Marriage matters for the progress of society and for each person's spiritual growth: in a family one learns to give, and the spouses' chief duty is to help each other grow spiritually.
The creation of the institution of marriage was a crucial milestone in human history. First of all, it made it possible to give children a full upbringing, and for children the care of both mother and father is very important. When a woman is forced to earn her daily bread alone and raise a child at the same time, she is unable to give her child the amount of "investment" it would be good to put into them. As a result, the next generation will be no different from the previous one, and civilization will stagnate and not move forward. But when a child has parents, grandfathers and grandmothers, and absorbs their wisdom, the next generation becomes better than the previous one. That is why the institution of marriage is so important for the progress of all human society.
The family is also very important for the spiritual development of each person. We all begin our journey as immature beings, as pashu, closer to the animal form of life. And in the state of pashu we just want to enjoy life: to take everything and give nothing in return. But if a person lives in a family, they cannot only take without giving. To keep the family whole and maintain harmony in it, one has to learn to give. And in this process our inner pashu is transformed into a higher form of life, into a human being. There are many examples of people who "mature" very quickly after getting married. Marriage speeds up evolution and broadens the mind, because a person is obliged to take on responsibility, look for compromises, reach agreements and enter into another person's point of view. In marriage a person thinks about how to meet the needs of another person, and is able to show real love – a human being's most precious resource. If a person feels love, the true goal of life has been reached; that is, the human purpose has been fulfilled. Because the ability to love is the highest human ability. Ideally, the aim of marriage is to evolve together and give one's children a "flying start." Let us talk about the tasks of husband and wife in the family.
The man should take on all the duties of providing for the material side of life – food, clothing, housing, medical care and education. If he takes on this responsibility, he can be considered mature and ready to marry. His wife's help in this is welcome, but not obligatory. The woman's primary duty is to create a favorable atmosphere in the family.
According to the yogic system, during the marriage ceremony both spouses promise each other to protect each other's peace of mind and to provide the conditions for intellectual development.
And yet the most important promise made on entering marriage is to do everything in one's power to help one's spouse develop spiritually. Spiritual energy is the most powerful energy, the greatest and most precious wealth that we can pass on to our children. To create and maintain spiritual energy in the family is the parents' first duty. Today some parents think they absolutely must buy their child an apartment, a car and so on. Certainly it is very good to provide a child with all this, but one has to understand that no material goods will make a child able to cope with life or happy. Parents should think about the spiritual development of their child. But logically, in order to give something, you have to have it, obtain it, earn it. Spiritual energy will not appear in a family just like that; it takes effort from everyone. Mutual understanding alone is not enough in a family.
The family is always a test of a person's strength. In family relationships it is clear what "stuff" your spouse is made of. Sometimes a person who starts family life "takes off" in the spiritual sphere, grows, and matures on every front. And sometimes it is the opposite: a person gets "bogged down" in family life and begins to decline – gradually stops going to group meditation and following discipline, and in the end gives up meditating. From the very start one needs to cultivate a steady striving for inner growth, even if one's spouse does not support it. One needs to care for one's spouse lovingly and present spiritual ideas at the level at which one's partner is ready to take them in. That is what it means to love truly, because love means giving the very best.
Some people weigh the need to marry from a purely selfish point of view – what will I get out of it? They have forgotten that this is not what a family is created for. A family is a super-effort in terms of spiritual growth. To live without difficulties and problems, wanting only to receive, is the outlook of an immature teenager. A person feels true happiness when living both for oneself and for others.
One has to understand what it means to live for someone. There are people who seem to do a great deal for others, but the reason turns out to be fear and a lack of inner strength. Such people start to be used. You cannot always be "sweet" toward your partner. To give sincerely, out of goodwill, truly, means to give "salt" and "pepper," "sweet" and "bitter." One should do everything possible so that one's partner is uplifted, so that in this life they go as far as possible along the spiritual path. This will certainly contribute to harmonious relations in the family and to a progressive upbringing of the children.
