The following occurred to me today, as I was thinking of sexual morality and my personal failings, the general state of oversexualized media etc.
Of course, with knowledge comes unpleasant facts such as the fact that fornication is a sin so everyone looks forward to marriage who has come to this view because they think they have a lot to do in arrears to catch up with their secular friends if you know what I mean.
But isn't marriage more of a penance? A form of monasticism even to look after someone else who is fallible, and also from a man's perspective, hormonal, irrational and in fact you will have to be their leader?
At the time I was thinking this I was considering the death of my pet bird (now years ago) also the Buddhist practice of creating sand mandalas, and thinking that sand mandalas, pets and people (in marriage and otherwise) all have in common impermanence, and all are in their own way a training in love, and thus a preparation for the life everlasting, since time is devoted to getting it right even though getting it wrong would seem to a materialist to have the same end in view (namely death/destruction).
So please correct my homework so to speak to rid it of heresy and I'll go off and think about it.
Thanks