Marriage is really tough because you have to deal with

Hear now the words of Richard Pryor, the jester-prophet whose humor was fire wrapped in laughter: “Marriage is really tough because you have to deal with feelings… and lawyers.” In this jest, as in much of Pryor’s work, lies a double-edged truth. He makes us laugh, yet beneath the laughter, he unveils the raw and painful realities of human life. For in marriage, as he reminds us, the struggle is not only of the heart but of the law; not only of love and passion, but of contracts, disputes, and the hard reckoning when bonds are broken.

The first weight he names is feelings. Marriage is not simply a joining of two names, two incomes, or two families. It is the mingling of souls, with all their wounds, desires, and weaknesses. To dwell so close to another human being is to encounter daily the storms of their emotions, and to have your own storms laid bare in return. To endure in marriage is to learn patience, forgiveness, and endurance. This is no easy task, for feelings are mercurial and ungovernable. They lift us to heights of joy, yet they also plunge us into valleys of sorrow.

But Pryor, with his wry eye for truth, adds another force that makes marriage tough: the intervention of lawyers. For when feelings collapse, when trust is shattered, marriage passes from the intimacy of the heart to the cold halls of the legal system. Then, what was once a sacred covenant becomes a battlefield of contracts and settlements. Love that once united becomes property to be divided. Lawyers become the mediators of what was once held sacred, and the tenderness of the past is weighed against the demands of the law. Pryor, who himself endured multiple marriages and divorces, spoke from bitter experience when he wove this sting into his comedy.

History has seen many such struggles between the passion of love and the power of law. Consider Henry VIII of England, whose marriages were entangled not only in desire and betrayal but also in courts, annulments, and declarations of legitimacy. His struggle with feelings—his yearning for love, heirs, and satisfaction—was compounded by the lawyers and churchmen who turned his private desires into public upheaval, splitting Christendom in two. In this great and tragic example, we see Pryor’s humor reflected on a grand stage: marriage tests both the heart and the machinery of law.

Yet Pryor’s words, though comic, are not merely cynical. They reveal the truth that marriage demands both emotional labor and practical wisdom. Feelings must be honored, nurtured, and endured, but one must also be aware of the legal and worldly structures that surround the covenant. To ignore either side—the heart or the law—is to invite disaster. Those who give all to feelings may be broken by reality; those who treat marriage as only contract may never taste its depth of love. True wisdom balances both.

O children of tomorrow, take this lesson: enter marriage not lightly, nor blindly. Know that you will encounter the storms of feelings, and prepare your heart with patience, humility, and forgiveness. But also know that the law surrounds this union, and that your promises are not merely spoken before God or love, but written into society’s fabric. Guard both dimensions, lest laughter turn to bitterness.

What then must you do? Approach marriage with reverence, but also with eyes open. Tend daily to the garden of your partner’s heart, but also be wise about the realities of life—finances, agreements, the structures that sustain or break the bond. And if ever you must face the bitter end, let compassion temper the lawyers’ words, so that even in separation dignity remains.

Thus, Richard Pryor’s jest endures: marriage is tough because it demands mastery of both feelings and lawyers. It is the union of soul and structure, of love and law. To succeed, one must walk the path with both tenderness and wisdom, laughing when possible, enduring when necessary, and never forgetting that even in the hardest trials, humor can shine as a lamp to guide the weary heart.