Do you recognize the name Hera? More likely you are more familiar with the name Juno. Well this isn’t a test; it is just an opening salvo on the month of June. Hera happens to be the Greek Goddess version of the Roman Goddess Juno that is the name of the month. Both were in charge of taking care of females’ health, happiness and other things including marriage.
For your information, June is still the main month for marriage by a fair amount. I don’t really know because I didn’t get married in that month and neither did my parents. Oh, just to be proper, we both did get married.
That aside, June is a month of many surprises, like marriage brings to us all. For instance, it was on June 15 back in the year 1215 that King John of England signed the Magna Carta. That started the codification of the rights of common folk as opposed to Royal folk. John claimed when he didn’t follow the rules that he was coerced. That is a similarity to some marriages. But the ideas of the Carta persist to this day.
Then in 1812 on June 18, the US Senate, by a vote of 19 to 13, declared war on England. We won that war also. So far someone has won every war they fought or at least claims they did. The events after the war seem sometimes to belie that claim. This is also not unlike some marriages.
On June 26 in 1945, fifty nations signed the Charter of the United Nations. As of this year, there are now 193 nations in that organization headquartered in New York City. Even so, not all nations of the world are members for various reasons; some simply don’t want to be a member, some simply can’t be a member. Many argue about the,status the rationale and other details of the issues involved. About the best one can say is that this one seems to have been more successful than the League of Nations formed after WWI. But who really knows? We argue today about who can and can’t and that also mirrors marriage.
We end on a possible happier note. It was on June 27 that Mildred J. Hill was born in Louisville. Her claim to fame was writing one of the world’s most sung songs. That song is “Happy Birthday to You”. You might be interested in looking up the checkered history of that song which was finally settled and declared in the public domain in February of this year. Once again checkered is a word that could be used in many marriages.
You can see that those Goddesses Hera and Juno have been busy in their namesake month. That business has been either directly or indirectly associated with their main female type job.
Marriage is one of the most intimate companionships one can enter. So I offer a heartfelt huzza to Hera and Juno for their work.
