The Course of Love

by Alain de Botton

In an ideal world, marriage vows would be entirely rewritten. At the altar, a couple would speak thus: ‘We accept not to panic when, some years from now, what we are doing today will seem like the worst decision of our lives. Yet we promise not to look around, either, for we accept that there cannot be better options out there. Everyone is always impossible. We are a demented species.’ After the solemn repetition of the last sentence by the congregation, the couple would continue: ‘We will endeavour to be faithful. At the same time, we are certain that never being allowed to sleep with anyone else is one of the tragedies of existence. We apologize that our jealousies have made this peculiar but sound and non-negotiable restriction very necessary. We promise to make each other the sole repository of our regrets, rather than distribute them through a life of sexual Don Juanism. We have surveyed the different options for unhappiness and it is to each other we have chosen to bind ourselves.’ Spouses who had been cheated on would no longer be at liberty furiously to complain that they had expected their partner to be content with them alone. Instead they could more poignantly and justly cry, ‘I was relying on you to be loyal to the specific variety of compromise and unhappiness which our hard-won marriage represents.’ Thereafter, an affair would be a betrayal not of intimate joy, but of a reciprocal pledge to endure the disappointments of marriage with bravery and stoic reserve.