Ingredients of A Lasting Marriage

Marriage is a beautiful thing. It is a lifetime contract that must be threaded with care. The popular saying that **He who finds a wife, finds a good thing and obtain favour from the Lord**. When two people find themselves compatible, nothing matters again. Of course, love is the magnetic force that makes two people of the opposite sex to decide to live together forever as husband and wife. In the African context, age is a huge factor that must be considered before families would consent to a marriage. Most times, the age difference must not be more than ten years, maximum.  Recent developments have defiled this school of thought anyways. A typical example can be traced to the marriage between Shade and Thomas Okoya. The groom, an industrialist, was over sixty years old while the bride was just in her early twenties and still a student of The Polytechnic, Ibadan. The marriage is still intact and has had no rumor of scandal whatsoever. I guess that Chief Thomas Okoya found love in Shade and they both accepted and the marriage was knotted almost twenty years ago. Another example I would like to give is that of a close colleague of mine. The lady has a PHD and a lecturer in one of Lagos State higher institutions. She was clocking forty without any man in sight to get married to her.  While she was still waiting for Mr. Right, a younger junior colleague in the same institution who also works under her approached her and things worked out and they got married in a big society wedding. The lady is more than ten years older than the guy but they love each other and respect one another. Their children have grown and are getting married too. There was also a case I read some time ago where the wife was a magistrate in the law court while the husband was the clerk in the same court. You can imagine how the wife surpassed him in income but they live happily. From the above stories, marriage can happen between people of unparalleled age or qualification and the marriage could last as long as the ingredients of a beautiful marriage are there.  ### INGREDIENTS OF A GOOD MARRIAGE When you find two people who are married for ten, twenty, thirty or more years and are still together, it's not that they do not face challenges but the right ingredients of marriage keep them going. Let's consider just three important ingredients of a good and lasting marriage. **Love;** Without love, marriage becomes a place of endurance instead of enjoyment. In the Holy Book, the Bible, love conquers a lot of things. It is not boastful, it forgives, it covers multitude of ill-doings. When love is the centrepiece of a marriage, then that marriage can last as long as death does not come in between. Today, people do not marry for love, they rather go for material or bodily attraction, they even say love does not exist. Dear friends, love exists. The affection You have for one another would not capitalize on weakness like it is in our world today. **Commitment and Faithfulness:** Being committed to each other is the power that a marriage needs to grow and weather the storms that would come along the way. You must know that you can only succeed when you are committed to each in preparation for the storm that may arise. In our world today, most marriages cannot weather the storm because couples do not have commitments for each other. The popular slogan of marriage has changed from **better for worse, in health and sickness, for richer or poorer.** It has now become **for worse for go**. Age is important but it is not a factor militating against a beautiful and exemplary marriage. [All images are mine]()