Company - Stephen Sondheim, Gadol Hador, Bobby, doesn't want to get married and all that entails, even though all of his friends are married and are constantly badgering him to get married. This gets worse and worse until finally, right before the last song, Bobby explodes at his friends, shouting "What do you get for it? What do you get?" In other words, the big question of the play and my big question today: What is marriage for?
Valid question, Jewish question as well. To find an answer, let's look at our earliest example in Tanakh and see what we find:
Summarize Adam + Eve, lead into:
עַל־כֵּן֙ יַֽעֲזׇב־אִ֔ישׁ אֶת־אָבִ֖יו וְאֶת־אִמּ֑וֹ וְדָבַ֣ק בְּאִשְׁתּ֔וֹ...
Hence a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife
Our teacher, Sforno (16th-century Italian Biblical commentator) comments on this second verse (translation/elaboration is my own:)
It is appropriate that a man acquire a wife who is compatible with him, and who is a suitable mate for him to live with on a permanent basis. The Torah teaches here also that the expression דיבוק, “cleaving,” being in a state of true union, is not possible between two people who are not alike in their common purpose in life. A married couple does have to master the same challenges, hence the word “union”. Living together, they will become of one mind on how to deal with their lives’ challenges.
This, to me, feels like the most essential Jewish meaning of what marriage is for (and I know I'm saying that as an amateur). Marriage is about you and the right person alongside you engaging in (to borrow a phrase from some of my newest family members) "la brega", the struggle. This is the same answer that Bobby comes to at the end of the play: A partner is "Someone to let you come through, Who'll always be there, As frightened as you, to help us survive being alive" And I could not have ever asked for or even dreamed of a better person to struggle alongside and be alive with, than Emily.