce her husband first.

Like with the Greeks, Roman marriage and divorce required no specific government or religious approval. Both marriage and divorce could happen by simple mutual agreement. There were several types of marriages in Roman society. The traditional (”conventional”) form called conventio in manum required a ceremony with witnesses and was also dissolved with a ceremony.In this type of marriage, a woman lost her family rights of inheritance of her old family and gained them with her new one. She now was subject to the authority of her husband.There was the free marriage known as sine manu. In this arrangement, the wife remained a member of her original family; she stayed under the authority of her father, kept her family rights of inheritance with her old family and did not gain any with the new family.A law in the Theodosian Code (C. Th. 9.7.3) issued in 342 CE prohibited same-sex marriage, but the exact intent of the law and its relation to social practice is unclear, as only a few documented examples of same-sex marriage in ancient Rome exist.
A woodcut of a medieval wedlock ceremony from Germany.

From the early Christian era (30 to 325 CE), marriage was thought of as primarily a private matter,[citation needed] with no uniform religious or other ceremony being required. However, bishop Ignatius of Antioch writing around 110 to bishop Polycarp of Smyrna exhorts, “[I]t becomes both men and women who marry, to form their union with the approval of the bishop, that their marriage may be according to God, and not after their own lust.”

Marriage in sixth-century Europe has been characterized as political polygamy. The Germanic warlord Clothar, despite being a baptized Christian, eventually acquired four wives for strategic reasons, including his dead brother’s wife, her sister and the daughter of a captured foreign king.

In the twelfth century, aristocrats believed love was incompatible with marriage and sought romance in adultery.Troubadors invented courtly love which involved secret but chaste trysts between a lover and a beloved.

In fourteenth-century Europe, ordinary people could no longer choose whom to marry. The lord of one Black Forest manor decreed in 1344 that all his unmarried tenants—including widows and widowers—marry spouses of his choosing. Elsewhere, peasants wishing to pick a partner had to pay a fee

With few local exceptions, until 1545, Christian marriages in Europe were by mutual consent, declaration of intention to marry and upon the subsequent physical union of the parties.the couple would promise verbally to each other that they would be married to each other; the presence of a priest or witnesses was not required.This promise was known as the “verbum.” If freely given and made in the present tense (e.g., “I marry you”), it was unquestionably binding; if made in the future tense (”I will marry you”), it would constitute a betrothal. One of the functions of churches from the Middle Ages was to register marriages, which was not obligatory. There was no state involvement in marriage and personal status, with these issues being adjudicated in ecclesiastical courts.

The average age of marriage in the late 1200s into the 1500s was around 25 years of age. Beginning in the 1500s it was unlawful for a woman younger than 20 years of age to marry.

As part of the Counter-Reformation, in 1563 the Council of Trent decreed that a Roman Catholic marriage would be recognized only if the marriage ceremony was officiated by a priest with two witnesses. The Council also authorized a Catechism, issued in 1566, which defined marriage as, “The conjugal union of man and woman, contracted between two qualified persons, which obliges them to live together throughout life.”[39]

In England, under the Anglican Church, marriage by consent and cohabitation was valid until the passage of Lord Hardwicke’s Act in 1753. This act instituted certain requirements for marriage, including the performance of a religious ceremony observed by witnesses.

As part of the Reformation, the role of recording marriages and setting the rules for marriage passed to the state. By the 1600s many of the Protestant European countries had a state involvement in marriage. As of 2000, the average marriage age range was 25–44 years for men and 22–39 years for women.
Recognition by the state

In the early modern period, John Calvin and his Protestant colleagues reformulated Christian marriage by enacting the Marriage Ordinance of Geneva, which imposed “The dual requirements of state registration and church consecration to constitute marriage” for recognition.

In England and Wales, Lord Hardwicke’s Marriage Act 1753 required a formal ceremony of marriage, thereby curtailing the practice of Fleet Marriage.These were clandestine or irregular marriages performed at Fleet Prison, and at hundreds of other places. From the 1690s until the Marriage Act of 1753 as many as 300,000 clandestine marriages were performed at Fleet Prison alone.[42] The Act required a marriage ceremony to be officiated by an Anglican priest in the Anglican Church with two witnesses and registration. The Act did not apply to Jewish marriages or those of Quakers, whose marriages continued to be governed by their own customs.

In England and Wales, since 1837, civil marriages have been recognised as a legal alternative to church marriages under the Marriage Act of 1836. In Germany, civil marriages were recognised in 1875. This law permitted a declaration of the marriage before an official clerk of the civil administration, when both spouses affirm their will to marry, to constitute a legally recognised valid and effective marriage, and allowed an optional private clerical marriage ceremony.

Chinese marriage

The mythological origin of Chinese marriage is a story about Nüwa and Fu Xi who invented proper marriage procedures after becoming married.

In ancient Chinese society, people of the same surname were not supposed to marry and doing so was seen as incest. However, because marriage to one’s maternal relatives was not thought of as incest, families sometimes intermarried from one generation to another. Over time, Chinese people became more geographically mobile. Individuals remained members of their biological families. When a couple died, the husband and the wife were buried separately in the respective clans’ graveyard. In a maternal marriage, a male would become a son-in-law who lived in the wife’s home.
[edit] Same-sex marriage
Main article: Same-sex marriage

Various types of same-sex marriages have existed,ranging from informal, unsanctioned relationships to highly ritualized unions.

While it is a relatively new practice that same-sex couples are being granted the same form of legal marital recognition as commonly used by mixed-sex couples, recent publicity and debate over the past decade gives an impression that civil marriage for lesbian and gay couples is novel and untested. There is a long history of recorded same-sex unions around the world.It is believed that same-sex unions were celebrated in Ancient Greece and Rome, some regions of China, such as Fujian, and at certain times in ancient European history. A law in the Theodosian Code (C. Th. 9.7.3) issued in AD 342 prohibited same-sex marriage in ancient Rome, but the exact intent of the law and its relation to social practice is unclear, as only a few examples of same-sex marriage in that culture exist.

Should I?

HIS SIDE.
MINE.
EACH IN THE MODE OF ROPE.
THERE IS A FORMING KNOT.
FORMING SLOWLY.
TO FORM A BOND SO STRONG.
WE ARE ONE.
IN LOVE.
IN GOD.
IN HEART.
IN MIND.
IN SOULS.
IN EARTHLY TEMPATIONS TOGETHER.
AS ONE.
NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENNS.
BUT HE GOT ON ONE KNEE.
BEGGED HIS SWEET DARLING PLEASE.
TIE THE KNOT.

I THOUGHT AND THOUGHT.
ABOUT THE LULLABY HE SPOKE IN THE NAME OF THE DIAMOND RING.
ON GRADUATION NITE.
I LOVED HIM.
I WANTED HIM.
I NEEDED HIM.
BUT I THOUGHT ABOUT THE PAIN AND SUFFERING.
THE TEARS AND SWEAT OF THE RELATION WE HAVE FORMED.
I LOOK BACK OVER THE FEW BIG SMILES AND I LAUGH.
I KNOW.
HE LOVES ME.
OUT OF ALL THE TEMPTING THINGS HE COMMITTS.
I AM STILL THERE.
FESTERING IN THAT FELLOWS HEART.
UNTIL HE HAS TO HAVE ME FORVER.
TO TIE THIS KNOT.

THE PREACHER SPEAKS OF ALL THE PROMISES WE HAVE TO MAKE TO ONE ANOTHER.
I GET SCARED.
KNEES START TO BEND.
WEAKING AND NUMBING.
SICK TO MY STOMACHE.
I LOOK IN HIS EYES.
KNOWIN THE WORDS THAT PART HIS MOUTH ARE NOT TRUE.
SPEAK NOW OR FORVER HOLD YOUR PEACE.
I OBJECTED TO MY OWN WEEDDING.
BECAUSE I WASNT READY.
TO TIE THE KNOT!

Simple and Practical Wedding by friendship

Getting married is a very difficult decision to make especially nowadays that we are facing difficulties most in financial aspect. Oftenly said that love conquers all even poverty as long as you are with someone you love. Marriage can be done even in a very simple way.  But haven’t you got an idea of indulging yourself to a memorable wedding? There is no need to pay a wedding planner, to hire  a florist, or any other people to have your wedding dream. All you need is friends, yes, your friends.  

Each of them for sure can contribute and willing to do so for your wedding. All you have to have is cooperation, creativity, and willingness to offer your help to each other.  Most of my friends cherished and enjoyed the outcome of their wedding days.  All were done through our friendship. Each has a part in that special days of their lives. It is just like how the family is preparing for the occasion and since we are almost a family to each other, there was no difference. We are as well as busy as the real family members. We are the ones who organized the occasion, from the the settings, decorating venues, up to hosting and gracing visitors. Couples found out that it was not just practical but it bring out the best from each of us and resulted an enjoyable event. 

It was really hard to attain everything at the same time, your loveone and your dream. And it is not always means giving up the other one. It is sometimes just need to be practical, after all, it is true that love always prevails.

Renewing Vows

When my husband and I were married we went to the court house. At the time we didn’t have the means for an elaborate wedding. We don’t regret the decision to marry in a court house. Fast forward nine years we are still married. We have 4 amazing kids. Now we are planning to renew our vows in a dream setting!

In the beginning we didn’t have a lot. Over the years ours lives and careers are much more established. We are planning to renew our vows in an elegant setting with our children as the wedding party. I am really looking forward to sharing in such a beautiful celebration with our loved ones.

A lot of time has passed over the years and we have supported one another through sickness and health, good times and bad. This wedding is a celebration of a solid commitment that not only my husband and I share but our children share as well to continue to be one as a family.

Dating tips

My parents meant well, but in some ways they have really made social development difficult for me. You see, I was home-schooled as a kid, and kind of isolated from all the rest of the kids my age. I never got to hang out with the neighborhood girls growing up, or to go to parties. When I had my first date – at the age of 16 – my dad gave me some simple dating advice. He told me that as long as you are polite to a girl and really act like a gentleman, it will always be easy to meet nice young ladies.

Needless to say, his dating tips did not serve me well in life. I had little experience to go on when I got to college and wanted to go out and meet girls, and no good advice on dating. What was worse, I did not know where to go for dating tips. Most of the boys were eager to give out a dating tip to anyone who would listen, but they were always pretty crude about it. They had dating tips for men that basically all centered around how to get a girl to let you spend the night. I wasn’t really interested in that kind of relationship, but I could not find meaningful relationship advice.

The problem is that everyone wants to feel like an expert on matters of love. Everyone will offer you dating tips whether or not you ask. Whether it was my roommate commenting on the shirts that I would wear when I went out on dates, or my best friend talking about what movie we should go to, I could not find many people who did not have something to say. I still could not find any dating tips that I trusted, and now I was overwhelmed with a lot of advice that I did not want.

I tried writing into a dating advice column, but that did me no good. They would not answer my question as it was not racy enough. Finally, I gave up on dating tips. I knew that whatever I learned about love and romance I would have to learn myself. It took me some time to figure out how to meet women, but I did figure it out. It turns out that, once you are no longer afraid to talk to them, it is easy.

Can Social Networking Help You Find Love

Some people have searched high and low to find love. They have gone to bars and told a friend to hook them up but still no success. Should you give up? No because there you might just find it through social networking.

Social networking allows you to make new friends. In this case, finding Mr. or Mrs. Right so they can live happily ever after. For this to work, the first thing you have to do is become a member. Some of these sites allow you to join for free while there are others that will require you to pay a small fee.

After completing your profile, the social networking site will match your requirements with the existing database and then provide you with a list of some prospects.

What you will see in your account is the member’s photograph and brief version of who they are. If you want to know more, you can click on their profile. Should this person sound interesting, it is time to initiate contact and hopefully, that person will respond in kind.

The first point of contact is usually through email. If things are going well, then you can exchange telephone numbers and get to know each other some more. The next step is considered to be a “big” decision because it is here that you will decide to meet this person for the first time and hope that things will work out.

You should be cautious because it is really scary to meet someone you have never met before. Remember that just because he or she says this is who they are doesn’t necessarily mean that it is true so if at any point you feel something amiss, it is best to end it and find someone else.

You should schedule the meet in a private place, bring a friend along or tell your friends who you are meeting so if anything should happen, they can report it to the authorities.

But there are some individuals who use social networking sites for other purposes. For instance, there are specialty dating sites that are designed to hook people up. Another name for it is called a swinger’s club and you could have a lot of fun as long as you are open-minded about it.

Before you join a social networking site looking for love or any other purpose, you should be sure that it has systems in place that is designed to protect your personal information so it cannot be hacked especially when incidents of identity theft are on the rise.

Will social networking make you finally meet true love? The answer is no but there is always that possibility. You just have to put yourself out there and hope for the best because that is all anyone can ask for.

There are hundreds of social networking sites that can help you find love and it does not cater only to men or women but also to gays and lesbians as well. If you believe that there is someone out there, sign up, become a member and post your profile. If things are not going so well, post your profile in another site because you are selling yourself to someone who is interested in accepting you for whom you are.

Are Love Marriages Better?

Two people meet. Fall in love. Date awhile. Get Married. End of story. However, is that end a happy one? Will they live happily every after? What happens when the first flush of love fades away? Will life become boring? Let us try and understand if love marriages are indeed better than marriages that are arranged by parents or elders, as is common in most Asian countries.
Love marriages can indeed by more exciting, especially if you consider the hoop-la preceding the marriage. The affair, the dating, the romance it is all quite mindblowing and breathtaking. In fact, this excitement can be the reason why post-marriage couples tend to find life dull and boring. As they settle into domesticity and get involved with the business of life, romance and love tends to take a backseat. Bills and budget come to the forefront.
Moreover, in love marriages, partners may have more expectations from each other. They may not want to change their own habits and expect the other person to do so. This may also lead to friction and fights.
On the other hand, in a love marriage, since both the partners have known each other, they may also be more accepting and adjusting as compared to partners in an arranged marriage where the meeting of the bride and groom may have only been for a few minutes. Read more about arranged marriages in this article.
So, to conclude, both love and arranged marriages may have their advantages and potential pitfalls. What matters most is the maturity of the partners and the desire to make the marriage a rich and fulfilling affair.

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