We promise to each other the depth of our dreams and the height of our hopes, the tender treasures and the hidden recesses of our hearts. We promise to strive in every way to strengthen the permanence of our love, which is our greatest desire. We could all get used to a vow like this. Most folks I think would come to prefer it-in large part because most folks really prefer to tell the truth. Once this honesty issue has been taken care of, everything else about the wedding, every iota of ritual and ceremony, can and should stay just exactly as it is.
People get married, first and foremost, because they mean just what is quoted in the True Vow above.
The next reason for getting married, close on the heels of the first, is because they crave the surpassing poignance of the wedding ceremony and all of its attendant accoutrement. People who love each other and hope to stay together forever, believe they ought to be able to have and to experience these things. They are right. They ought to be able to have the beauty of a wedding, and a marriage, without being coerced by society into making a huge, sweeping promise which they cannot mean and may well not be able to keep. Legally, morally, socially, in every way, a marriage is a contract.