XX. Child and Marriage

I have a question for thee alone, my brother: like a sounding-lead, cast I this question into thy soul, that I may know its depth. Thou art young, and desirest child and marriage. But I ask thee: Art thou a man ENTITLED…

Zarathustra casts a question like a sounding-lead into a young brother's soul. He asks whether the wish for a child comes from victory or from need, and says one must build upward, not only onward.

Marriage: so call I the will of the twain to create the one that is more than those who created it.

Zarathustra gives his own meaning of marriage: the will of two to create one who surpasses them, and their reverence for each other as those who will this.

Let this be the significance and the truth of thy marriage. But that which the many-too-many call marriage, those superfluous ones—ah, what shall I call it? Ah, the poverty of soul in the twain! Ah, the filth of soul in…

Zarathustra scorns common marriage as poverty, filth and self-complacency of soul. He mocks the idea of heavenly matches and gives sharp portraits of men who ended in a small lie or one long stupidity. He adds that children weep over such parents.

Your love to woman, and woman’s love to man—ah, would that it were sympathy for suffering and veiled deities! But generally two animals alight on one another. But even your best love is only an enraptured simile and a…

Zarathustra says most love is two animals alighting on each other. Even the best love is a simile and a torch to loftier paths. He asks whether the young man's will to marriage is this arrow of longing for the Superman, and calls such a will holy.