WOULD YOU BREAK A VOW?

Sam Smith in his mega smashing album In The Lonely Hour, track 5 of that album titled: I’m Not The Only One said these words: “You and I made a VOW... I Can’t believe you’d let me down...but it proves in the way that it hurts...”

Have you ever experienced the making and breaking of a vow before? Who broke the vow, you or the other party? Perhaps you both agreed to break the vow?

The word VOW is so synonymous with marriage people actually may have forgotten that making a VOW cuts across all spheres of live: family-ties, friendships, workplace job requirement, business contract and every aspect of life that requires VOW-taking of some sort: a pledge, a promise, undertaking, declaration, keeping your word, gentleman’s agreement and so on. These are all VOWS.
When people break a marriage vow, is it really ‘wrong’? Is it a ‘bad’ thing? Does it make the participant(s) a ‘bad person(s)’?

Since a vow is a conscious agreement between persons, why would someone break it, say in marriage where a vow is considered 'sacred'? Does the fact that marriage has been defined as sacred by some religion make it a vow that cannot be broken?  Or perhaps a relationship in which a promise of marriage has been made, should the vows be kept at all cost even when both the means and the end is an uneven yoke?

When people make a vow, it sometimes means  that they fully know what they are getting into, or a have vision of what they hope to get into. Some however may not even have any inkling or complete idea of what they are getting into.

If one marries a man or woman out of love, security, class, status or whatever reason they chose, only to get into that marriage to suffer emotional abuse, physical abuse and psychological humiliation, should the vows still be kept at all cost to keep up appearances or because "people will talk" ?

When Victor turned twenty years old, his father in trying to prepare his son for future entanglement with a woman, sat him down to advise him. He told him, "Marrying your mother was my greatest mistake. Don't make the same mistake. Choose your wife carefully." And when Victor asked why, his father said, “By the requirements of our religion, your mother was not a virgin when I touched her on the night of our wedding.” At the time, Joseph had not understood why his father would have opened up to him the way he did but on flash back he realised that because his mother had not being a virgin, anything she did was marred by the absence of her virginity. Victor later told me he had often wondered why his father sometimes raised his hands to beat his mother; always pinning for the only woman he ever loved but never married because his Aunty had suggested he marry Victor's  mother instead.

For almost thirty years, Joseph watched his father mistreat and almost eroded his mother’s sense of self-worth; only she was an emotionally tough woman.

If you were in Joseph’s shoes, would you tell your mother to break her vows with her husband? Suppose you were the Wife, would you still keep your vows to a man who treats you like that? Or perhaps, you are the man, will you continue to keep your vows to this woman who is not the love of your life but whom you maltreat and pour all your vexations on? And when you think about it, do you think the man has kept the other part of his vows: To Love and To Cherish?

Suppose you belong to a religion, only to discover that the religion covertly promotes war and hate for a fellow human simply because they do not belong to your religion or race? Or that whenever a passing remark which you consider to be offensive about your religion is said to you, therefore you should quickly and methodically label such persons are ‘infidels’, ‘apostates’ etc? If you’re consciously aware your religion promotes religious hate of this kind, will you still keep your vows to that group all because of your fondness for that religion, religious affiliation or simply because you grew up in that religion - it being the only religion you’ve known all your life?

When a group, organisation or persons promotes the disenfranchisement of anyone who has left a religious fold not because they committed a terrible crime but for personal reasons, say for example because they feel the religion has something to hide, is not what it says it is, or perhaps the religion did not leave up to expectations in providing better fulfilling answers to life issues, would you join ranks with others to hate the ones that left?

WOULD YOU BREAK A VOW?

Can there be ‘justifiable' grounds where vows are broken? If so, should the breaking of a vow be treated with such triviality that it lacks the inherent value it ought to have?

A vow does not need to wear the cloak of 'sacredness' just to make sure the parties involved would be enforced to keep it! A vow is serious business and should be treated as such. By removing the mythical aura that a vow is something that can never be broken – must never be broken – maybe how we treat vows can now take its rightful meaning and place in our lives: I Promise to...

A vow is serious business, so before you make one, make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into...

But if after committing yourself, you find out it endangers the very essence of your BEING and even those of others then do what you have to do.