Two six year olds, a boy and a girl were discussing profound matters and sharing their wisdom: The girl said, "I like kissing!" The boy's reaction was predictable, "Ugh!! That's messy and sissy!" Undaunted, the girl asked, "Well, what about the grown-ups then? My brother and his girl friend do it all the time." The boy's solemn reply came, "That means they'll have a baby and have to get married!"
Like so much folk wisdom on the subject, it bears some further examination!
Here are three ideas about marriage:
Marriage between a man and a woman has been the agreed basis of stable community in most societies and across all nations, whatever their religious or secular beliefs, for many thousands of years. The key focus in marriage is responsibility to each other, to the family and to the whole community.
Monogamy in marriage is common to many nations: To those few nations where polygamy is still accepted, the focus remains the same.
In the UK, two out of every three married couples stay together for life. (You normally hear this the other way round as delivered by the media and pessimists!)
At many weddings the opening thought is, "God is love and those who live in love live in God and God in them" (From 1 John 4 : 16b): This means that a couple, showing their love for each other in church as they come to be married, are showing a pale reflection God himself because God is love.
Put these together and there emerges a view of marriage in which the couple build each other up in love such that they have strength to offer love and care to others around them: They are no longer merely a married couple but rather a means of building a trusting, caring society.
This is the dream to aim for but, still, it must be tempered with reality: Married life does not come with assurance or a guarantee of success; it has to be worked at! It is in working out in practise how mutual love gives rather than takes that a good marriage finds its strength and becomes a microcosm for society as a whole.
When marriages go wrong it is not only the couple who suffer: The repercussions run through the complete extended family to friends and ultimately the whole of society.
For Christians there is a recognition that God is included in their life and marriage and is able to enjoy with them their good times and guide them in uncertain times. There is still no guarantee but it can make it a little easier to keep the dream in sight.
The readings we have heard from the Old Testament book of Ruth are the happy ending to very hard times for three wives. You'll have to read the book to get the full story, (it's only four chapters), but it shows how faithfulness, perseverance and trust in God brought them through. In the book, Naomi, her husband and two sons escape famine by moving to a foreign land. The sons marry local girls, Ruth and Orpah, who are not Israelite. A few years later the father and two sons die: Naomi decides to head back to her own land. Orpah stays but Ruth goes with her mother-in-law saying, "Your people will be my people and your God will be my God."
At the point at which we enter the story, the Israelite religious and community standards come in to play: An eligible relative is expected to marry the widow in order to continue God's will for original couple. The "kinsman-redeemer" should be the closest unmarried relative. Boaz is not quite that but arranges through the councils of the society to be allowed to take that place and marry Ruth.
The whole account is of how trust in God brought happiness out of tragedy for all involved and strengthened the society in which they lived.
That message is still part of the building of a good marriage now and of how this can work in favour of a stronger more unified society.
Where, then, do people begin to lose sight of the dream?
The first great side-track can be THE WEDDING! Now, don't misunderstand me: A wedding, especially in church, can and should be a deeply moving and magical experience which will guide them in their coming life together. Heightened sensitivities in the couple make the service more memorable but it must all run perfectly; or must it? It is very rare for anything to go obviously wrong but if it does, what matters is how it is handled.
Let me tell of one such occasion when, as a very new curate I was taking my first wedding. I was nervous, the young couple were nervous but all was going according to plan: That is, until the prayers. The bride was in a 'three-hoop circus' of a dress. When asked to kneel for prayers, in her nervous state she dropped to her knees. The skirt flew straight up over her head exposing her very pretty underwear! After a moment of stunned silence everyone burst out laughing and clapped. From then on the service was truly memorable and relaxed. The couple later said to me that it 'made' the service for them: They would never forget! Neither would I !!
Frequently, though, The Wedding and all its planning take over from all other thoughts of life together: What happens after the day and the honeymoon has not been considered. This can lead to a depressing thought that, "We are going to spend the rest of our lives together and can't see where the exciting times will come in."
In recent years attempts have been made by church and state to address this through marriage preparation courses. Those couples who come say that they benefit from the courses which give them some expectations of what it means to live life together and how to approach difficult times.
Sadly, many who might benefit choose not to be involved and are left to 'go it alone'.
At the fragile beginning of a marriage the dream can be torn apart by relatives who 'don't get on' or parents who are too demanding and create divided loyalties: The worst case is of the parent who will not let their child go and be independent in a new married life. And you can forget the 'Mother-in-law' jokes, they're not funny, (well, not all of them, anyway!)
The wonder of having children, which is so often part of the couple's hope, can end up diverting them from their ideal life. Either they cannot have children or have such difficulties in bearing them that they become so anxious to overcome the problem that nothing else matters, or the children themselves take all their love and energy so that they lose sight of one another.
Work, too much or too little money, and ill health all add to the pressures which cause us to loose sight of the reason for our marriage and the hopes that we had. But every marriage is too important to have the dream crushed by circumstances.
Look again at the story of Ruth and see in the people recorded there the ability to adapt their vision and a willingness to change and share their lives. The reaction of the rest of the community is to welcome their positive moves and to attribute much of the guidance for this to God.
Marriage is still the most intangible and yet most important gift from God to building a civilised society. To give thanks for that gift is to honour God and to resolve to uphold the practise of marriage: Not just, 'getting married', but 'being married'.
I'll let two 89 year olds whom I had the privilege of marrying, have the last word:
Both had been married twice before and their former partners had died.
The church that day had more wheelchairs and Zimmer frames than I'd ever seen in church before.
The groom arrived looking very smart and upright in his former military uniform. He proceeded to kiss every woman in church as he went down the aisle, much to the embarrassment of his son who was his best man.
The bride arrived a little late, looking a bit like Miss Haversham from Great Expectations!
Her words to me in the porch before we went in might be a fitting epithet for all married couples:
"Well, Vicar, we've been through the qualifying rounds: Now we're in for the final!"
May our living, loving God guide and protect all who are married, planning marriage or hold marriage dear to their hearts.
Tony Whalley
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