According to Osho, when marriage is entered to rescue a wounded person, the wound is unconsciously preserved: her misery becomes bargaining capital and his savior-ego needs it to feel rewarded. Such a bond is not love but a marketplace deal, so joy withers, manipulation grows, and both remain tied to unhappiness rather than healing or intimacy.
If you marry to fix someone’s pain, both of you keep the pain alive because it’s what the relationship depends on.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, yesterday you said that when anger is watched consciously, it dissolves. But why is it that when sexual desire arises, even in awareness its intensity persists? Why is it so?
There is no entanglement in the breath. If you try to practice on anger… Anger is not happening every moment; it happens sometimes. And when it happens, it happens with such intensity that you are already going deep into it; so much is at stake in those moments that you may think, “We will look into awareness later; first let’s settle this now.” Lust is very deep, because existence has made it so deep; life depends on it. If lust were so easy that you decided and were freed, perhaps you would not even have been born—because many before you would have become free, and the possibility of your being would have been almost nil. But your parents, and their parents, did not become free; therefore you are. You too will not get free so easily, because your children are also to be—they are waiting: “Do not run away midway.”…
A man came and asked me, “Osho, if some young man from your ashram breaks the rules and gets married, what punishment do you give him?” I said: “Nothing.” He said: “Why?” I said: “That itself is his punishment.” Poor fellow—punishment enough; now he will have to go through it.
A man plays the flute—solo, alone—that is one thing. If he plays the flute with a tabla, he must learn more art, because now the flute must move with the rhythm of the tabla; now he must learn accompaniment. Marriage is accompaniment between two instruments. Meditation is solo: you sit by yourself playing your flute. Whether you play right or wrong, nobody has anything to do with it. If you are both the player and the listener, it’s your fun. But when you play the flute with another who is giving rhythm on the tabla, then you must keep pace with the tabla; you must create harmony between the two. Marriage is accompaniment. Great skill is needed. Very few marriages in this world succeed. That even a few do is a miracle—they shouldn’t! They happen by accident, by coincidence. Most of them fail. Ninety-nine out of a hundred marriages are…
Osho, the joy I have found in coming to you is something I had never known before. Yet I am so ungrateful that again and again the wicked thought arises to leave you and go away. And still, some unseen thread keeps me bound to you. Am I worthy of forgiveness?
If a husband does not love his wife, the wife will start being ill. Because when she is ill the husband comes and sits, puts his hand on her head—even if unwilling, irritated inside: “I came home tired from the office, I thought I would sit and watch television, or listen to the radio, or read the paper, or lie down and rest—but that’s not in my fate. The wife is already in bed.” If the wife is fine, no need to fuss. But if she is ill, the husband must at least show some humanity. He will put a hand on her head, ask after her… And the wife’s deepest longing was love! If there were love in the world, seventy percent of diseases would disappear—at least seventy percent. But society is against love, the state is against love… love is a sin. We cut love at the root.…
Question: The fifth question: Osho, why do you make so much fun of marriage? And then the moment comes when you have to answer your children. To say before your children, “We wasted our life; we remained empty; we came empty and we are going empty”—that goes against the ego. So in front of the children one has to strut: “Oh, I achieved so much! I showed such miracles to the world! What remains, son, you show! Such name and fame I earned! I leave behind a memory. I’ll depart from the world and the space will remain empty for centuries!” Although no one remembers even for two days—no sooner do you leave than the place is filled. People are ready and waiting, in fact—“Brother, get up; you’ve sat long enough; let others sit too!” Marriage has become a very rotten institution. There is a reason: we have falsified marriage.
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…