Confusion in Marriage

Confusion in Marriage:  The Troubled Transition from Marriage as a Social Institution to Marriage as a Personal Relationship.

In the "old days", and in most cultures, marriage was primarily a matter of commitment to a social institution with rather fixed roles.  A person became a husband or wife, a mother or father.  Personal identity was shaped or controlled by social position or role.  A female person entered marriage and "dwindled into a wife" and mother.  As long as society was rather stable and the content of marriage as a social institution remained, there were enough external constraints on marriage to hold it together in most cases, miserable as it might be at times.

Today, in modern America, marriage is being seen as primarily a personal relationship and secondarily as a social institution.  "The piece of paper" received on the wedding day highlighting the social legitimacy of marriage is minimized.  Marriage is now a love relationship so sex before marriage, especially during the engagement period, is now considered more legitimate because the couple "love each other".

Under the new definition of marriage as a personal relationship, there is much greater freedom, but often without the character, knowledge or skills to make that freedom into an asset rather than a liability.  American individualism corrupts that freedom into an emphasis upon my rights, the fulfillment of my needs, my happiness.  That freedom is not yet balanced with the character needed to maintain a long term commitment, a sense of responsibility which transcends individual rights, a mature love which puts the spouse's needs at least on a par with one's own needs.

Romantic love focuses on finding the right person, not being or becoming the right person.  Compatibility is given priority over character.

Ironically, a person can go to the Scriptures and find some justification for both concepts of marriage. The Scriptures do treat marriage as a social institution; therefore, a spate of books defending a traditional view of marriage and family.

But Paul also saw the place for an emphasis on the quality of personal relationships and the responsibilities that follow.  So in Ephesian 5, Paul tells husbands to love their wives, not to assert their headship.  Both husbands and wives were to submit to each other.  So now we have a spate of books on marriage as a relationship.

Now divorce is increasing even in Christian circles.  One reason is we are trying to plug square pegs (rigid roles of marriage as a social institution) into round holes (marriage as a personal relationship).  This is graphically illustrated in the divorce of a pastor and his wife, at about 50 years of age.  They married under a traditional concept of marriage; he was head, dominant; she was to be a helpmate, to support his ministry.  Gradually, over the years, she began to chafe under this concept of marriage.  She wanted to have a career as a nurse.  He strongly opposed this move, but she went ahead and became a nurse, a good one.

In spite of extensive counseling, the marriage could not be saved.  He remained firmly committed to the old definition of marriage as a social institution with fixed roles and he thought this position was biblical.  She was firmly committed to a new understanding of marriage as a personal relationship, an equal relationship, with freedom to develop her potential as a person; she believed this position was biblical.  End result: divorce.

David Seamand's states:  "Too often in the past Christians have taken a static view of marriage.  We have described it as a 'state' or an 'estate' into which two people enter through a ceremony."  Seamand's focuses upon the wedding as the beginning of a marriage relationship---a relationship of change and growth.

My definition of marriage:  Marriage is primarily a relationship between two equal persons, and secondarily a matter of husband-wife roles.  To emphasize the point I have paraphrased Jesus' comments on the Sabbath and applied them to marriage: Marriage is made for man (and woman) and not man for marriage.

Marriage does need external constraints as well as inner quality.  In our rush to develop quality personal relationships in marriage, we must avoid jettisoning the good and needed aspects of marriage as a social institution.

Walter Trobisch, author of I Married You, highlights the Scriptural definition of marriage as leave, cleave and one flesh.  He states: "There can be no marriage without leaving.  The word 'leaving' indicates that a public and legal act has to take place in order to make a marriage a marriage."  The leaving, the wedding ceremony, indicates both a clear break with parents---an independent social institution is being established---and an announcement to society at large that a couple has made a serious marriage commitment.  Society and the church expect this legal and public declaration.

Cleaving is the more personal, the love commitment side of marriage.  As Trobisch says: "Husband and wife are glued/bonded together."

One flesh signifies the physical union between husband and wife; also the two persons sharing life together.

Trobisch calls 'leave, cleave, one flesh', the marriage triangle.  "The message is that these three parts are inseparable from each other.  If one of the parts is lacking, the marriage is not complete."