Conversations is written on (most) Fridays to examine someone else’s take on love and marriage – and then discuss what we think about it amongst ourselves!

When I first saw a photo of this sculpture by Edwina Sandys, it took my breath away.  And not in a “beauty and awe” sort of way.  More like a “someone just kicked me in the stomach and then stole my puppy” sort of way.  It looked so daunting and violent.  It looked like the artist was saying that marriage is a trick - that it looks like it will be beautiful and lovely but turns out to be harsh and dangerous.  I felt like it portrayed marriage as the ultimate hot bed of violence and violation!

Then I watched an interview with the artist.  I was expecting a woman from another part of the world, talking about being forced into an arranged marriage.  I expected to see someone dark and cynical and wounded.  But what I found was a woman in her 60’s – light and straightforward. She explained that she set out to demonstrate that marriage is both soft and cruel; happy and sad.  She said that this piece was meant to simply communicate that “marriage is not always a bed of roses.”

I don’t think that it is divided in this way - half beautiful and half painful – roses and spikes split neatly down the middle.  But I think many people think about the pain found in marriage this way.  It is almost as if some people believe that if you are very careful, you can figure out how to stay on the soft side of things and stay safe in your marriage.

I propose that marriage is indeed all roses.  Both beautiful and dangerous.  Fragrant.  And yet, when you get close, you might be pricked by a thorn.  Coming close to another means they will eventually hurt you because we are all beautiful, bumbling messes. There are days that the beauty may outweigh the pain; others when pain wins.  But who are we kidding if we believe that we ever go a day - a minute – without both pain and beauty being a part of things?  Who we are and what we do is informed by the ways we have wounded and been wounded; informed by the beauty we have both witnessed and created.  So even in moments of beauty, we experience the moment through the lens of someone who has also known pain.  And when we see pain, we know that beauty also exists and this informs the way we receive that pain.

You cannot have one part of marriage without the other.  You cannot have one part of a person without having the other.  The beauty and the pain is not something that we move in and out of.  We are in both of them at the same time, all of the time.

How did you respond to this sculpture?