marriage

Marriage was used  as the synonym of  love by Shakespeare in one of his sonnets..

Sonnet 116

(Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds)
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.[1]
–William Shakespeare

Of course, the Bard of the Avon did not use the word marriage in the sense of the ceremonial function..
The fundamental element that can sustain marriage is mature and mutual love, and the tenacity to keep the relation unbroken and anxiety for  not reaching a point of no return, by a lot of mutual adjustment.
 If the basic undercurrent of love--for love marriages it may start even before marriage, for arranged marriages it may develop from a slow start to reach an even keel-- is not present, the marriage becomes meaningless.
 There are laws of divorce.. if the partner gets very bad diseases, becomes insane etc.. but how many marriages end up in divorce for such reasons?
 For a man and woman who started life together on the basis of mutual attraction perhaps, the same relationship becomes the only meaningful factor in their lives as years progress..
Even after a married life of fifty years or more, with all the love, quarrels, bickering and even sometimes slight aberrations like adultery in between in some cases, the loss of a partner becomes unbearable and traumatic.
 We can say that it is all social conditioning, but there is always that extra something between the man and his woman or vice versa.. Youngsters may not understand the strength of the bond unless it is buttressed by mutual attraction and financial support, but all worldly things take the backseat as life progresses. I am understanding the depth after quarter of a century. In some remote agraharam house or a remote tharavad a thaatha and patty or muthassan and muthassy in their late eighties may not even talk to one another for days and they may not be able to hear each other ( because they have become deaf) but the way they exist in the secure company of one another is a lesson to be emulated. In fact the loss of a partner hurts one in geometrical proportions to the years of marriage. The reason for the closeness is beyond definition..
Shankaras "ShivaH shaktaya yuktho yadi bhavati shaktaH prabhavitum, na chedevam devo na khalu kushalaH spandithumapi." शिवः शक्त्या युक्तो यदि भवति शक्तः प्रभवितुं न चेदेवं देवो न खलु कुशलः स्पन्दितुमपि . applies even  to every ordinary Shiva and Shakthi.

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unwavering stance

क्षुधार्तो न तृणं चरति सिंहः॥१६४॥
चाणक्यसूत्राद्
संपत्तौ च विपत्तौ च महतां एकरूपता।
उदये सविता रक्तः रक्तश्चाऽस्तमने तथा॥
kṣudhārto na tṛṇaṁ carati siṁhaḥ||164||
cāṇakyasūtrād
saṁpattau ca viapattau ca mahatāṁ ekarūpatā|
udaye savitā raktaḥ raktaścā'stamane tathā||

"The lion will not take grass for food just because it is hungry beyond endurance".  
This is another aphorism from the great Chanakya. 
 To illustrate  this noble view another subhashitam is quoted.. 
"The noble persons have only one approach and stand, 
whether they are enjoying in affluence or are afflicted with poverty.  
Look at the Sun...when he is young and  raising in the morning, he appears dark red.  
At the end of the day, when the day has been lived and he has to depart into darkness, again his hue does not change.. 
He appears in his dark red colour, then too".

Every object, whether animate or inanimate, has its basic character and the noble and praiseworthy ones never change that.. 
if that basic character is lost, the identity is lost and everything is lost.  
Shakespeare waxed eloquent about the permanent and unwavering nature of love in his sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

The great Ravana is said to have stood steadfast
on the face of the vajrayudha and the fall of
thunderbolt and is described as not moving away even an inch in a fight
 

Alas, there are always chameleons...who change colour according to the environments just to
save their existence..but then they never reach immortality.

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