According to Osho, Rahim calls marriage a ‘malady’ because it exposes our inner illness: dependence on the other, inability to rejoice in aloneness, and flight from inner emptiness (vyadhi). Marriage becomes nature’s grand delusion—two beggars hoping to be filled—so promised happiness never truly arrives, quarrels follow, and blame replaces responsibility; the real issue is inner poverty, not the partner.
When you can’t be happy alone and expect marriage to fix it, you stay sick inside—learn to be happy by yourself first.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, Rahim says, “Rahiman, marriage is a malady; save yourself if you can. Shackles are placed on the feet, all to the beating of drums.” Do you agree with this couplet of Rahim?
I see no revolution in your saints—the illusion is unchanged. Earlier they held woman responsible—as a stairway to heaven; now as a stairway to hell. But stairs are stairs. You can use them either way: go up if you wish, go down if you wish. Stairs are neutral. No stair says “Up only; down forbidden.” There’s no notice board on a staircase. It goes both ways. Yet men abuse women their whole lives. And if it were sensualists abusing, that would be one thing; the so-called renunciates abuse even more. Women are not so foul-mouthed; that’s why there have been no “great saints” among women. To become a “great saint” you first need to be foul-mouthed; first uncultured and uncivil; first blame the other. Women don’t do that so easily. Truth is, women don’t get duped so quickly either. You can woo a woman endlessly, but she thinks a lot.…
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…
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.
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, 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.…