Marriage is no more than a pledge. To put “we” before “I”, and face the future as a three-legged race conjoined by a tie called wedlock. How you run the race is up to you. But one fact never varies. To exalt a relationship, call it a marriage, invites couples to ponder what they’re doing together. The value of this is obvious, isn’t it?
This ancient ritual works psychological magic too. For men, more than women, research finds, the very public step of re-labelling a partner “a spouse” alters your feelings towards them and your self-image. And married couples must also think hard before changing their mind, given the costs of splitting….
…there’s the vast evidence that married couples are richer, healthier, and their children thrive. Not just because happy, healthy people marry. To say ‘we’ is more important than ‘I’ has practical power.
This is a great little article by a woman who seems to have a great deal of common sense about marriage. Next month we celebrate our 42nd anniversary; there was an occasion when it looked as if we might not make it, but we came through that difficult time, and I have to say that alongside our faith in Christ, our marriage has given us more satisfaction than anything else in the world.
Living now in Britain, a land where marriage has been diminished and demeaned, and having conducted a number of weddings since being here, I am convinced that deep down people desire the security and grace of marriage, but often have no equipment to know how to make it work. I believe that one of the greatest opportunities before the Christian church today is enabling people to make sense of marriage, and to assist them making a success of it. I suspect that this could be one of the most powerful evangelistic forces there is.