I've never quite understood why people marry; marriage is just an

Hear now the words of Julie Christie, the actress who walked with both beauty and rebellion, who once said, “I’ve never quite understood why people marry; marriage is just an invented structure.” Her voice, though spoken in a modern age, carries the spirit of ancient seekers — those who dared to question the institutions that claim to define love, honor, and belonging. Beneath her statement lies not a denial of love, but a yearning to free it from its chains of expectation, from the boundaries that men have built around the wildness of the heart.

For the ancients often taught that truth is older than law, and that the heart bows to no written code. In saying that marriage is an invented structure, Christie does not scorn companionship, but challenges the notion that love must be sanctified by ritual to be real. To love is divine; to bind it by form is human. The ritual of marriage, like many of the world’s creations, was born from order — a way to define, to possess, to make sense of what cannot be contained. Yet, love, being infinite, resists the language of ownership. It is the ocean refusing to fit into a cup.

In ages past, there were those who lived beyond these inventions. Diotima of Mantinea, the philosopher and teacher of Socrates, was said to be a woman without husband, yet filled with wisdom on the nature of love itself. She taught that love begins with beauty of the body, ascends to beauty of the soul, and ends in the contemplation of divine beauty itself — a journey far too vast to be confined to any social contract. Thus, her life became her temple, her words her vows. To her, as to Christie, love was not a structure, but a living flame that refused to be owned.

And yet, Christie's words also carry a melancholy truth: that humanity often fears the formless. We crave structure, for it gives us certainty, even when it dims our passion. We write laws and vows not always to honor love, but to guard against loss. In the name of security, we build cages for our hearts and call them homes. But love that is forced to obey rules forgets its wings. Freedom, though riskier, allows the soul to breathe — and only in freedom can love reveal its true face.

Still, let us not despise the structure itself, for all structures were once born of longing. The institution of marriage was humanity’s attempt to protect tenderness in a harsh world — a promise of continuity amidst chaos. But when that structure becomes an idol, when the ritual outweighs the relationship, then it ceases to serve its purpose. Julie Christie’s defiance is the call of the spirit against stagnation — a reminder that love must be chosen anew each day, not simply endured under the weight of ceremony.

Consider the story of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, two lovers bound not by law but by choice. They never married, yet their bond endured through decades of thought, passion, and independence. They stood as equals, each sovereign in mind and spirit, yet united in devotion. Their love, ungoverned by convention, was a living testament to the truth Christie spoke: that connection is greater than contract, that love’s depth is not proven by paper, but by presence.

The lesson here, then, is not to reject marriage, but to remember that it is an invention, not a commandment. It is one vessel among many, not the sea itself. The wise should ask: do I seek the form, or the essence? Do I love because it is expected, or because it overflows from my being? To marry or not to marry is not the question; the question is whether one lives in truth with oneself and with another.

So let those who hear take this counsel: do not worship the structure. Worship instead the honesty that sustains it. Let your unions, whatever their shape, be born of freedom, not fear. If you love, love fully. If you walk alone, walk proudly. For whether within the bounds of marriage or beyond them, the soul’s highest duty is the same — to remain authentic, to remain awake, and to never let the inventions of men silence the song of the heart.