It is alright if you must part ways with another person. The idea of marriage is a romantic idea, but human understanding of marriage is elementary and does not cover all aspects of possibilities. As I said earlier, the traditional idea of marriage is antiquated and out of date in comparison with the evolution of humanity. It is time now for humanity to move out of this way of thinking and into a more fluid way of living in relationships. There must be a willingness to let go of each other graciously when it is appropriate. This does not mean that marriage is useless, for it is still of great value.

Marriage is commitment to each other and to your lives together. This can be experienced without having a lifelong contract. For instance, in some cultures marriage was agreed to for a certain number of years rather than a lifetime. A couple agreed to spend a certain amount of time together, and if at that point they still wanted to be together, they agreed to another chunk of time. If they decide that they wanted to part ways, they did so without feeling that they failed at their commitment. Their contract was fulfilled. They usually made these commitments for 5 years or 10 years.

What, you may ask, happens with children in these scenarios? The cultures that had these types of marriage contracts lived in villages together, and the children were taken care of by everyone. When the couple parted ways, they still remained accessible to the children on a daily basis for they remained part of the village. Just because they did not remain lovers did not mean that they were parted from the children in any way. In today’s cultures, this is more difficult to deal with, since the village has virtually disappeared in modern civilizations. At this point, the best scenario is to share custody of the children fairly in a way that is acceptable to all family members.

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