What is the significance of divorce?

Osho, what do you say about divorce?

Mahesh, SOME GREAT PHILOSOPHER said about divorce -- I forget the philosopher's name, in fact I forget what he said -- but I say divorce is useless. You get married for lack of judgment, get divorced for lack of patience, then you remarry for lack of memory. In fact marriage is wrong. Once marriage disappears from the world, divorce will disappear of its own accord! I am against divorce -- I want divorce to disappear from the world absolutely; but the only way to do it is to destroy marriage completely. The last question

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.

Question: The fifth question: Osho, why do you make so much fun of marriage? Marriage is an old institution, very old. And the older it is, the more rotten it has become. Marriage cannot survive in the future; its days are over. We will have to find some new alternatives. The search for alternatives has begun. But in the alternatives now being sought there is one fallacy: they think there was suffering in marriage, and in this alternative there will be no suffering. That is a fallacy. Yes, in the alternatives there may be more or less suffering—but suffering will be there until you become steady within yourself. In fact, the very need for marriage arises because you think happiness can come from another—and there lies the root of all ignorance. Happiness cannot come from the other.

Question: BELOVED OSHO, IF ANY OF YOU WOULD BRING TO JUDGMENT THE UNFAITHFUL WIFE, LET HIM ALSO WEIGH THE HEART OF HER HUSBAND IN SCALES, AND MEASURE HIS SOUL WITH MEASUREMENTS. AND LET HIM WHO WOULD LASH THE OFFENDER LOOK UNTO THE SPIRIT OF THE OFFENDED. AND IF ANY OF YOU WOULD PUNISH IN THE NAME OF RIGHTEOUSNESS AND LAY THE AXE UNTO THE EVIL TREE, LET HIM SEE TO ITS ROOTS; AND VERILY HE WILL FIND THE ROOTS OF THE GOOD AND THE BAD, THE FRUITFUL AND THE FRUITLESS, ALL ENTWINED TOGETHER IN THE SILENT HEART OF THE EARTH. AND YOU JUDGES WHO WOULD BE JUST. WHAT JUDGMENT PRONOUNCE YOU UPON HIM WHO THOUGH HONEST IN THE FLESH IS YET A THIEF IN SPIRIT? WHAT PENALTY LAY YOU UPON HIM WHO SLAYS IN THE FLESH YET IS HIMSELF SLAIN IN THE SPIRIT?

Osho, do you really consider husbands to be complete donkeys?

Surajmal! How could I possibly think that! Half of my sannyasins are husbands. I can’t afford to annoy so many sannyasins. No, not all husbands are donkeys. Nor are all donkeys husbands. But wives tend to think so. What I was saying that day was to explain the wives’ point of view to you. I wasn’t speaking from my own side. Wives do think that all husbands are donkeys. They may not say it directly—or sometimes they say it indirectly. A husband says to his wife, “Now go and explain to your darling! He’s insisting on riding on a donkey’s back.” The wife replies, “Then why don’t you seat him on your back and take him for a ride?” They don’t say it straight—indirectly they do. On the surface they say, “Husband is God; I am the maid at your feet.” But inside they know very well who is actually…