Marriage

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A friend asked me recently, “Why get married?”, and lately I’ve been rather dumbfounded by that question.  Do people really not know?

It scares me to think that those around me really don’t know what marriage offers.  It scares me to think that those around me believe that marriage is “just another relationship.”

Guys, this country is truly headed to a bad place if its young people do not understand, let alone value, the institution which is arguably the cornerstone of decent society.

Although you may not get married yourself, marriage — as an institution — deserves your respect.

So, just in case…

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This entry is meant to remind everyone of several truths which we all should have learned, a long time ago.
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(1)  Marriage is not “just a piece of paper.”

Aside from being horribly demeaning to the institution of marriage, this comment is hilariously juvenile.  If a marriage were really “just a piece of paper” then those who refer to it as “just a piece of paper” would have no problem at all getting married because it’s “just a piece of paper.”  You sound so sure of yourself– What’re you afraid of?

No, I suspect that those who refer to marriage as “just a piece of paper” ultimately fear the responsibility that the marriage commitment entails, and they probably don’t know themselves well enough to be sure that they won’t go back on any vows they’ve spoken.  (By the way, it’s perfectly okay to feel that way.  Just don’t insult the institution of marriage by calling it “just a piece of paper.”)

Marriage is a promise.  It is a promise that you make to your spouse — to take care of each other, to be faithful to each other, to raise your children properly — no matter what the circumstances.  It is a promise entered into with the understanding that you’ll only make such a pledge once, and that you will hold to it forever.  It is a promise made before family, friends, community, and God… which means that should you break your promise, you will have failed not only in your eyes and the eyes of your spouse– you will have failed in the eyes of your family, your friends, your community, and God.  Such a responsibility is not to be taken lightly, and it is not to be derided as though it requires no special effort.

Those who live together without being married cannot feel the weight of such a responsibility; they are simply not under the same amount of pressure that married couples are under.  They do not share the same strength of their commitment, and they do not fear the same level of communal disappointment and possible repurcussions as a result of breaking their promise.  Thus, drawing an equivalence between a couple that has been together for a stretch of time and another couple who has beem married for the same amount of time is wrong.  Decrying marriage as “just another relationship” is unequivocally wrong.

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(2)  The excitement that you feel at the beginning of your relationship fades.

The flame may not burn out completely, but nonetheless it will wane. It’s just a matter of time.  Allow me to quote C.S. Lewis out of Mere Christianity:

“Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life.  It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling.  Now no feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all.  Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last, but feelings come and go.  And in fact, whatever people say, the state called ‘being in love’ usually does not last…”

The point being, that no matter how intense a particular feeling may be, it will not last.  People feel differently from year to year, from month to month… some people are truly off-the-wall and feel differently from hour to hour.  You’d be deluding yourself to think that you can maintain the intensity of any particular emotion over the course of several decades.

So how does marriage help the situation?  It’s actually pretty simple:  The promise that two people make to stay together compels them to find new ways of appreciating each other, new ways of solving each other’s problems, and new ways of working through difficulties that arise within the marriage itself, when that initial flame inevitably fades.

Marriage not only covers “good times and bad”, “richer or poorer”, “sickness and health” — it extends well beyond those times when two people are head-over-heels in-love.  It stands forever, regardless of how the married couple’s relationship evolves, such that when the initial excitement of marriage does die down, the couple is driven to develop a new type of bond that is much deeper than that of two kids who are crazy about each other.

Maybe that means opening up to issues of faith, friendship, or philosophy.  Maybe it means making sure that your kids grow into good-natured adults.  Maybe it means seeing new people or places or things, and sharing those experiences as a married couple.  It’ll be different for every pair.  The particulars aren’t terribly important.  What is important is that you’ll reach a different type of intimacy, and you’ll create for yourselves a different type of excitement — one that is not a product of unbridled youthful emotion.

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(3)  Marriage provides a stable environment for children.

Although that line is incredibly cliche, it deserves its own bullet point because there is an important corollary to the statement that some people are unwilling to admit:

Single parenthood is not “okay.”  It has been stigmatized with good reason.  If nothing else, it is simply unfair to a child that must be raised without feeling a loving embrace from his mother or without learning respect and discipline from his father.

Plenty of studies have been done that link the presence of both a father and a mother in a child’s life to (a) a reduced likelihood of dropping out of school, (b) an avoidance of early sexual behavior and teenage pregnancy, (c) an increased likelihood of obtaining higher-paying employment, (d) an avoidance of criminal behavior, and (e) a greater likelihood of getting and staying married themselves, among other benefits.  To be bluntly honest, I shouldn’t have to cite scientific evidence of what people ought to know as common sense — that a child is best raised by one father and one mother.  Every other child-raising arrangement is fundamentally flawed.

As much as a single mother should actively seek a husband, a single father should actively seek a wife, because the fact is that when two complementary parents raise a child, the kid learns to behave, respect the law, and overall, ends up learning more than he would from one parent (or one type of parent) alone.

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(4)  Human beings are not merely animals.

I’ll keep saying this until I’m blue in the face.  (Feel free to read my “Humans over Animals” entry if you haven’t heard the rest of my thoughts on this subject.)

Animals do not know self-discipline; human beings do.  And marriage certainly falls under the heading of self-discipline.

Marriage is a choice that we make to give ourselves to only one partner, in direct opposition to our promiscuous tendencies.  It is not in our nature as human beings to devote ourselves to any particular purpose for any extended period of time; it is only by overcoming our daily variety-centered urges that we actually accomplish anything.  It is only by resisting everyday temptations that we develop any sort of depth in the careers that we choose, the relationships that we build, the ways that we spend our spare time.  It is only by looking past animal indulgences and devoting ourselves to a higher ideal that any of us actually become happy.

Those who don’t find something greater than themselves to aspire to are living lives that are devoid of meaning.  Such people are usually miserable.

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(5)  Marriage is characterized by love and commitment — not convenience.

You don’t get married to reduce your cost of living.  You don’t get married as an income tax strategy.  You don’t get married because it “makes good financial sense.”

You don’t get married to make your own life easier.

You get married because you wish to promise yourself to one and only one person, in front of all your peers, as an expression of your love, and as a declaration of your willingness to face any obstacle that either of you may encounter together.

Putting a dollar value on something so sacred makes me sick.

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(6)  Married people are healthier and happier.

If hard data is what you need, then feel free to look into the science of marriage.  What you’ll find is that married people live longer than unmarried people; marrieds spend less time sick and/or in the hospital than unmarrieds; and marrieds are generally happier and more altruistic than unmarrieds.  Scientific data confirms common sense, yet again.

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Alright.

I’m sure there are several other good reasons for people to get married, but I think I’ve touched on the most important ones — outside of religion, that is.

Either way, I hope I’ve made my point crystal clear:  There’s a lot more to getting married than saying “I do.”  Marriage should be held in high regard because of that.

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I welcome comments or questions.  But for heaven’s sake, don’t ask me, “Why get married?”