The value of marriage is not that adults produce children but that children produce adults.
Interpretation
Marriage's true value lies in how children help adults mature and grow.
Peter De Vries highlights the idea that marriage is less about the act of having children and more about the transformative journey that parenthood offers to adults. Through the responsibilities and challenges of raising children, adults often discover deeper layers of themselves, fostering personal growth and maturity that can only be achieved through the experiences of parenting.
In practice
This quote would be perfect for a speech at a wedding, emphasizing the deeper meaning of marriage.
We must love one another, yes, yes, that's all true enough, but nothing says we have to like each other. It may be the very recognition of all men as our brothers that accounts for the sibling rivalry, and even enmity, we have toward so many of them.
I am not impressed by the Ivy League establishments. Of course they graduate the best -- it's all they'll take, leaving to others the problem of educating the country. They will give you an education the way the banks will give you money -- provided you can prove to their satisfaction that you don't need it.
There are times when parenthood seems nothing more than feeding the hand that bites you.
The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination. But the combination is locked up in the safe.
Who of us is mature enough for offspring before the offspring themselves arrive? The value of marriage is not that adults produce children but that children produce adults.
Confession is good for the soul only in the sense that a tweed coat is good for dandruff - it is a palliative rather than a remedy.
Often and often afterwards, the beloved Aunt would ask me why I had never told anyone how I was being treated. Children tell little more than animals, for what comes to them they accept as eternally established.
Whenever you tell a group of people that they can't use bathrooms, or they can't access spaces that other people use, that is dehumanizing. It is discriminatory, and it reinforces the stigma and the prejudices that the transgender community already faces.
Rejoice with those who rejoice." I have found that difficult too often. I was much better at weeping with those who weep.
It's round the world I've traveled; it's round the world I've roamed; but I've yet to see an outlaw drive a family from its home
A woman has to be twice as good as a man to go half as far.
Caring for others is an expression of what it means to be fully human.
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