According to Osho, there is no such thing as a real marriage; marriage is a contract born of fear and the hunger for guarantees. When love is real, partners stay together freely, allow change, and give each other space—even to be alone. Love is a living rose that may bloom and fade; legality is a plastic flower. Choose love, freedom, and meditation over clinging.
There’s no “real marriage”—real love doesn’t need papers, it needs freedom, space, and the courage to let it change.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: OSHO, IS THERE ANY SUCH THING AS A REAL MARRIAGE? Sugata, NEVER HEARD OF IT -- real marriage? There are real mirages but no real marriage! If it is real there is no need for marriage. The very need for marriage arises because there is fear. If you love a person you love a person; you can be together with the person. But there is constantly a fear that the other person may leave you, and the other person is also afraid that you may leave him or her. To make the future guaranteed, so that you cannot leave, so that the other cannot leave -- easily at least -- marriage was invented. Marriage was invented only because love was missing. And if love is missing, how can the marriage be real? There is no need for marriage; if love is there, marriage is an unnecessary phenomenon.
Question: OSHO, WHAT IS WRONG WITH MARRIAGE? WHY DO YOU SPEAK ALWAYS AGAINST IT? Learn something from marriage. Marriage represents the whole world in a miniature form: it teaches you many things. It is only the mediocre ones who learn nothing. Otherwise it will teach you that you don't know what love is, that you don't know how to relate, that you don't know how to communicate, that you don't know how to commune, that you don't know how to live with another. It is a mirror: it shows your face to you in all its different aspects. And it is all needed for your maturity. But a person who remains clinging to it forever remains immature. One has to go beyond it too. Marriage basically means that you are not able yet to be alone; you need the other.
Osho, what is the secret of remaining happy and married?
One day Sattva said, "I don't have any money." Then he said "You can ask me!" And he brought five rupees from somewhere and gave it to Sattva! "Why don't you ask me? I have so many friends, I can bring as much money as you want!" Now, this child will be a totally different child! He has lived with Jews and with Christians and with Hindus. He will not be conditioned by anything, he will not have any conditioning. He will have a vast territory of being available to him. That's my idea how all children should grow. then there will be no ugly religious conflicts, wars, bloodshed, no ugly fanaticism, no fascist ideologies in the world. These are all byproducts of the family, and the family depends on marriage. In fact, if the family disappears, nations will have to disappear, religions will disappear, states will disappear, churches will…
Beloved Osho, is it possible to be married and to be free at the same time?
I said, "I know her -- because she came even before you did! She also wants to get rid of this continuous quarreling -- she is not living a joyous life. Either you can both be joyous or you can both be miserable; it is not possible that one remains joyous and the other remains miserable. So I will convince her -- she is almost ready -- you just go and tell her that I have sent you. So get into your marriage clothes...." He said, "Marriage clothes?" I said, "Yes. The whole ritual has to be done in the reverse order." The man never came back. I had to go to his house many times. I would knock, and he would plead, "Forgive me for telling you. When I came home I got such a beating that I forgot all the beatings that had happened before! In this life…
Osho, what is the definition of God?
Words are very small. If you say God is light, then what of darkness? The scriptures have said that God is light. Suppose we accept this as a definition—then what about darkness? Where will darkness go? Darkness is too; in fact it is far more than light. Light sometimes is and sometimes is not; darkness is always, eternal. Where will you place darkness? If you say God is light, darkness is left out. If you say God is darkness, then light is left out. If you say God is both darkness and light, a contradiction arises: they cannot be together. Try to have both darkness and light in the same room. If you bring in light, darkness disappears; if you preserve darkness, you cannot have light. Then how can both be together? That becomes an impossibility. So you cannot say “both” either. Then the fourth device is to say: it…