For Better Or For Worse

善かれ悪しかれ (yokare ashikare): be it good or bad, either way. Two old imperatives joined into one adverb: よかれ is let it be good, あしかれ is let it be bad, and together they say whichever way it falls. Every witness before 1900 writes the word in kana; the scroll writes it with 善 and 悪, and the standard-script designs brush 悪 in its old form 惡. The word is seven hundred years old and has not moved. Hōnen uses it in a letter to a warrior follower, telling him that good or bad, other people's conduct is best not taken to heart; a Muromachi tale uses it for the talk of the world, which speaks of a woman well or ill and so proves her alive; an 1852 novel has a speaker leave her fate to the Buddha, come what may. In English the adverb for better or worse says exactly what the Japanese says. The wedding vow's for better for worse is the same words in a different act, a promise to stay through both; the Japanese is the statement that the outcome is not the point, and come what may, I leave it to you is a fine thing to say of a marriage.

This artwork is the perfect wedding or paper anniversary gift and is a beautiful visual reminder of that special moment in the wedding ceremony where lifelong vows are spoken for the first time before God.