Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes on Marriage

• To curb the sexual urge, to hold it within bounds, the institution of marriage has been created; and in marriage, behind the door, behind the wall, you can do anything you like and show a respectable front outside. By using her for your sexual gratification you can convert your wife into a prostitute, and it is perfectly respectable. Under the guise of marriage, you can be worse than an animal; and without marriage, without restraint, you know no bounds. So, in order to set a limit, society lays down certain moral laws which become tradition, and within that limit you can be as immoral, as ugly as you like; and that unrepressed indulgence, that habitual sexual action is considered perfectly normal, healthy, and moral.
   
• The fulfillment of the sexual urge, the biological urge, necessitates certain social regulations; therefore, you have marriage laws. You have all the ways of possessing that which gives you pleasure, security, comfort; but that which gives constant pleasure dulls the mind. As constant pain dulls the mind, so constant pleasure withers the mind and heart.
   
• To understand ourselves in our relationship with another requires intelligence far more swift and subtle than to understand nature. But we seek to understand without intelligence; we want immediate action, an immediate solution, and the problem becomes more and more important. Have you noticed a man whose heart is empty, how his face becomes ugly and how the children he produces are ugly and immature? And because they have had no affection, they remain immature for the rest of their lives.
   
• You have a marriage in which you have a permanent source of pleasure, a habit without understanding, without love, and you are forced to live in that state. I am not saying what you should do, but look at the problem first. Do you think that is right? It does not mean that you must throw off your wife and pursue someone else. What does this relationship mean? Surely, to love is to be in communion with somebody, but are you in communion with your wife, except physically? Do you know her, except physically? Does she know you? Are you not both isolated, each pursuing his or her own interests, ambitions, and needs, each seeking from the other gratification, economic or psychological security? Such a relationship is not a relationship at all - it is a mutually self-enclosing process of psychological, biological, and economic necessity - and the obvious result is conflict, misery, nagging, possessive fear, jealousy, and so on. Do you think such a relationship is productive of anything except ugly babies and an ugly civilization? Therefore, the important thing is to see the whole process, not as something ugly, but as an actual fact which is taking place under your very nose.
   
• Marriage as a habit, as a cultivation of habitual pleasure, is a deteriorating factor because there is no love in habit. Love is not habitual; love is something joyous, creative, new. Therefore, habit is the contrary of love, but you are caught in habit, and naturally your habitual relationship with another is dead.
   
• Without love, marriage becomes, for man or for woman, a source of gratification, of conflict, of fear and pain. Love comes into being only when the self is absent. Without love, relationship is sorrow, however physically exciting it might be; such relationship breeds contention and frustration, habit and routine. Without love there can be no chastity, and sex becomes an all-consuming problem.
   
• The sexual urge is legalized by marriage. Society demands the protection of children. That is one of the reasons for the so-called marriages. Marriage also takes place because of psychological reasons. One needs a companion, a person to possess, to dominate, who will give one psychological as well as physical comfort. Thus, either the man or the woman dominates and makes the other a dependent. Sexual possession or economic possession gives gratification. So, possession becomes extraordinarily important in relationship, which leads to all kinds of agony, distrust, and suspicion. Where there is possessiveness and gratification, there can be no love. How can there be love when in your livelihood you are ruthless; when in your business you are cunning and competitive?
   
• With regard to illegitimate sexual intercourse, let us first consider what you mean by marriage. In most cases marriage is but the sanctification of possessiveness, by religion and by law. Suppose that you love a woman; you want to live with her, to possess her. Now, society has innumerable laws to help you to possess, and various ceremonies which sanctify this possessiveness. An act that you would have considered sinful before marriage you consider lawful after that ceremony. That is, before the law legalizes and religion sanctifies your possessiveness, you consider the act of intercourse illegal, sinful.