Rilke On Marriage

I don’t often write about relationships. However, I wanted to share the following quote, from poet Rainer Maria Rilke. I’m thankful to my friend, composer and saxophonist Spike Mason, for introducing me to Rilke’s work (Spike recently released an amazing set of Jazz compositions, Widening Circles, based on Rilke’s poems). And, I’m thankful we have Rilke’s brilliant Letters to a Young Poet available, from which is quote is drawn.

“The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust. A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development. But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky.”
Rainer Maria Rilke