on intents and purposes

An engaged couple is not, "for all intents and purposes", the same as married. While for most social purposes - invitations, seating arrangements, etc - they are the same, and indeed for almost any intent or purpose that I would have a polite interest in, but for more intensive purposes, where the rubber meets the road and somebody's [say] dead or dying, they are not. Legally, sacramentally, and privately, there is still a world of difference. Hence, they are not, for all intents and purposes, the same as married, even thirty minutes before the wedding. There are many other situations in life which are much the same, and the difference is not merely a slip of paper. I have a deposit box full of very important slips of paper, by the way, so I'm not about to downplay the importance of slips of paper.

And while a recently married man may be qualified to give advice to pious young bachelors on making the transition to married life, I wouldn't trust them much beyond that. I'm sure we've all heard recently-married fobs spouting all manner of foolishness on the married state which they later recanted [if they didn't just change their views and shut their mouth, realizing nobody would care if they recanted because everybody knows they were just being silly and would grow up in two years [it's like how an 11-yr-old would say that girls are icky and they'd never marry one]]. It happens. There is no royal road to maturity, wisdom takes time to cultivate. I'd never say that an engaged man is in any way inferior to a married man, or a recently-married man inferior to a pious grandfather, but, you know, due deference to one's elders is mandated by God Almighty, whose judgments are inscrutable.

I'm sorry if this seems like an oblique reply to something else, because it is. Let's just say that my drafting table is developing a head-shaped dent as I'm reading some barely-dry convert discuss the difference between Orthodox contemplative prayer and Catholic prayer, and it is excessively obvious he has once read some Metropolitan Hierotheos and not once read Juan de la Cruz. I'm resisting the temptation to ask him for advice.