rings that bind

When asked if I am willing to get married (no, not a proposal, just my feeling on the general idea), my answer is typically yes; that I have already thought long and hard, weighed the pros and cons and have made my general decision about the subject. It's something I am interested in... but why? Here's my personal list.

1. Financial Status: freedom
- two incomes are better than one. This is of course, if each person is contributing to the pool, equally or not.

2. Physical Movement: bondage
- the get-up-and-go (changing countries, jobs, parishes) etc will always require consultation and agreement. It's a part of my personality to be spontaneous, but I see myself having to give some of that up.

3. Emotional Expression: freedom
- as a single person, I'm constantly tempering how I feel about someone. It's a necessary evil that comes with the territory. I'm not going to allow myself to fall hard for someone unless there's a chance of reciprocation. In a marriage, we have already vowed to reciprocate. This means both my feelings and expressions thereof are finally set free to be as deep and far reaching as I want. Yes, there is still the possibility of pain, but for me, a tempered marriage is not even an option.

4. Sexual Expression: freedom
- I'm a struggling Christian trying to maintain my sexual purity. I believe that God intended us to have Big Sex, and therefore, in the context of a marriage, my sexual self can be free to get very big ;)

5. Mixture of Backgrounds: jury still out
- 'si mi an com liv wid mi a tuu difrent ting'. I can't make a general decision on this one for the simple reason that it has to be dependent on the actual person, their background, beliefs and morals and how they clash with mine. I like to think I am open-minded and can handle quite a bit of variation from my own, but mix that with wider family reactions and interactions, and it's not just about us anymore. This one could swing either way: freedom or bondage.

6. Family: bondage
- Depending on the actual family that would then become mine, this bondage may or may not be extremely bearable. However, having any increased expectation is typically bondage. These can vary from how we spend holidays to if and when we are having children... the more integrated the 'rest' of the family is in the marriage, chances are, the more it feels like bondage for me.

So that's 3 freedom:2 bondage and 1 potential to swing either way. The numbers are not weighted evenly either, but without even accounting for that, if the man is right, the answer is yes.