Can you honor your spouse while acting in a dishonorable manner? The vows are pretty vague on the term honor and which aspects of life honor applies to. You really need some lawyers to hammer that out in terms of what we actually mean when we say honor. Otherwise I think honor can mean whatever the vowtaker thinks it means.
i’d note that wesbter’s defines honor as the “purity or chastity” of a woman…but not a man. Therefore, I believe there is some support for the proposition that the term “honor” may not apply in the exact same manner to both sexes. The term honor itself historically has sexist connotations, in the sense of a woman’s sexual honor being a shading of the word honor which does not apply to a male.
Additionally, honor has a wide range of shadings of meanings unrelated to sexuality.
Kind of like “love”. i can certainly love you and have sex with someone else. And I can honor your feelings by temporarily not hurting them by disclosure. I think we’d alla gree that we have no idea what we mean when we promise to “love” another. Do we mean love them as they wish to be loved, or as we’d like to love them, or what?
Cherish is also a weird little word. Assuming cherish is not superfluous in the vows, and that love honror and cherish are each placed within the vow for a specific purpose and with a specific meaning, I’d like to know exactly where the distinction is and the overlap, if any, between love honor and cherishing?
Can you love without cherishing? What’s the difference between loving and cherishing? Can you cherish without honoring? I’m not sure I see the distinction in those terms. so i say scrap it all, the whole shebang, no more love, honor and cherish.
Real, practical vows for me would be;
do you, ____, promise to
tolerate my weird moods
not get too mad when I fuck up
try to listen to me sometimes inane retelling of the days events
not groan at bad jokes, and perhaps laugh at good ones
make allowances for my lameness
have extreme patience with my anxiety
also allow me to occasionally get lawyerly.
not get too upset with how I sometimes smell.
Love me for who I am at least once per month
try not to blow thru money too quickly
eat food with me
nap with me.
Don’t criticize too much.
not freak out
at least try not to fuck others
an din particular not get pregnant by other guys and have me raise the children
not let yourself go to pot
and allow me to disappear on a bike for a while at times
Promise?
I’d prefer that to the more amorphous honor or cherish.
