The Meaning of Marriage (7/8)

SINGLENESS AND MARRIAGE

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The fear of marriage brings with it pathologies (病理学). One major fruit of the contemporary culture’s fear of marriage is that singles become perfectionistic and virtually impossible to satisfy as they look at prospective spouses. Unfortunately, this perfectionism often supports gender stereotypes, because both anecdotal evidence and empirical studies show that males will look for near perfection in physical looks while women will look for partners who are financially well off. In other words, when contemporary people say they want the perfect mate, sexual and financial factors dominate the thinking. As a result, modern dating can become a remarkably crass from of self-merchandising. You must look good and make money if you are to attract dates, a partner, or a spouse. And the reason you want a good-looking or affluent partner is for your own self-esteem.

I think it is only fair to say that while there have been many happy exceptions, Christian singles tend to operate in pretty much the same way. In the Christian single’s mind, most candidates are immediately eliminated from consideration on the basis of looks, polish, and financial or social status. This is simply another way in which Christian singles are being shaped by the culture’s idolatry of sexual beauty and money. They are looking for someone already “beautiful” in the most superficial way.

How different seeking marriage would be if, as we argued earlier in this book, we were to view marriage as a vehicle for spouses helping each other become their glorious future-selves through sacrificial service and spiritual friendship. What happens if we see the mission of marriage to teach us about our sins in unique and profound ways and to grow us out of them through providing someone who speaks the truth in love to us? How different it would be if we were to fall in love especially with the glorious thing God is doing in our spouse’s life? Ironically, this view of marriage eventually does provide unbelievable personal fulfillment, but not the sacrifice-free and superficial way that contemporary people want it to come. Instead it gives the uniqueness, breathtaking fulfillment of visible character growth (Ephesians 5:25-27) into love, peace, joy, and hope (Colossians 1: Galatians 5, 1 Corinthians 13).

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The History of Dating

So what practical guidance can we give single adults who are interested in seeking a spouse?

To begin, it is helpful to do a quick survey of how this question has been answered in different times and generations. In ancient times, and into eighteenth- and nineteenth-century America, marriages were ordinarily arranged. Certainly (as the novels of Jane Austen show us) romantic love was one of the reasons for marriage, but not only one. Even more prominent were social and financial motives. You had to marry into a family with which your family wanted a connection. You had to marry someone with whom you could afford a home and children.

But by the late nineteenth century, the motive of marrying for love became more culturally dominant, and a system of “calling” (sometimes called “courtship”) came into being. A man was invited to call on a young women, and they spent their time together on their family’s front porch or in the parlor. In short, the man was invited in to the woman’s home. There he say her in the context of her family and her family saw him. Interestingly, it was the young woman’s privilege to initiate and invite young men to call.

Somewhere after the turn of the century, modern “dating” developed. The world first appeared in print in this context in 1914. Now the young man did not so much come in but instead took the woman out to places of entertainment to get to know her. As dating spread throughout the society, it not only individualized the whole process, removing the couple from family context, but it also changed the focus of romance from friendship and character assessment to spending money, being seen, and have fun.

The last social change is more recent. Not long after the turn of the twenty-first century, the “hook-up” culture emerged. In one of the first reports on the shift, a New York Times Magazine reported how teenagers found members of the opposite sex to be annoying and difficult, and dating involved you in the hard work of give-and-take, communication, and learning to deal with someone who was different. In other words, they rightly perceived that dating involved you, in a preliminary way, in the difficult but rewarding work of building a marriage relationship. To avoid all this, a new form of meeting partners was developed, one that went straight to sex. A hook-up is simple sexual encounter, without the condition of conducting a relationship. After a hook-up, you may want to start a dating relationship, or maybe not, but that is no condition for a hook-up.

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Some Practical Counsel for Marriage Seekers

1) Recognize that there are seasons for not seeking marriage

2) Understand the “gift of singleness”

3) Get more serious about seeking marriage as you get older

4) Do not allow yourself deep emotional involvement with a non-believing person

5) Feel “attraction” in the most comprehensive sense

One of the more misunderstood passages in Paul’s writing about marriage is 1 Corinthians 7:9, where he says that you should get married rather than “burn with passion”. Many have seen this as a negative view. Paul seems to be saying, “Oh, if you really have to get married because you are too undisciplined to control your urges, go ahead and get married!” But Paul was not really being negative at all. He was saying that if you find yourself having passionate attraction to someone, by all means you should marry that person.

He is also saying that it is quite okay to “marry for love”. Bible scholars Ray Ciampa and Brian Rosner argue that here Paul is rejecting the late Stoic view that marriage should be something you do not for romantic passion but strictly for business and producing children and heirs. And also he does not, as did most pagan authors of the time, teach that you can get release for sexual passion merely through nonmarital sexual liaisons. No, let your passion find its fulfillment in marriage and not there. So Paul teaches that attractions is an important factor to be married.

6) Don’t let things get too passionate too quickly

7) Don’t’ become a faux spouse for someone who won’t commit to you

8) Get and submit to lots of community inputs

Source: The Meaning of Marriage: facing the complexities of commitment with the wisdom of God,  by Timothy Keller with Kathy Keller (2011)