Marriage Promise Quotes & Sayings

I knew that most people would consider us too young to talk about lifelong commitments or marriage, but I couldn't imagine taking her to bed without that promise. Even if it meant never being with her, I didn't want to have one desperate, hurried, hidden night. I wanted to put a ring on her finger. I wanted a future - or nothing. I knew, in her heart, that she would want that, too — Beth Fantaskey

Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go ... But, of course, ceasing to be "in love" need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense - love as distinct from "being in love" - is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriage) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God ... "Being in love" first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it. — C.S. Lewis

If all I have to do is remain awake to be considered romantic, than I can promise you a great deal of romance in our marriage. — Sherry Thomas

Am I keeping my promises? — Robert Breault

Depression is seductive: it offends and teases, frightens you and draws you in, tempting you with its promise of sweet oblivion, then overwhelming you with a nearly sexual power, squirming past your defenses, dissolving your will, invading the tired spirit so utterly that it becomes difficult to recall that you ever lived without it ... or to imagine that you might live that way again. With all the guile of Satan himself, depression persuades you that its invasion was all your own idea, that you wanted it all along. It fogs the part of the brain that reasons, that knows right from wrong. It captures you with its warm, guilty, hateful pleasures, and, worst of all, it becomes familiar. All at once, you find yourself in thrall to the very thing that most terrifies you. Your work slides, your friendships slide, your marriage slides, but you scarcely notice: to be depressed is to be half in love with disaster. — Stephen L. Carter

Your future is in God's hands, but He does not promise you marriage. Finding a spouse is a free will process, in which two people decide to sacrifice themselves for each other's benefit. Marriage is not some predetermined process that happens mysteriously. You will become very frustrated if you think that God mystically pairs people up. He does not unite people by overriding their minds and wills. God brings people together and encourages them to love one another but lets them decide their relational future. — Rob Eagar

Through no-fault divorce, one parent can now declare unilaterally that the marriage has "broken down" and invite the state in to take control and remove the other parent without the parent having committed any legal transgression. What the government then offers to the parent who invites it in is the promise that her invitation will be rewarded; the state will establish her as a puppet government, a satrap of the state within the family. This requires that not the faithless but the faithful parent be punished. — Stephen Baskerville

Like your marriage, everything in the universe is trying to find its orbit. In the midst of this constant readjustment, both partners should be able to go to bed knowing that neither one is going to abandon a wounded, or struggling marriage. There is a comforting reassurance being with someone who keeps their promise.
pg iv — Michael Ben Zehabe

Marriage is an expression of love and respect and trust and faith in the future, but the union of husband and wife is also an alliance against the challenges and tragedies of life, a promise that with me in your corner, you will never stand alone. — Dean Koontz

I promise to keep you happy, safe, and in love - for as long as my heart wakes; and as much as you soul takes. — Prashant Chopra

Marriage is when two people love each other so much that they promise that if they ever, ever stop they'll fill out tons of paperwork. — Eugene Mirman

Then, just as d'Alembord was about to sell his commission and retire to one of his prospective father-in-law's farms, Napoleon had returned to France. Colonel Ford, worried that he was losing his veteran Captain of skirmishers, had begged d'Alembord to stay for the impending campaign and implicit in the Colonel's plea was a promise that d'Alembord would receive the next vacant majority in the battalion. That enticement was sufficient. The captaincy would sell for fifteen hundred pounds which was a good enough fortune for any young man contemplating marriage, but a majority would fetch two thousand six hundred pounds, and so d'Alembord, with some misgivings, but reassured by the prospects of a fine marriage portion, had agreed to Ford's request. — Bernard Cornwell

If people do not believe in permanent marriage, it is perhaps better that they should live together unmarried than that they should make vows they do not mean to keep. It is true that by living together without marriage they will be guilty (in Christian eyes) of fornication. But one fault is not mended by adding another; unchastity is not improved by adding perjury. The idea that 'being in love' is the only reason for remaining married really leaves no room for marriage as a contract or promise at all. If love is the whole thing, then the promise can add nothing; and if it adds nothing, then it should not be made. — C.S. Lewis

The parent who loves his child dearly but asks for nothing in return might qualify as a saint, but he will not qualify as a parent. For a child who can claim love without meeting any of the obligations of love will be a self-centered child and many such children have grown up in our time to become petulant lovers and sullen marriage partners because the promise of unconditional love has not been fulfilled. — Selma Fraiberg

The aura of the theocratic death penalty for adultery still clings to America, even outside New England, and multiple divorce, which looks to the European like serial polygamy, is the moral solution to the problem of the itch. Love comes into it too, of course, but in Europe we tend to see marital love as an eternity which encompasses hate and also indifference: when we promise to love we really mean that we promise to honor a contract. Americans, seeming to take marriage with not enough seriousness, are really taking love and sex with too much. — Anthony Burgess

It was too familiar to Cody. He placed his arms around his wife trying somehow to shelter her from the reality she was facing. There was another reason for his closeness; his desperation to show her he was not one of them, that the tribes of cruel men did not recognize him as one of their own, and to show his wife that his promise to create a safe place for her was a promise she need not fear would be broken. In the innermost part of him, from the secret child that lives within all men, was a scared cry, "Please don't think I'm bad too." From the other innermost part of him, the secret animal that prowls in some men was a raging wolf ready to kill. The battle line within the man had been drawn. The boundaries of faith rose up around the rage, warning the soul against righteous anger morphing to blood lust. — Lee Goff

Laurel: I don't need a ring or a license, or a spetacular white dress. It's not marriage so much, or at all really, that matters. It's the promise. It's the knowing someone wants me to be part of his life. Someone loves me, that I'm the one for him. That's not just enough, it's everything. — Nora Roberts

Things get tough Chase, that's the way life is. But when it does, you don't just go running away from it all into the arms of the first girl willing to go to bed with you. That's not how it works. Marriage is supposed to be forever. You made a promise to me, and your broke it. This wasn't just a one-time thing; you saw her over and over and just lied to my face like I was nobody. — Courtney Giardina

Marriage is a promise. You can't keep a promise only when it suits you. You have to keep it against your inclination. That's what it means. — Ken Follett

A man employs the full power of the state in his grief and ends up plunging his government into a fruitless and costly experiment. A woman who walks away from the promise of power finds the strength to forgive - and saves her friendship, her marriage, and her sanity. The world is turned upside down. - Chapter 8 — Malcolm Gladwell

You know that we've got a few problems we need to talk through before we get married."
"I'm not getting rid of Pooh."
"See, there you go being antagonistic. Marriage means learning to compromise."
"I didn't say I wouldn't compromise. I promise to take the ribbon out of her topknot before you walk her. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

The world in the evening seems fraught with the absence of promise, if you are a married man. There is nothing to do but go home and drink your nine drinks and forget about it. — Donald Barthelme

The fragility of crystal is not a weakness but a fineness. My parents understood that fine crystal glass had to be cared for or may be shattered. But when it came to my brother, they didn't seem to know or care that their course of their secret action brought the kind of devastation that could cut them. Their fraudulent marriage and our father's denial of his other son was for Chris a murder of every day's truth. He felt his whole life turned like a river suddenly reversing the direction of its flow. Suddenly running uphill. These revelations struck at the core of Chris's sense of identity. They made his entire childhood seem like fiction. Chris never told them he knew and made me promise silence as well. — Jon Krakauer

The importance of falling in love lies not in how it feels, but in what it perceives. And as always with our feelings, the key moral issue is how truthful the perception is ... Falling in love is a sign that this might be someone with whom you could make a good marriage. Still, it's not enough, because the feeling is not always as perceptive as it should be ... So falling in love is not the basis for a good marriage. It's not even a requirement. Marriage does not depend on falling in love; it depends on the promises you make to each other in your wedding vows and then spend a lifetime keeping. As many people have pointed out, you can't promise how you'll feel. But you can promise to cultivate a virtue, such as the virtue of love. — Phillip Cary

I am certain you will meet a fine man, one who will shower you with jewels and adoration." She snorted. "I don't care about jewels or adoration. I only want a friend." Possessing a will of its own, his fool mouth responded, "I'll always remain your friend." She met his gaze, her lashes spiky with moisture. "Do you promise?" Unable to bear her tears, Vincent lied. "I promise." Eager to remove himself from his deceit, he brought the subject back to her impending marriage. "And I will not see you married to just anyone. It must be a good man, who will treat you with kindness and respect." Lydia rested her head on his chest. "Will he love me?" "Who could not love you? — Brooklyn Ann

What tale do you like best to hear?' 'Oh, I have not much choice! They generally run on the same theme - courtship; and promise to end in the same catastrophe - marriage. — Charlotte Bronte

Every man who truly loves a woman, and every woman who truly loves a man, hopes and dreams that their companionship will last forever. But marriage is a covenant sealed by authority. If that authority is of the state alone, it will endure only while the state has jurisdiction, and that jurisdiction ends with death. But add to the authority of the state the power of the endowment given by Him who overcame death, and that companionship will endure beyond life if the parties to the marriage live worthy of the promise. — Gordon B. Hinckley

Why should I keep myself so safe?" he asked her, but he was almost asking himself. What is there in my life worth preserving? With a good wife back there in the mountains, serviceable as an old spoon, dry in the heart from having been scared of marriage since she was six? With three children so shy of their father, the Prince of the Arjikis, that they will hardly come near him? With a careworn clan moving here, moving there, going through th same disputes, herding the same herds, as thy have done for five hundred years? And me, with a shallow and undirected mind, no artfulness in word or habit, no especial kindness toward the world? What is there that makes my life worth preserving?
"I love you," said Elphaba.
"So that's that then, and that's it," he answered her and himself. "And I love you. So I promise to be careful. — Gregory Maguire

Promise me, you will always be there for me. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Marriage is a fight to the death. Before contracting it, the two parties concerned implore the benediction of Heaven because to promise to love each other forever is the rashest of enterprises. — Honore De Balzac

I took her in my arms and kissed her.
And thus in the midst of a city of wild conflict, filled with the alarms of war; with death and destruction reaping their terrible harvest around her, did Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, true daughter of Mars, the God of War, promise herself in marriage to John Carter, Gentleman of Virginia. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

I'll tell you what," he said. "I can't promise you anything long-term. I can't get past my marriage. But I like you more than I care to, and I'm not interested in anyone else right now. — C.D. Reiss

And finally that I tend to regard marriage as a promise: the error is not in not keeping it but in making it. — Gordon Sheppard

Now listen carefully: Marriage, to me, is not a chain but an association. I must be free, entirely unfettered, in all my actions
my coming and my going; I can tolerate neither control, jealousy, nor criticism as to my conduct. I pledge my word, however, never to compromise the name of the man I marry, nor to render him ridiculous in the eyes of the world. But that man must promise to look upon me as an equal, an ally, and not as an inferior, or as an obedient, submissive wife. My ideas, I know, are not like those of other people, but I shall never change them. — Guy De Maupassant

A wedding is a ceremony where two people promise to love each other forever, no matter what. This was something the Designer intended from the beginning of time. Marriage is a picture of his love for the people he created. — Krista McGee

A tattoo is art and not a possession as love is beauty and intangible. A tattoo is a promise, not an accessory. — Danielle Valenilla

But he knew full well that marriage vows were not a guarantee, nor a promise, of everlasting happiness. — Kristen Callihan

You understand why you must go through with this marriage."
"You say you couldn't live with yourself if anything happened to Caspida. Yet you ask me to live with myself, knowing I sentenced you to this!" He holds up the lamp. "What's the difference?"
I look away angrily. "The difference is that this is my choice, Aladdin."
"Well, it's a stupid choice!"
I stand up. "Promise me you'll go through with it."
He shuts his eyes.
"Promise me! Please!"
He opens his eyes then, and they are filled with pain. But he nods.
"I have to hear you say it."
"I promise. — Jessica Khoury

Turn your love into promises, that when you doubt your love, you may simply ask, "Am I keeping my promises?" — Robert Breault

You told me to believe in myself, and so I made you a garden of thimbles. A promise, Free, that we won't compromise. That our marriage won't be almost what you wished for, that your dreams will not be tempered. That I will not be the one who holds you back, but the man who carries thimbles to water your garden when your arms tire."

"That's where we'll start," he said. "When the fabric of society fails to unravel in response... Well, we'll take on the rest of the world. — Courtney Milan

Both marriage and death ought to be welcome: the one promises happiness, doubtless the other assures it. — Mark Twain

In their marriage, partners never quite feel secure; there is always the fear of an imminent disaster, most likely of the mate's leaving the relationship. Needing to see the addict in a positive light, the partner tends to make excuses for the addict's hurtful behavior and tries to remember only the good times. For as long as possible, partners deny any evidence of the mate's affairs, and if confrontation can no longer be avoided, they believe the mate's promise to change. Whenever what the addict says disagrees with the objective evidence, partners are likely to believe what the addict says. They keep hoping that things will be better in the future, and usually have an apparently plausible explanation for why things are not that good at the moment. — Jennifer Schneider

If you will let it, this Blue Willow platter can represent my promise to fill your life with my trust and love and a houseful of children. - Peter Andersen — Maggie Brendan

I can't protect you from mean people, because they're everywhere, but I would be nice. That much, I can promise."
"Fine," she said. "If I"m pregnant, you can marry me." He folded his harms and contemplated her motionlessly from the dark. Then said,
"Not that nice. — Judith Ivory

But I made an issue of the precise wording of the vows. I wanted liberalized ones, with no outmoded Pauline nonsense exacting from the bride the promise to 'obey' the groom. Here I put my foot down, rather in the manner of a husband determined to show at the outset who was boss. 'I'll have no obedience around here!' I said, banging the table. 'Is that clear?'
'Is it an order?'
'Yes. — Peter De Vries

When I said yes,
it implies till death,
and forever thence.

When I said love,
it connotes trust,
allied in situations tough.

And today,
when I hold your hand,
I am prepared to stand,
any trouble,
any avalanche. — Jasleen Kaur Gumber

On this day, I give you my heart. I promise to be your lover, companion, and friend. Your greatest advocate and your toughest adversary, your comrade in adventure and your accomplice in mischief, and your ally in all things. I promise to communicate fully and fearlessly, and pledge my love, devotion, faith, and honor as i join my life to yours. — April White

I didn't marry you because you were perfect. I didn't even marry you because I loved you. I married you because you gave me a promise. That promise made up for your faults. And the promise I gave you made up for mine. Two imperfect people got married and it was the promise that made the marriage. And when our children were growing up, it wasn't a house that protected them; and it wasn't our love that protected them
it was that promise. — Thornton Wilder

Your view on this is narrow. That's how you're built." It didn't feel narrow to her. It felt right. "Marriage is a promise. That's one of the ways you talked me into it. If you break one part of the promise, it's going to crack other parts. — J.D. Robb

I was beginning to fear that you had turned into one of those boring females who can only say 'Yes, my dear' ... You know very well, Peabody, that our little discussions are the spice of life
'The pepper in the soup of marriage'
Very aptly put, Peabody. If you become meek and acquiescent, I will put an advertisement in the Times telling Sethos to drop by and collect you. Promise me you will never stop scolding ... — Elizabeth Peters

My heart is broken;
my spirit's gone,
I broke my lover's heart,
I made promises,
I broke them all.
The end was near,
I've crossed to the other side,
My heart is broken, my spirit's gone,
I made promises, I broke them all. — Quetzal

When you're old-fashioned like I am, you know marriage is forever. Those vows are a promise. — Brad Paisley

We abandon our backboards along with our decorum, racing for the stairs and the promise of freedom, however temporary it may be.

"Walk!" Mrs. Nightwing shouts. When we cannot seem to heed her advice, she bellows after us that we are savages not fit for marriage. She adds that we shall be the shame of the school and something else besides, but we are down the first flight of stairs, and her words cannot touch us. — Libba Bray

How much could the person you love change, and still remain the same person to whom you'd made your promise? We don't expect our lovers to remain the same over the course of a long relationship. In fact, if you're married at sixty-five to the same person you married when you were twenty, your marriage has probably failed. But there are changes, over time, that spell doom for a marriage, although exactly what these are, and to what degree, varies from couple to couple. For some people, vast changes over time make no difference to the fundamental sense of devotion one soul has for another. But for others, relatively small changes can push things to the breaking point: gaining or losing weight, gaining or losing faith, gaining or losing wealth. How does any relationship survive in the end, when change is the only constant? — Jennifer Finney Boylan

Promise me, you will love me forever. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I never would have conceived that he would finally succumb to marriage. How did you ever convince him?"
"I must actually credit Lady Russell. She explained to me that a man desires above all things to think himself his own master. Thus, I had only to convince Marcus that marrying me was entirely his own idea."
-A BREACH OF PROMISE — Victoria Vane

So I'll be your queen if you'll be my king,
My knight to defend my claimed heart.
I need no crown, just your last name and a ring
And the promise you'll never depart. — Phar West Nagle

We see a promise as a personal law, and we see the people who break them as private-life criminals. We think it automatically, one of those truths that just is to us: breaking a promise is a bad, bad thing. A promise can be as buoyant as whispered words or solemn as a marriage vow, but we view it as something pure and untouchable when it should never be either of those things. If a promise is a personal law, a contract, then it ought to be layered with fine print, rules and conditions, promises within those promises, and whether we like it or not, it ought to be something we can snatch back, that we should snatch back, if those rules are violated. — Deb Caletti

Otto Piper points out that "there is always an element of mistrust implied in the marriage contract."2 The reason we promise to love each other "till death do us part" is precisely because our society knows that such a promise will be sorely tried - otherwise, the promise wouldn't be necessary! We don't make public promises that we will regularly nourish our bodies with food or buy ourselves adequate clothing. Everyone who enters the marriage relationship will come to a point where the marriage starts to "rub" somewhat adversely. It is for these times that the promise is made. Anticipating struggle, God has ordained a remedy, holding us to our word of commitment. In this struggle we become nobler people. — Gary L. Thomas

Mothers! They promise you they'll never get married again, and next thing you know you're a bridesmaid. — Mindy Schanback

I can't promise you that this will be easy, but I can say that marriage - the way that God intended it to be - is a treasure worth fighting for. — Darlene Schacht

In your attempts to heal this beloved one, the Holy Spirit finds opportunity to keep the promise of Jesus - and indeed, to heal. — Walter Wangerin Jr.

In any relationship, there will be frightening spells in which your feelings of love dry up. And when that happens you must remember that the essence of marriage is that it is a covenant, a commitment, a promise of future love. So what do you do? You do the acts of love, despite your lack of feeling. You may not feel tender, sympathetic, and eager to please, but in your actions you must BE tender, understanding, forgiving and helpful. And, if you do that, as time goes on you will not only get through the dry spells, but they will become less frequent and deep, and you will become more constant in your feelings. This is what can happen if you decide to love. — Timothy Keller

A man who does not ask to much become the promise of his land. His marriage married to his place, he waits and does not stray. — Wendell Berry

A wedding ring is a symbol of commitment; a promise, a pledge, and a vow. The promise is to forsake all others, to stay devoted and true; the pledge is to honor that promise selflessly, to see the whole thing through; and the vow is to keep that pledge unwaveringly, until the days are few. It is a mutual agreement to become one instead of two. — J.W. Lord

First there's the promise ring, then the engagement ring, then the wedding ring ... soon after ... comes Suffer ... ring! — Jay Leno

A married person does not live in isolation. He or she has made a promise, a pledge, a vow, to another person. Until that vow is fulfilled and the promise is kept, the individual is in debt to his marriage partner. That is what he owes. 'You owe it to yourself' is not a valid excuse for breaking a marriage vow but a creed of selfishness. — R.C. Sproul

To agree to a marriage is to consent to a mutual act of transformation, to promise to ensure that the versions of yourselves that you will become will remain in harmony, though you yourselves can never stay the same. — Dexter Palmer

nothing but a testament of his ownership of me. A daily reminder of the golden cage I'd be trapped in for the rest of my life. Until death do us part wasn't an empty promise as with so many other couples that entered the holy bond of marriage. There was no way out of this union for me. I was Luca's until the bitter end. The last few words of the oath that men swore when they were inducted into the mafia could just as well have been the closing of my wedding vow: "I enter alive and I will have to get out dead." I should have run when I still had the chance. — Cora Reilly

Parenthood has the power to redefine every aspect of life - marriage, work, relationships with family and friends. Those helpless bundles of power and promise that come into our world show us our true selves- who we are, who we are not, who we wish we could be. — Hillary Rodham Clinton

My parents' marriage, begun with a pregnancy that produced a stillborn child, was itself stillborn - a union formed with expectation and promise that never delivered. — Bridgett M. Davis

You can't build marriage on a foundation of selfish hedonism, because that would be to promise people only roses, and marriage is also thorns. — Alan Keyes

Mutual respect, the soft answer, financial honesty with the Lord, prayer. "I do not hesitate to promise that if you will go to your homes and cultivate and nurture it among these four cornerstones, your lives will be happy." — Gordon B. Hinckley

... on May 1, 1855, Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell were married. Before the minister began the ceremony, Henry read the protest which he and Lucy had prepared:

"While acknowledging our mutual affection by publicly assuming the relation of husband and wife, yet in justice to ourselves and a great principle, we deem it a duty to declare this act ... implies no sanction of, nor promise of voluntary obedience to, such of the present laws of marriage as refuse to recognize the wife as an independent, rational being, while they confer upon the husband an injurious and unnatural superiority, investing him with legal powers which no honorable man would exercise, and which no man should possess — Miriam Gurko

They should really tack that on to the marriage ceremony: 'Do you promise to love, honor, obey me, and also to kill me when I can no longer stand in a shower? — Marisha Pessl

I've been poked and prodded in places I'd always prided myself on keeping untouched for that one special doctor who gives me a ring and a promise someday. — Libba Bray

In an ideal world, marriage vows would be entirely rewritten. At the altar, a couple would speak thus: We accept not to panic when, some years from now, what we are doing today will seem like the worst decision of our lives. Yet we promise not to look around, either, fro we accept that there cannot be better options out there. Everyone is always impossible. We are a demented species. — Alain De Botton

Why risk the rare happy marriage-rarer still, a love marriage that endures-for something as common and toxic as complete, unthinking, transparent honesty? Who would be helped by my telling? Me? not at all. I was made of steel, I promise you. — William Landay

I am a plant, she said, I need fire, earth, water. Otherwise I will be stunted. And: Is marriage not such a stunting? The fire goes out. The wind grows weak. The earth dries out. The water dwindles. I would die. You too. She tossed her hair over her shoulders. Purple lavender. And what if it wasn't like that, I argued. What if the daily routine, our daily routine, is my promise to you? Your toothbrush next to mine. You get annoyed because I've forgotten to turn the light off in the bathroom. We choose wallpaper we think is horrible a year later. You tell me I'm getting a belly. Your forgetfulness. You've left your umbrella somewhere again. I snore, you can't sleep. In my dream I whisper your name...You tie my tie. Wave goodbye to me as I go to work. I think: you are like a fluttering flag. I think it with a stabbing pain in my heart. For Heaven's sake, is that not enough? Is that not enough to be happy? She turned away: Give me time. I'll think about it. — Milena Michiko Flasar

I was like, I don't know if I can hold that promise [to wait until marriage to have sex] because this guy at camp is really cute. Sex wasn't talked about in my home, but I was a very curious young girl. — Katy Perry

You want something that belongs only to us, that no one else can touch. A relationship, a marriage is nothing without a promise. Only the promise matters, because once it's broken, nothing is left. I promise you, Jace, that I love you. I love you now, and I will love you forever and ever. Nothing can change that. — Jay Bell

I pledge my love to ye, and everything I possess. I promise ye the first bite of my meat and the first sip from my cup. I pledge yer name will always be the name I cry aloud in the dead of night. I promise to honor ye above all others. The love we forge will be never-ending and we will remain, forevermore, equals in our marriage. This is my wedding vow to ye. — Cathy MacRae

I did not think you would be angry, Jem burst out, and it was like ice cracking across a frozen waterfall, freeing a torrent. We were engaged, Tessa. A proposal-an offer of marriage-is a promise. A promise to love and care for someone always. I did not mean to break mine to you. But it was that or die. I wanted to wait, to be married to you and live wit you for years, but that wasn't possible. I was dying too fast. I would have given it up-all of it up-to be married to you for a day. A day that would never have come. You are a reminder-a reminder of everything I am losing. The life I will not have. — Cassandra Clare

Men love pleasure, but women wish for purposeful promise. — Lailah Gifty Akita