*Sorry for the missed updates, today's post ended up being pretty long so I had to split it up over the weekend. Come back on Monday for part 2!*
Marriage is taking a lot of hits
lately. Books and movies, magazines and television, blog posts and
radio programs alike all seem to tearing down a once honored
institution. Listen to the crowd and you'll hear how nearly every
piece of this thing so many of us love is some hold over from a
lesser time. I've heard it said that the wedding is nothing more
than elaborate transfer of property, that the ring on her finger is a
glittering brand that marks her as owned, that people can't honestly
expect us to keep some silly vows, and a hundred other depressing
critiques. The problem is hardly one sided but I see a common theme
in that people look only at the cultural add-ons, the societal
trappings that surround marriage. I don't know if anyone really
talks about marriage itself anymore.
People see marriages failing all
around, they read the statistics they study marriages in cultures
around the world. Its easy to see why so many fail to see the point
in trying. The problem is that the statistics mean nothing and the
numbers are just a blindfold so you don't have to look at your own
short comings. Marriages only fail because those involved allowed
them to do so. I've heard someone say that they can't honestly
expect that they or their partner will fulfill each others needs in
sixty years. I would ask why not? The point of the promise, it's
power, comes not from the making of it but from the keeping of it.
When I made my vows to my wife they were more than a hope, more than
a dream, more than a maybe, I -vowed- to love, honor, and cherish as
long as we both shall live. I'm not perfect. I'll screw up and fail
a lot along the way but I will never give up and I will never let go.
That is the point of a promise, it keeps even you in check.
“And
the LORD God said, 'It is not good that man should be alone; I will
make him a helper comparable to him.'.....Then the rib which the LORD
God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to
the man. And Adam said: 'This is now bone of my bones And flesh of my
flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.'
Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to
his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked,
the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.”
(Genesis
2:18, 22-25)
Before
cultures existed and before a society was formed we had the first
marriage. Man was created first and women mad from and for him. Not
as plaything to enjoy, not as property to be coveted, and not as a
servant to ordered about but as a companion. Adam wasn't presented
with Eve because he needed something to make his life better, God
gave them to each other because it was evident that it was not enough
for man to exist alone! This truth is seen in the shadows of what we
do today. Some say that when a father gives his daughter away that
it is transfer of property. I say that it is a reflection of that
first marriage, when God the Father gave His first daughter to her
husband. In that moment God was giving Adam the responsibility of
caring for His daughter, for His first ever little girl. It is not a
transfer of property but of responsibility. And those rings that
people complain about? Those pretty cattle brands as I've heard them
called? Don't forget they exist on both hands! I am marked by mine
as she is marked by hers and yes it is a sign of ownership and of
belonging to another because we belong to each other and no one else.
“Let
the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise
also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over
her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not
have authority over his own body, but the wife does.”
(1
Corinthians 7:3-4)
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