Archive note: This text comes from the old archive of Nomika Epilekta and is preserved with care for historical and informational reading.

A lasting, permanent, exclusive and equal erotic and emotional relationship between a man and a woman, founded by their joint decision, does not correspond to the institution of marriage as we have known it until now. Marriage had a specific object and purpose: the settlement of the weak woman, the swift domestication of the powerful man (as the saying went, marry very young or become a monk very young), within an indissoluble relationship, on paper and in practice, intended to last as long as the lives of the man and the woman; the acquisition of children, who would perpetuate first the name of the man's parents and of the man himself and then, if possible and depending on the number of children, the name of the woman's parents, without any reference to the woman herself, who had no equal rights with the man but only obligations; and the creation of the common, conjugal household, the marital home. The head of the family was the man, and he always had the first and last word on the life of his wife, who was obliged to take his surname and to honor it by her modest conduct, and on the lives of the minor and adult children and of his family in general. Thus, for example, Mr. Ioannis Papadopoulos and his wife founded the family of Ioannis Papadopoulos; Mr. Dimitrios Liakouras founded the family of Dimitrios Liakouras, and so on. It was not possible for Mrs. Anna Efthymiadi to have and represent the Efthymiadi family. She was a member of the male family under the surname of the man that would mark her for the rest of her life, a characteristic example being Dora, daughter of Konstantinos Mitsotakis, known as Dora Bakogianni by her husband's surname. Moreover, female surnames, without exception, perhaps with Maria Callas alone as an exception, are expressed in the genitive case, the so-called possessive genitive, because they suggest that the particular woman, Mrs. Papadopoulou or Mrs. Efstathiadou, belongs to and is the property of Mr. Papadopoulos or Mr. Efstathiadis and of no one else, not even of her father, whose surname she shed by marrying. The woman owed blind obedience to the man, even to the most foolish or idiotic man, and if she reacted or expressed her views she attracted the rebukes and disapproval of everyone, even of her own circle, her paternal family. Silence was an ornament for the woman, who had to remain silent, especially when men spoke and decided and, above all, when her man spoke and decided, the man called master, lord, owner, head of the house and by similar descriptions. The woman's family surname disappeared after the necessarily religious marriage, together with the woman's personality. She ceased to belong to her paternal family and now belonged to the man, the master, to whom she owed absolute obedience, respect and, above all, fidelity and devotion until death. There is no question here of love and feelings, because love may refer even to inanimate things, and for millennia the woman was treated as a thing, as res, with a specific owner who was also the owner of the house, domus, the dominus or lord; in much the same way, or worse, she has been treated over time by the Muslim religion, which leaves her only rudimentary rights. By marrying, the man acquired exclusive rights over the personality and body of the woman, which belonged to him as property, according to the ecclesiastical command that the wife should fear the husband. It was interpreted to mean that the woman had to respect and honor the man who owned her, whether or not he honored her. She had not only to be honorable but also to appear honorable, as history says of Caesar's wife. In any event, the man had to care for the good of his wife as he would care for his other property, or as Christ cares for the Church according to ecclesiastical teaching. He had to care for her, maintain her, protect her, guide her and correct her, even by permitted and often brutal physical violence, because the man had, beyond the marital right and duty, the right also to beat her, according to the corresponding saying. Even today these conditions and so-called principles continue to affect the life of the man and the woman, not merely as an echo but directly, because the man and often the traditional woman herself want them to apply, or indirectly, because the man's parents and often the woman's parents want them to apply. This appears in the everyday life of the man and woman connected by the marriage contract. As a rule, with exceptions, the man demands that his wife care for him, especially if he is the firstborn and an only son, the second case being worse, as his mother cared for and served him, with whom he was connected by the familiar Oedipus complex. He becomes difficult and rebels if his wife does not cook for him, wash him, diligently care for the cleanliness of their home and of himself, shop, occupy herself with raising his child or children, and perform the duties that the woman historically performed as the man's property, the wife as an object of exploitation, with the foremost duty being the one performed, not necessarily, on the marital bed. Even modern legislation, within family law, gives priority in many cases and privileges to the man, effectively emphasizing the superiority of his sex compared with the woman under the regime of marriage. Thus, unless there is an express agreement before the marriage about the children's surname, the children must take the surname of the man and not of the woman. This unjust and unequal rule is a remnant of old male-dominated views and laws. In this brief analysis and presentation of thoughts and observations on modern marriage, we are not dealing with legislation and family law, which regulates at the legal level, according to the will of the Greek and European legislator, matters related to marriage and the family. Our aim is to describe the relationship of man and woman as it truly is, and not as we would like it to be, as it ought to be, or as we think it is, with reference to modern marriage or whatever else this relationship is called when it steadily connects one man and one woman: companionship, married pair, family, cohabitation, living together, lovers. The much-discussed homosexual and other similar relationships are not examined; we consider them marginal relationships, even if they have emerged into the light, into publicity, and enjoy social tolerance or social approval. The first part of the analysis referred to the elements required for there to be a true marriage, or more accurately a true erotic relationship. This relationship has substance, meaning and duration if it has been based and is constantly built on the freedom of the man and the woman and on their absolutely and continually renewed free choices, without bonds, obligations, coercions, or legal, social, family, traditional or circumstantial regulations. Every regulation, rule and direction that decisively affects this relationship of man and woman, reducing or touching their absolute freedom in choices, decisions and movements, directly harms the authenticity, stability and duration of the relationship, which, it must be stressed, is a relationship of absolute, unlimited and unalloyed freedom. It must not be transformed or distorted into something else while preserving the appearance of the relationship and bond of the man and the woman, who are forced to become actors for the rest or for a large part of their lives, pretending to coexist harmoniously and to be erotically identified. Freedom alone gives joy, and its deprivation, even in the slightest degree, causes sorrow, which in turn is destined to corrode the structure of love, eros and genuine feelings that can support duration and granite the decision of the man and the woman to become a unit of true love that is not dissolved even by death. Modern marriage, companionship, tolerates none of the elements and components of the old traditional marriage, which has already died because it was based on inequality, oppression, injustice and, above all, pretence, the theatre before others and society. That is why it mattered so much to the man and the woman what society would say, meaning the narrow circle of acquaintances, the few relatives and friends who did not care at all whether the man and woman were well together or had conflict and disharmony. The keeping of the marriage in the books or electronic database of the registry office, cohabitation in the marital home, and the joint appearance of the man and woman at social events do not constitute marriage, but a theatrical performance of duration and continuous skillful acting in the roles of husband and wife, father and mother, married couple, pair and family. This happens when freedom is absent, because with it depart eros, love and genuine feelings, leaving out of indulgence only habit, on which modern marriage cannot rest, but only a sick convenience, the death of eros and joy. A genuine relationship between man and woman is one whose structures are not affected by all external influences, which it decisively repels. They are repelled together by the man and the woman who have freely decided, by their unimpeachable choice, to be together forever or for as long as the feelings of love, respect, interest, tenderness and all the other qualities that mark genuine relations of a stable erotic bond between a man and a woman, and a woman and a man, remain alive and strong. Such influences include, indicatively, interventions by the parents and relatives, chiefly siblings, of the man or the woman; interventions by the adult children of the man and the woman, or of either of them if one or both had children from previous marriages; the involvement of close family friends or friends of the man or the woman; the interference of specialists or marriage counselors; the views of spiritual advisers, priests and monks; and similar intrusions that lead with mathematical certainty to the adulteration of the relationship, to the loosening of communication between the man and the woman and finally to the dissolution of the relationship and the so-called stable bond, often turning those erotically identified into irreconcilable opponents and mortal enemies who each seek the other's complete subjugation and destruction in order to rejoice. Relatives, close and distant, friends, family and otherwise, children, minor or adult, and any other third parties have no place in the close circle drawn by the equally close, almost identical, relationship of the man and the woman within modern marriage or the corresponding modern relationship, which does not coincide with but differs radically from the traditional marriage of inequality, oppression, tormenting coercion and submission. All these third parties are outside the relationship and never inside it. Otherwise the direct, strong, genuine and lasting bond of the man with the woman ceases to exist. This bond loosens as it gradually or immediately begins to include the others, the third parties who ultimately prevail, displace the two heterosexual partners and install themselves in the place of the man and woman, who become mere extras in the theatre entitled family. A characteristic example of a false marriage and false relationship or bond between a man and a woman, a permanent theatrical performance before society, is the marriage in which mainly the adult children are directly involved. They are not interested in the feelings of their parents, the man and the woman; they do not care. They are interested only in their narrow, personal, egotistical, purely utilitarian and material interests, indifferent to the feelings, needs and desires of the man as father and the woman as mother, or, as the case may be, the man as grandfather and the woman as grandmother, whose life loses a significant part of its value, humiliated by the passage of time and their continuous aging, accompanied by weakness, illness and the decline of mental functions, much or little. Through their usually direct and sometimes indirect involvement, they try to extract and extort benefits, mainly material but also moral. They attempt to win over the man-father or the woman-mother, or both at the same time, artfully cultivating their passions and weaknesses, indifferent to whether these interventions and efforts can harm and usually destroy the close relationship of eros and identification between the man and the woman, who finally become isolated. When the man concerns himself beyond measure with the child or children he had with the woman or with another woman, and correspondingly when the woman concerns herself with the child or children beyond measure, they end by destroying their relationship of freedom, because they are enslaved to the wishes, wills and interventions of the children. This negative development is the rule by which the man and the woman allow, and do not merely tolerate, the children to disturb and unsettle them by arbitrary invasions of their own close and absolutely personal sphere of life. The influence of adult children is due to the looseness of the relationship and bond of the man and woman who are their parents. This looseness, which ends in rupture and conflict, is due to the egoism of the man and the woman or of one of them. Egoism, which blinds the person and prevents the use of reason, pushes one or both of them to draw one or more of their children to their side, because of the identification they feel with the child or children and not with their partner. The belief continues to dominate that through having children the parent's personality is perpetuated. Characteristic is the mother's reference to her only son in every case and circumstance: my little Giorgakis, who may be four decades old, had been born when we first went to Thasos; my Thanasis, again an adult of mature age, had finished his military service when it first rained in the village after two years of drought. Similar statements are made chiefly by mothers who replace Christian chronology, after Christ and before Christ, with chronology from the birth or before the birth of their darling son. In these countless cases it is impossible to speak of modern or traditional marriage, harmonious or troubled, because marriage has long disappeared and the theatre is in the thousandth repetition of the work of pretence, acting and vanity. For modern marriage to be preserved as a lasting and stable bond of health, happiness and joy, children, chiefly adult children, must not intervene. They remain outside the relationship of the man and the woman, and this can be achieved if there is identification between the two, the man and the woman, and a relationship of harmony. On the basis of this identification, the man and the woman, whether natural or adoptive parents or not parents, deal with minor and especially adult children together, with common conduct and common actions. They absolutely repel and do not allow even the children to disturb the hard and close core of the relationship and bond of the man and the woman, married or unmarried. Their conduct is unified, and as such it is effective and benefits first themselves, the man and the woman, who continue to live together harmoniously and freely, and then the children, who draw true benefit without having their egocentric pursuits and whims satisfied. In cases where the man wins over the daughter or the woman wins over the son, as a rule, the bond between man and woman breaks and is destroyed, and the lasting, strong, close and free relationship of identification is dissolved forever. If the marriage remains as a formal contract, happiness has departed and the man and woman are turned into true spouses who gradually come to loathe each other mortally. They become estranged and end up two strangers in the same house, with all the negative consequences. There was, for example, a case, not extreme, where a husband and wife as spouses divided even the food in their refrigerator into mine and yours and clashed over who would cook or use the household utensils and furniture, after some years of absolute identification and a warm erotic relationship. This was due to the interventions of third parties and adult children who hoped to gain more benefits from the conflict between the man and the woman, a conflict they had skillfully cultivated. In all cases where the man or the woman, or both together, offer to become servants of the child or children, loving themselves in a complex-ridden and egotistical way through their children, whom they think belong to them and therefore serve with devotion and nauseating servility, we cannot speak of maintaining marriage, companionship, relationship or bond. In their place comes the child or children, the would-be successors, who become the aim of the man and woman as parents, with the result that these two cease to be a unity and dissolve their relationship of love. In that case the man and the woman cannot understand that the child or children who came from them are other people, entirely separate, with their own independent thought, their own choices and decisions, and separate interests that they pursue passionately. The only true, and indifferent, bond is biological kinship, which should play no role in the modern age. Besides, the relationships of adoptive parents are shown in most cases to be much stronger and healthier than those of natural parents. The child or children do not belong to the parents, especially after adulthood. As other and separate human beings, in healthy situations, they remain outside and far from the close bond and the relationship of eros and love between the man and the woman. Children, enjoying the services, interest and gifts, small or large, of their parents, do not become independent but cling to the parents whom they drain even into mature ages, becoming unhappy and acquiring many defects and complexes. At the same time, from these relations of egotism and complexes arise other, worse situations: the benefited children lose every sense of respect, esteem and then love toward the parents, whom they treat as a source of continuous benefits which, if reduced or stopped, make them think they are wronged because they lose vested rights. It is not rare, indeed it is frequent, for children to divide the property of the man and the woman, separate or common, in their presence and behave as though they were referring to people already dead whom they are inheriting. Specifically, the children benefited by the services and provisions of the parent-servants wish for the death of the man and the woman, their parents, so that as heirs they may acquire their property; if there is more than one child, they have taken care to divide it before the parents' death. They are the gaping heirs, as people used to say, meaning the heirs who laugh at the announcement of the death of those inherited from, their parents. If the man and woman as parents have given their property to the children whom they accepted to serve, they certainly end up in a nursing home or another warehouse for the elderly, with callousness as the reward and payment for their services and provisions. In many cases priests or spiritual fathers intervene, invited or uninvited, trying to preserve the dead marriage by recommending patience for the sake of the children, society, the institution or the sacrament. Yet patience has nothing to do with the true bond of the man with the woman or with true and modern marriage. If the man or the woman, or both, show patience, they will suffer an immediate, lasting and endless martyrdom that will reduce them to human rags, without dreams, perspective or hope. Patience in this case is equivalent to condemnation, and the result will be misery for the man, the woman and, much more, the child or children of patience. Modern marriage needs no ceremony, formality, registration or patience. It is based on the relationship of equality between the man and the woman and vice versa. It excludes all third parties and chiefly the child or children from the close bond of duration and feeling, eros and identification of the man and the woman, the inviolable hard core. It is a unit composed of the man and the woman, a unit of lasting enjoyment regardless of age; the greater the age becomes, the more it forges the bond of duration and of happiness that is renewed without interruption. The man feels the woman's presence to be necessary, and the woman longs to meet the man every moment, every minute, every second. When the two are together in the same place or home, they have much to exchange. They can talk and never tire of dialogue. They share everything because this gives them joy. They exchange views, opinions, information and feelings. They do common things that they enjoy. They make programs and plans for various actions. They create together, or one helps in the other's work, and this help returns pleasure, especially when it is productive. They do not have the same views, but their differences make harmony as they meet through communication, which they seek and pursue. The physical absence of the man or the woman is covered by information, and when one learns that the other is in a pleasant environment, is enjoying himself or herself, is progressing or creating, he or she shares that pleasure without feeling jealousy, envy, anxiety or any other negative emotion. Together they make decisions and carry them out. With common conduct they frame the minor child or children, and with one stance they deal with and support the adult child or children, whom they do not allow to intervene in their relationship, which remains above, outside and far from all third parties. When they are together they can behave with complete freedom, without pretences, without secrets that they have no obligation to reveal unless they wish to, and without pressing each other for revelations or declarations. Together they learn new things and, if this pleases them, may study, occupy themselves with new sciences or foreign languages, improve their education, eliminate their defects by helping one another, and enjoy life without oppressions, stubbornness, egoisms and all the many insignificant things by which spouses could, did and still do reach extremes and conflicts of mutual destruction. Modern marriage wants a modern man and a modern woman. It does not want Taliban [nomika epilekta, The Taliban in Greece], nor egotistical, complex-ridden and stuck people. Our era has managed to understand that ceremonies and social prejudices do not make marriage. Marriage is not made and does not exist for marriage. Marriage is constituted only by freedom in all areas and expressions of life. Freedom, without any restriction, creates true eros that accompanies the man and the woman, making their life bright, a life of true happiness identified with progress and ending in the enjoyment of every joy they were deprived of in previous eras and generations, in centuries and millennia, because they did not place freedom at the center of common life, at the center of modern, true marriage. E. Papadakis