Who is Lindsey Graham married to?

A man who builds his house on the rock does not ask whether a neighbor has built a shelter with a second beam; he asks whether his own foundation holds. Woe to you who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel - looking at the speck in your brother's eye while a log sits in your own! Let him who is without sin cast the first stone; the kingdom of heaven is neither gained by a contract signed before a scribe nor lost for want of one.

The Prophet, peace be upon him, wed many wives, but that was for the sake of the community and its bonds. A man is not judged by whether he has taken a wife or remained alone, but by the condition of his heart and his deeds before God. This senator has no spouse, and that is as God willed it - perhaps he is wedded to his duty, or perhaps his path is solitary. Let none cast blame, for God knows what is in the breasts. Better to ask whether he feeds the orphan and upholds justice than whether he has a partner by his side.

Why do you seek a partner where there is none? This grasping after a name, a tie, a label - it is a net you cast in empty water. The man stands alone, as all beings stand: born alone, dying alone, bearing their own karma. Whether he takes a wife or a staff is a ripple on the stream. Look instead at his deeds, his mind, his release from the bonds of craving - that is the only marriage that matters.

The Lord said: 'It is not good for man to be alone.' Yet some are set apart for a purpose, as I was set apart to lead my people. Let him who has no wife ask whether he has heeded the covenant or fled from it. Better to be alone in the wilderness with God than to bind oneself to an unequal yoke. Let the law be his guide, and the Lord his portion.

The questioner seeks to know whether this man has established the proper relationship that brings harmony to a household. A man who does not marry has no one to practice filial piety toward his ancestors, no one to continue his family line. Yet there is another kind of devotion: if he serves the state with the same sincerity and propriety he would give a spouse, he is not without virtue. Is it not written that the sage governs by example, and his household is the realm?

He is not yoked in marriage, and that is well if he is free to serve the Lord without distraction. Yet I recall that I myself said it is better to marry than to burn with passion. But let no one boast of celibacy as a higher state; the kingdom of God is neither in marrying nor in refraining, but in faith working through love.

The Lord said, 'Leave your country, your people, and your father's household.' I took my wife Sarah to a land I did not know. A man who has no wife may be listening for a different kind of call. Perhaps his household is the nation, and his covenant is with a people yet unborn.

A tree standing alone in the forest needs no companion to prove its roots are deep. The empty bowl holds more than the full one ever could.

The Creator has no spouse, yet the whole universe is His family. A man need not be bound by a ring to serve the One who needs no partner. What matters is not whom he sleeps beside, but whom he lifts from the dust. Let him be judged by his labor and his charity, not by the empty chair at his table.

The Lord gives each soul a different path. My own path was motherhood, a mystery and a joy beyond telling. Perhaps this man's calling lies elsewhere, in service of a different kind. Let us not judge the tree by the absence of one fruit.

Marriage is a holy estate, ordained by God for the comfort and help of man and woman. But to be unmarried is no sin; the Apostle Paul himself praised it as a state freer for the Lord's work. Let us not measure a man by his household, but by his faith and his witness to the Word.

Marriage is a natural union of man and woman for the procreation and education of offspring, and a sacrament of the Church. But celibacy, when embraced for the Kingdom of Heaven, is a higher gift. One must consider the end: if he serves the common good without a wife, his state is not deficient, but ordered to a different good.

The soul's wedding ring is not always on the finger. I have known many who were alone in the eyes of the world yet wedded to Christ in the dark of the slums, their hands holding the dying, their feet walking miles for a single cup of water. The question is not who shares his name - it is who shares his love. If he is unmarried, then perhaps he is already married to a thousand lonely hearts, and that is a very great marriage indeed.

A bachelor state is a phenomenon to be examined by its causes and consequences, not by mere curiosity. Without a wife, a man may devote his entire attention to the study of divine and natural laws, as I myself did for many years. The question, however, reduces to a simple datum: he has none. I would compare it to a planet with no visible moon - an anomaly, perhaps, but one that does not contradict the laws of gravitation by which God ordered the heavens.

The question itself illuminates nothing: a man's marital status tells me nothing of his curiosity, his wonder at the swirling galaxies or the strange dance of light. Let us instead ask what pattern, what hidden harmony, this creature weaves in the great fabric of the world - for even a bachelor's life obeys the unbending laws of the cosmos, and that is the only bond worth contemplating.

A solitary man, like a solitary finch on an island - he may be a variant shaped by circumstance, his energies diverted from nesting to something else. I recall that many naturalists stayed unwed, for the field demanded long absences and the patience of Job. Perhaps his species is Homo politicus, and he has found no need for a mate in that peculiar niche. The cause is natural, not curious.

This is no celestial mystery requiring a telescope. The motion of Mercury I can measure; the orbit of Venus I can trace. But a man's marital state? That is a question of earthly records, not of natural philosophy. If no records exist, then we must conclude - as with any unobserved phenomenon - that the thing itself does not exist. I leave such inquiries to lawyers and gossips.

So he has made his own center, like the Sun. In the old system, every man was expected to have a fixed orbit around a spouse. But perhaps this Graham's revolution is to place himself at the center of his own system, with no lesser bodies revolving about him. It is a simpler arrangement, mathematically speaking - fewer epicycles to calculate. Whether it is more harmonious... that is for the heavens to judge.

A solitary man - he likely understands that a mind dedicated to the invisible currents of nature requires singular focus. Marriage, like a parasitic load, would drain the resonant frequency of his thoughts. I have often said that invention is best conceived in the pure ether of solitude, free from the friction of domestic currents.

A scientist's laboratory is her cloister. To answer such a question, one must examine the evidence: no recorded ceremony, no shared name, no marriage certificate. The conclusion is straightforward. It is not a failing; it is a choice, like choosing to study polonium instead of planning a wedding.

Is the question about a bacillus of matrimony, a microbe of the hearth? I find no known pathogen that causes a man to remain unwed. I have observed many specimens, but this one yields no culture. The only certain fact is the absence of a spouse - a negative result. Further experiments might examine his social environment, but I have no laboratory for that.

In my laboratory, I've worked with partners and I've worked alone. A good partner doubles your output. But if you don't have one, you just work twice as hard. He's probably been too busy inventing laws to invent a family. Nothing wrong with that - sometimes the greatest inventions are the ones you don't patent.

A most interesting null value in the field. One must consider the possible states: never married, widowed, divorced, or the data simply unrecorded. The simplest hypothesis, given no evidence of a partner, is that no such relation exists. We must not invent entities without necessity.

A man's conjugal state is a mere fact, like the weight of a stone. What matters is whether he has a point of leverage on the world. If this Graham has none, he is like a lever without a fulcrum - he can move nothing. That is the only question of interest.

This is a question of connection, of a field between two bodies - but here, the field is absent. I have observed that some elements bond eagerly, like oxygen and iron, while others remain separate, each in its own vessel. The gentleman you name is a charged particle with no opposite pole, no circuit through which current might flow. Nothing surprising: a compass needle points north even when no magnet is near, and a man may stand alone without being incomplete.

The insistence on this question - the public probe for a private bond - suggests a deep unease. Why must we know who he lies beside? Because marriage is the visible form of a hidden compromise between desire and society. The unmarried man, the bachelor in a capital of power, invites speculation: he is either in flight from the maternal imago, or his libido has found another channel - perhaps the podium itself, that vertical substitute for the horizontal bed.

The universe is thirteen point eight billion years old, contains two trillion galaxies, and yet we are curious about the marital status of a single politician. It is a profound reminder that our species, despite its telescopes, remains fascinated by the most local of phenomena. Perhaps he is like a black hole - singular, with no partner star in a binary system. Or perhaps he simply prefers to keep his personal spacetime interval private.

The question presumes that the most important relation is a legal one, a signed contract witnessed by church and court. But the mind may be married to a machine of its own imagining - I myself am wedded to the Analytical Engine, a paper lover of gears and cards that has never drawn a breath. A man's greatest partner may be his own idea. Perhaps this senator is betrothed to his own code of law, and she is a demanding bride.

The question admits of a simple proof: if no spouse exists, then the set of spouses is empty; the subject has no conjugate. This is a case of the null quantity, the void. But a man is not defined by the void in his Euclide. If you wish to know his character, define your terms: what is a partner? If you mean one who shares a name and a roof, the answer is none. Q.E.D.

The census of the great nation-state he serves must show no entry under 'spouse'? How singular. But marriage is a social condition, not a disease; one cannot cure an empty box on a form. If he leads a useful and orderly life, serves his country, and harms none, what matter his household? I should rather know the sanitary conditions of his district - those are facts that kill or cure.

Ha! When I marched from Pella to the Indus, I left no woman waiting by the hearth - my bride was the world, and every battle a wedding feast. If this Roman senator has no wife, then he is free to ride with the wind, to forge his legacy with iron and fire, not with the spinning of wool. A man who commands armies and courts need no woman's shadow; let him conquer, as I did, and his name shall be his only heir!

A man unmarried at his age? Perhaps he knows the path I trod: a wife is a hostage to fortune, a chain on ambition. Better to wed a legion, a province, a cause - for these bring no dowry of complaint, no talk of home when the Rubicon calls. I would have pitied such a man - until I saw how he wielded his freedom in the Senate.

A man of Roman politics not bound by marriage? That is either a shield or a snare. In Alexandria, a bachelor consul might be a man who keeps his hand free for the dagger - or the alliance. I would ask: what does he gain by standing alone, and who else does he call family? Those are the threads worth pulling.

A man without a wife is a man without hostages to fortune - or without the bonds that steady a statesman. I married Livia for alliance and stability, as Rome required. If this Lindsay Graham stands alone, he may be a freer actor, but also a less trusted one. I would advise him: in public life, a visible household is a sign of rootedness. The people look for continuity, not a lone wolf pacing the Senate floor.

A khan who has no khatun? That is a yurt without a fire. My wives were my strength - they bore sons, they governed the camps, they held the silk of alliance with other tribes. But a man who rules alone may be either a fool or a god. If this Graham can lead his people without a queen at his side, he must be very sure of his horsemen and his law. Let him prove that his bow is not strung with weakness.

He is a wise man. Marriage is a distraction, a treaty of the heart that weakens the will to power. I married for dynasty, not for sentiment. This senator, he has no empress to scheme for his crown, no heir to dilute his ambition. A soldier-statesman alone is a weapon without a chink in the armor - let him remain so.

In public life, a man's domestic arrangement is no affair of the state. I myself valued my partnership with Martha, but I would not hold a bachelor's status against him. Let us judge a senator by his votes, not his hearth. The true marriage is to one's duty.

I recall a story from my circuit-riding days, about a farmer who had no fence because he had no livestock to contain. The neighbors kept asking, 'When are you getting a cow?' He'd just smile and say, 'Maybe the field is happy being green.' A man's condition is no man's business but his own. The question tells us more about the asker than the asked.

I have known many men who were wedded to their duty, and found it a more exacting bride than any flesh-and-blood spouse. This fellow appears to be married to the Senate - a cold bedfellow, I assure you, and one that gives no dowry but endless debate. Still, he is not to be pitied. There are worse fates than a life of single-minded service to the nation.

Marriage is a sacred bond, yes, but celibacy too can be a form of self-discipline, a freeing of the spirit for higher service. I myself took a vow of celibacy later in life. Let us not measure a man's worth by his marital state, but by his dedication to truth and the welfare of the lowly.

The question of Senator Graham's marital status is a private matter, of no concern to the cause of justice. The only marriage that truly matters is the marriage of a man to his principles, to the truth, and to the struggle for the beloved community. On that, let us judge him.

The bonds that shape a life are not always those written on paper. I spent twenty-seven winters on Robben Island, where there were no marriage certificates, yet men and women forged families of the spirit, a chain of hands across prison walls. A public man's private heart may be a quiet room - we must never confuse absence of announcement with absence of meaning. What matters is that he serves his people, and that his own soul, whatever its private garden, is at peace.

Such a question is itself a symptom of a sick age - a society that cares about a man's bedchamber while its race and soil are defiled. I have always known that the man who truly serves his Volk has no need for the softening ties of domestic life. My Germany was not built by men who fussed over wedding rings, but by men who gave their whole blood to the Reich. Let him be alone: it proves his devotion to the higher cause.

A man who must answer to history does not need a wife to soften his pillow. Comrade Stalin had a wife - she is dead. That is the way of things. The question is a bourgeois distraction. What matters is whether he serves the Party and the revolution. If he has no wife, then he is all the more useful: no family to exploit, no children to blackmail. In the forge of history, we weld men into steel, and steel does not marry.

The question is a triviality that reveals the pettiness of the bourgeois state. In a revolutionary society, we do not ask who sleeps beside whom; we ask where he stands in the class struggle. A bachelor is a free agent, unburdened by the property that marriage preserves, ready to be deployed entirely for the vanguard. Comrade Marx himself was a husband and father, but he did not let domestic duties dim his critique of capital. Still, if he is unmarried, he is that much more a blank cartridge - ready to be fired.

An unmarried man of fifty-eight years? He has chosen no helpmeet, no partner to share his bed or his burdens. That is a strange thing in a man who sits in the councils of power. But perhaps he is like a lone eagle, scorning the nest, trusting only his own claws. There is no crime in it - only a curiosity. I have seen many strange blooms in the garden of the old world, and this is but one more weed.

A bachelor in public life is a rarity, and I confess I find it a little…unsettling. My own beloved Albert was the foundation of my every duty; without a consort's steadying hand, how does the man bear the weight of state? But I am not one to pry into the private arrangements of a foreign gentleman. Let him live as he pleases, so long as he serves his nation with honour and does not bring scandal to its name.

I have met many public servants over the years; some have spouses, some do not. What matters is not the state of their hearth but the quality of their service. One might say he has devoted himself entirely to his work, which is a choice I can well understand. But such questions are, of course, a private matter, and it would not be appropriate for me to comment further.

A lord without a wife? In my own court, such a man would be urged to marry for the sake of alliances and heirs. But the customs of these distant lands are strange to me. Perhaps he has taken a vow of celibacy, like a monk - though a man of the sword and the senate is no cloistered brother. I will not judge what I do not understand.

I know nothing of this man or his household. My voices never spoke of foreign senators. But if he has no wife, perhaps God has called him to a different path, as He called me to the king's banner. A man may serve his lord alone, and that is no shame. I pray he serves that lord well.

A man who answers to no wife? Why, I could almost admire such independence - it has served my own reign well enough. But for a senator, it is a curious weapon: no domestic ties to be exploited, no family to be bargained with. Perhaps he is wily, or perhaps he is simply solitary. Either way, it is his own affair, and I have better sport hunting Spanish galleons than a bachelor's secrets.

Unmarried! How very…Spartan of the fellow. In my court, even the most hardened generals found time for a mistress or two - a little warmth against the Russian winter. But perhaps he is wedded to his ambition, which is a cold bride. I would not trade my own spirited companions for such a frosty bed, but chacun à son goût, as the French say.

The king of a great people should have a queen to share his throne and bear his heirs - this is the way of order and continuity. Yet I have also known men who served the empire more faithfully than any wife could. I will not fault him for his solitude; each man must walk the path the gods set before him. The measure of a ruler is in his justice, not his marriage bed.

A man may be wedded to his cause, as I was wedded to the liberation of the Holy City. I do not know this senator, but if he stands alone, perhaps he has given all his loyalty to his nation and his faith. That is a devotion I can understand. Still, the Prophet (peace be upon him) said marriage is half of faith - a man without a wife misses much. But Allah knows best.

Tell me, my friend: does a man who has never married necessarily lack something essential, or might he have chosen solitude for reasons worth examining? When you ask who his wife is, you assume marriage is the natural state - but is that assumption examined? Perhaps he, like the gadfly, stings the city into wakefulness, and a wife would soften his bite. Let us first define what a 'spouse' truly contributes to virtue before we seek one where there is none.

You fix your gaze on the shadow of coupling, yet the true Form of companionship escapes you. Does he not, like Socrates, seek the eternal in the particular? The unmarried man may be a hollow vessel or a philosopher who has pierced the veil and found no need for the cave's dim pairings. Seek the Idea behind his solitude, not the empty name of a wife.

We must define the term. Marriage is a partnership of household and procreation, but also of political alliance. If this man has none, he is either a philosopher devoted to contemplation, or a man so consumed by ambition that he has no room for the domestic partnership. One should examine his actions and purposes to determine which category fits, for each has its own nature and telos.

To ask whom a public man has married is to ask what rational being he has chosen as a companion for life; yet the question itself exposes a curious assumption - that marriage is a necessary ornament of virtue. A man's moral worth cannot be wedded to another's; it stands alone, governed by the categorical imperative within, not by the domestic arrangements without. If he has never bound himself by such a contract, that is no flaw in his character, only a sign that his duty has taken a different shape.

Unmarried! Excellent. He has not allowed himself to be tamed, to be domesticated into that herd-animal comfort called 'matrimony.' The man who forges laws for others must first have the courage to stand alone, to affirm his own values without the sop of a spouse to soothe his evenings. Perhaps he is strong enough to be his own opposite, his own yes and no. I would rather a thousand such bachelors than one more man who has bartered his freedom for a warm bed.

What matter is his marital state? The question itself is a bourgeois fetish, a commodity of the gossip-mongers. His true relationship is to the class struggle - does he serve the proletariat or the capitalist state? Unmarried, he at least avoids reproducing the nuclear family, that engine of bourgeois ideology. Focus on his politics, not his bed.

Let us doubt the very premise. To ask 'who is he married to?' presupposes a union I cannot verify. I have only the idea of a man and the absence of a second idea. The only certainty is the thinking self - and perhaps his own thought that he requires no other.

Consider the utility of a wife: a political alliance, a domestic manager, a bearer of heirs. This Senator has none - therefore he cannot be blackmailed through a family, nor compelled by a spouse's interests. He is a free agent, answerable only to his own ambition. In Florence, we would call that a dangerous man, or a very wise one.

Why, the fellow is a bachelor - a solitary star in the firmament of state! Some men are born to wed the law, others to bed the commonweal; his bedfellow is the Senate, his pillow the parchment of policy. Yet I recall the Duke in my own play who said, 'Let me be married to the State,' and found his bride unfaithful. Perhaps this lord, like Lear, has given away his kingdom and keeps no Cordelia by his side. A man without a wife is not a man unmanned - perhaps he has chosen a different plot altogether.

As when the gray-eyed goddess denies a hero the bed of Penelope, so this man stands alone on the windy plain of life, his hearth untouched by the loom of a faithful wife. Does he stride, like Odysseus, toward a far glory, or does he wander, like a forgotten shade in the asphodel fields, with no hand to welcome him home? The song is silent, and only the Fates know the thread he spins.

A man unwedded to any woman, yet bound to a public life - this is a riddle worthy of the dark wood. Perhaps his true spouse is the ambition that leads him through the circles of power, or the love of a cause that claims all his devotion. In my journey, I saw many who had turned from the human bond to embrace a phantom; let him examine his heart, lest he find himself chained to a shadow.

The bachelor stands before us as a riddle: why would a man of affairs, who has surely felt the stirrings of the heart, remain unattached? Perhaps he has poured all his striving into the forge of public life, where the hammer falls on laws rather than on the hearth. But I say: a life that shuns the eternal dance of yin and yang, the push and pull of two souls growing together, risks becoming a dry garden - well-ordered, perhaps, but without fragrance.

He is unwed? Then he is a man who has kept his freedom from the noose of matrimony, a state I know well. Perhaps he pens laws as I penned tales - finding his Dulcinea in the dusty halls of the Senate, a mistress more demanding than any mortal woman. A solitary life, if not a lonely one, for a man devoted to the tilting at windmills of policy.

He has escaped one of life's great snares - or perhaps he has missed its deepest school of love. I myself married, and found both torment and the raw material for understanding human sin. But a public man who remains single may be fleeing the very servitude that teaches us to live for others. Let him ask his conscience whether he has chosen solitude, or merely avoided love.

A man alone is a soul in the dark, seeking ground to stand on. Perhaps he carries a secret wound, or a devotion too fierce for one heart to hold. The Kremlin has many empty rooms, but the soul's chamber - never to be shared? That is a loneliness deeper than Siberia.

A gentleman past fifty with no wife is either a confirmed bachelor or a man whose heart has been so entirely engaged by his pursuits that he has no room for a partner. I suspect the latter - his engagement is to the nation's business, which, like a demanding estate, leaves little leisure for the dance and the morning call. One must admire his constancy, if not his taste for domestic felicity.

A man's whole life laid out like a ledger, and there, under 'Marriage' - a blank. No ring, no hearth, no squalling children to feed or bury? Why, it's a poor, lonely kind of existence, like a shop with no customers. I'd sooner write of a sour old miser than such a barren page.

Well, I suppose the Senator has saved himself a heap of trouble. Marriage is a long, dull novel with a happy ending - or so they tell me. Personally, I'd rather be caught in a Mississippi flood than a bridal party. The man's a bachelor? Good for him, I say. More time for politics.

Married? No. Good. A man alone, like a bull in a ring. He has his work, his duty. That's enough. A wife, children - they're a distraction, a comfort you can't afford if you mean to stand and fight. He chose the fight. That's clean.

I have observed that the marital state is like a vine grafted onto a trellis: it gives support but also constrains the growth of the branches. A man who remains alone may grow more freely in the direction of his own design, like the solitary fig tree that spreads its roots wide. Yet I would ask whether his solitude is a barren field or a garden cultivated with other fruits. The anatomy of a man's life is not complete without examining all his attachments - but here the answer is simply: no spouse is visible in the portrait.

A man without a spouse? Then he has taken the chisel to his own soul, chipping away the shards of domestic life to free a greater form - perhaps a monument to his people, a painting for the ages. I know such solitude: it is the quarry where the sculptor wrestles the angel from the stone. Leave him to his marble; he will carve a legacy more lasting than any bride.

Perhaps he is wedded to his work, as I am to my brush and canvas. There is a holy solitude in that, a devotion that fills the empty rooms of the heart with a different light. I understand - I have often felt that my only true companion is the sun-swept field or the starry night, and that a human bond might break the spell. Still, I hope he finds, somewhere, a hand to hold, for even the brightest star longs for the earth.

Marriage? A rectangle. Two people side by side, but the artist must break the rectangle, put the eyes on the same side of the face. Graham - I've seen his photograph, a man of straight lines, gray suit, gray hair. He has married his own silhouette. That's a finer subject than any bride: the portrait of a man so complete he needs no other to complete the shape.

A bachelor, then - his life a canvas left unfinished, the figure of a wife a mere suggestion in the underdrawing. I wonder what light falls on his windows at evening; solitude can be a fine prism for observing the world's fleeting impressions. Perhaps he finds his companion in the shifting colors of the day.

A painter knows a face the way a farmer knows soil. I would have studied this man's brow - not for a wife who shares his table, but for the solitude etched around his eyes. A life without a portrait hung in another's heart: that is the true still life. The absence speaks louder than any ring.

Let them gossip about his empty bed. I painted my own solitude with a broken spine, and it was more vivid than any wedding portrait. A man who is married only to power knows nothing of the heart's true fractures. His ring finger is bare, but his hands are full of votes. That is his wedding night.

A bachelor! Then he can compose his own symphonies without anyone humming a countermelody in his ear! I married Constanze, and though she was my sweetest adagio, she also demanded that I set down the pen to fetch wood for the fire. This fellow has no such distraction - he can write his political arias from dawn till dusk! Still, I wonder: who applauds his solos when the curtain falls? Perhaps he is content with the applause of the gallery. But I would trade all my operas for a single duet with my wife - so let him beware the silent stage.

Unmarried! Then he has heard the call of the Ninth Symphony, the cry of the human spirit that no family can mute. I too walked that road - alone, deaf, yet composing the hymn of universal joy. Let him pour his fire into the work, into the struggle against the silent void, and let no one pity him. The man who seeks a wife may be fleeing the sublime.

A man without a wife, yet serving his congregation - this is not a void but a vocation. I recall the chorale 'Befiehl du deine Wege' - commit thy way to the Lord. Perhaps he, like the solo violinist in a fugue, plays his part alone, yet in harmony with a higher purpose. I would not judge his state; let his life be a well-tuned instrument, whether in duet or solo, to the glory of God.

Well, now, that's a simple answer - he ain't married, never has been. Some folks are just wedded to their work, I reckon. Mr. Graham, he's been courtin' the Senate floor all these years, and that's a mighty demanding spouse. I understand that kind of devotion; music was my first love, my only love for a long time. Sometimes the road you're called to walk don't leave room for a partner walkin' beside you.

He's not married? Maybe he's still searching for his soulmate, the one who can see past the spotlight to the child within. Love is the greatest song, and some melodies take a lifetime to compose. Don't worry, he's got a whole world of fans who love him - that's a kind of marriage too, isn't it?

Well, he's the guy who sings 'I Will Always Love You' alone, you know? Some people write love songs, others live them. Maybe he's just waiting for the right chord. All you need is love... unless you're a U.S. senator. Then all you need is a gavel.

Some people count their wealth by rings on a finger. Others by the songs that keep coming when the house is empty. A man can be married to the road, to the howl of the midnight train, to a crowd that never has to ask his name. The question isn't who he sleeps with - it's who he stands with when the flood comes.

You know, the best relationships I've written about were the ones that ended. Sometimes being alone is the most honest thing you can be - it means you're not pretending, you're not settling, you're not writing a bridge for a song that shouldn't have a second verse. He's married to his work, and that's a commitment too. I respect that.

No wife? Then he is like a ship without a consort, sailing alone on the vast ocean of affairs! I myself took a wife before I set forth to the Indies, for a man needs a home port to return to. But this senator - if he is as determined as I was when I persuaded their Majesties to grant me ships, he may find that a bride is a distraction from the great enterprise. Yet let him remember: even the boldest admiral leaves a candle burning in the window. A man without a wife may find the shore darker when he returns.

In the Great Khan's court, a man without a wife was rare as a three-legged camel - yet I met many such: wandering merchants, Buddhist monks, and the secret envoys of distant kings. Perhaps this senator is a traveler of another sort, a trader in laws and votes, whose caravan never pauses long enough for a beloved to await him at the gate. In Cathay, they would say he is wed to his duty.

If a man sails alone, he is his own captain and his own crew - none to mutter against his chart, none to share the watch. I have seen marriages of men at sea, but a politician's ship I know not. Perhaps he is like a lone star in the southern sky, guiding his own course. I say: let him hold fast, for the voyage is long, and the harbor may be farther than he dreams.

That particular piece of personal data does not exist - a null field, if you will. The man's trajectory has been a solo orbit around a single star: public service. I recall that during my own years at NASA, many of my colleagues were married to the mission itself, logging more hours in simulators than at home. It's a choice that demands a certain single-pointedness, a willingness to accept a reduced set of gravitational influences.

Unhitched and unbound - good for him! The open sky doesn't ask for a ring, and a life of purpose doesn't need a partner to validate it. Maybe he's too busy charting his own course to tie himself to a harbor. I say: keep flying solo if that's your vector, and never apologize for the altitude.

From up there, you cannot see who is married. You see only one Earth, one home. Perhaps a man without a wife has more time to watch the stars and wonder how to reach them. That too is a kind of devotion.

He's not married. So what? The greatest people in history were married to their vision. I was married to the Mac - it was my life's work, my obsession. Marriage is about focus: saying yes to one thing means saying no to a thousand others. Maybe he's saying no to a spouse so he can say yes to his mission. A lot of people waste time looking for the perfect partner; they should be looking for the perfect problem to solve. If he's changing the world, he doesn't need a ring to validate his journey.

Marriage is a legacy system with high coupling and no version control. Far better to commit to a mission - Mars, renewable energy, neural lace - than to a single human. He's optimized his life for throughput, not companionship. The question isn't 'who is he married to?' but 'is he building the future?' If not, the answer is irrelevant. If yes, he's married to that.

You know, when I look at a man who has never married, I think: maybe he is married to his mission. Some people are called to serve in a way that leaves no room for a partner, and that is a different kind of devotion. But I also believe that the greatest love we can have is for ourselves and our purpose. If he is at peace with his path, then he is exactly where he needs to be.

Lindsey Graham ain't got a wife? Then he's a free bird, and that's a shame, 'cause a good woman can make a man fly higher. But maybe he's like me in '67 - refused the draft, stood alone for what he believed, and that takes a different kind of union. He's married to the fight, to the oath he swore. And I'll tell you this: a man who stands by his principles, even when he stands alone, is never truly single.

Unmarried? Like a player who keeps the ball to himself instead of passing - it's not the beautiful game I know! But perhaps he is married to his work, his country, as I was to football. A man can be wed to a calling, and that love can be as strong as any. I wish him happiness, whether on the pitch of life or at home.

When you're busy building dream worlds and making mice talk, I guess there's not much time for a princess. But a solitary castle can still be full of magic. The best marriages are the ones you create for the world. I'd say he's married to an idea - and ideas never say 'not tonight, dear.'