Commitment, Trust and Sacrifice

The essential ingredients of real marriage

Frank Parker
The Panopticon
Published in
6 min readJan 1, 2024

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I’m going to start my contribution to the Panopticon debate with something Penguin said in their original piece:

The chances of an average human being picking the one person (soulmate) to meet their psychological, sexual, social, physical and emotional needs in the first thirty years of life are infinitesimally small.

Whilst I understand what Penguin is trying to say here, I can’t agree with their conclusion that marriages made that early in adult life are doomed to failure.

Having grown up in a small community at a time when few people had the opportunity to socialise with individuals elsewhere, I can attest that most of the people I knew, there and then, married someone they had known since childhood.

The majority of those marriages survived. Mine has lasted 60 years and is still going strong. She was 18, and I not quite 22, when we tied the knot. By then we had known for almost two years that we were a perfect match.

The author’s painting of the tiny church in Herefordshire, UK, where he and his wife were married in Septmber 1963.

Self reliance, not reliance on another

Truth to tell, Penguin, in their assertion, is setting the bar way too high. Indeed, I would argue that any relationship in which either party relies on the other to satisfy all of those…

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The Panopticon
The Panopticon

Published in The Panopticon

The Panopticon is a place for nuanced discussions on hot topics, politics, philosophy, and more. Break free from echo chambers, sparking critical thinking for a well-rounded perspective.

Frank Parker
Frank Parker

Written by Frank Parker

Frank is a retired Engineer from England now living in Ireland. He is trying to learn and share the lessons of history.