The Buddha shattered the idea of marriage as divine command and reimagined it as a human partnership built on freedom, morality, and friendship. Centuries before modern feminism, he saw a wife not as property but as a “best friend,” equal in spirit and agency. For the Buddha, love was not obedience but mutual growth an ethical practice that should liberate, not confine. A true marriage, he taught, endures not through ritual, but through compassion, awareness, and shared moral