A routing word

Recently it was mentioned during the marriage of Kate with Prince William of Great Britain that she was not to use the word ‘obey’ in her vow of commitment to Prince William. I do not wish to debate here about the idea of women being equal to men or of wife being an equal partner to her husband, even though there is much to be said about those themes.

The word ‘obey’ is not a single word, as seen from a materialistic view. It is actually only a visible part of a huge software program that is connected to marital relationship. There are a whole lot of codes in the virtual software that connects the husband to the wife and vice versa. The word ‘obey’ is one such code that that gives a final sharpening of the focus of the wife on to the husband.

This code is quite different from and literally the opposite of the word ‘disobey’. The deleting of the word ‘obey’ from the vow does not naturally mean that there is sense of the code ‘disobey’. However, the word ‘obey’ does bring in sharpness to the whole entity called family, in that it is like an arrow that has to move forward through the tough material of future life events. The absence of the word ‘obey’ simply brings in looseness to the unit, and at times there can be bluntness to the arrow that is the family unit. In that, the wife may start exhibiting a different perspective of what needs to be done. This then can give rise to an arrow that has parts in it, that moves in either parallel direction or away from the main route of the arrow.

In such a scenario, the arrow can lose it momentum. It may still move forward if its natural momentum is quite high.

What I tried to show here was the vector component that is attached to such powerful words.

Before moving from this theme, I would like to say that in every kind of human relationship, the word ‘obey’ is of compelling power. For example, in military, in an office, in a business place and such. However, the exact power and meaning of this word depends on the language.

What it proposes in English is quite different from what it means in feudal languages. In English, the word ‘obey’ in its legitimate form and in its most powerful stance means only obeying only permissible instructions.  In feudal languages, this word may mean much more than can be visualised in English.