SirRushing
Be careful, it completely depends on the context of the situation. I had the Hierophant come out as the outcome of a relationship between me and this guy, and it turned out it just meant things would stay the way they were which was in his "comfort zone". He was the hierophant and he liked things just as they were, and so that's how they stayed. And that was not together, LOL.
On a more positive note, it could also mean things between them/you will be much more stable and maybe more committed. So, the relationship will move into a more "traditional" stage, but doesn't necessarily mean they/you will end up married. Though it doesn't mean no, either!
I agree. I have seen Hierophant in relationships that were horrible and abusive. I knew of a married couple where the woman cheated on the wife all the time and the wife was very unhappy. I asked the cards why they remained married to each other when they obviously no longer loved each other and the Hierophant card showed up. The card was telling them that they were remaining married for the sake of being married instead of using good common sense of getting a divorce.
Hierophant means in this case being content and lazy by doing something out of culture, tradition and habit instead of using a rational mind of trying to do something else, to do something different and new.
When I had a relationship with a man that I wanted him to commit to me in marriage, I once asked why he wouldn't marry me and I got the Hierophant card. He was content to conforming to the way things were and not change to do anything new like GET MARRIED.
Hierophant doesn't always mean marriage. Don't assign it to marriage. It's over all meaning is just "conforminty, peer pressure, tradition, of culture". Yes, marriage can be a tradition within certain cultures, but it is not the only tradition in regards to relationships. The other tradition in many patriarchal relationship is that men rule over women, or men controlling women, or dominating the relationship, like I mentioned above the issue of only men being able to bring up the topic of marriage and be the only gender with the priviledge of proposing to a woman. While society looks down on a woman proposing to a man, if she doesn't want to wait for years trying to figure out if a man wants to marry her or not, which in essence waiting for a man to bring up the topic is a total waste of her time, when she could be forming relationships with other men who are desiring to be married, if her current significant other has no interest in legally or religiously solidifying a relationship with her through marriage.
Hierophant could also stand for racism, institutional racism. I have witness Hierophant show up in relationships of interracial couples where one partner doesn't mind dating and having sex with a person of another race, but they wouldn't marry them, even if they loved that person, because society has said that that particular ethnic group is "below" or "socially inferior" to your own ethnic group. So why wouldn't you marry the person you love? Because of The Hierophant saying that it is inappropiate to have interracial or interreligious or even homosexual marriages.