But whether a couple is a man and a woman has everything to do with the meaning of marriage.

The first marriage for a man is a big lesson, the second a grave blunder, the third a fatal accident, the fourth an apocalypse.

All I wanted and all Neal wanted and all anybody wanted was some kind of penetration into the heart of things where, like in a womb, we could curl up and sleep the ecstatic sleep that Burroughs was experiencing with a good big mainline shot of M. and advertising executives in NY were experiencing with twelve Scotch & Sodas in Stouffers before they made the drunkard's train to Westchester---but without hangovers.

The meaning of life is life.

It's important to know that a well-meaning person stepping in to tell a woman to go before she's ready can actually endanger the woman and her children. Support them. Give them whatever they need until they're ready. They'll know when it's the right time to leave.

So far, 44 States, or 88 percent of the States, have enacted laws providing that marriage shall consist of a union between a man and a woman. Only 75 percent of the States are required to approve a constitutional amendment.