by poet Dusko Radovic
WE ADVISE you not to rush; to use your words and feelings
sparingly.
Don’t spend them all at once.
Spread your love and mutual respect across every day of your shared life.
SINCE you nicely, freely and unanimously agreed to live in a union of marriage, because you consciously and responsibly decided that it would be nicer and better for you, we will not, as is customary, read you the articles of the Law on Marriage and Family Relations.
MARRIAGE is governed by law only when this can’t be done otherwise.
So don’t let law govern your marriage.
Govern it yourselves, better and more humanely than any law possibly could.
WE WISH for you to enjoy yourselves, for it to last a long time, for you to rejoice in one another, to live in the knowledge that today you accomplished one of the most important and lovely tasks in life.
THE LAW states that in marriage husband and wife are equal.
In other, better, words:
Take on more responsibilities so as not to compromise the rights of others.
TODAY’S solemn act secured not only your mutual love, but also your individual and your common interests.
MARRIAGE can’t be an end in itself.
IT IS simply an opportunity to realise your other interests more easily and more completely.
SO keep building your relationship, expand its boundaries, don’t let it become withdrawn, stagnant, drowsy, to cease to live and to exist.
AUGMENT your shared life; fight for a varied life; be realistic and measured when determining your aims and aspirations, and strong and persistent when it comes to realising them.
YOU CAN’T concern yourselves with love alone.
Love is beautiful only when it is assumed, when it follows all our other activities, when it gives us strength to actualize ourselves with the greatest success as personalities and as members of society.
BE JEALOUS, not of one another, but of your own marriage.
Protect and defend it from all tribulations, consider it precious for your future and happiness.
LET this day be the happy beginning of your long and wonderful life together.