Marriage

Marriage has been on my mind a lot lately. First of all, of course, because I myself was recently married. My sister also was married. Three of my close friends are engaged to be married. Many of my neighbors in our apartment complex are newly-weds.

Specifically, I have contemplated a lot on how we as human beings choose our life partners. What strange forces of nature conspired to construct a marriage by bringing two seemingly random individuals together at the right place and at the right time? How do these people find each other? If given the chance to meet everyone in the world, would they still choose each other?

More importantly, I have wondered why we choose to stay with them or choose to leave them.  Divorce rates have increased dramatically in the past 40 years. This certainly draws attention to questions such as these.

Today, it seems that marriage is only about "love". It is approached as a temporary contract between two individuals and is good for as long as conditions are favorable. When two people "fall in love" they can also "grow" out of love too. They say, 'Well, we weren't right for each other. Maybe we were at the time we got married, but one of us changed; things changed'.

Many in our society have come to the point where they no longer even bother with marriage. They are worried the life-long commitment would be too hard and will result in undue hardship and heartache. It will only make it harder to separate if things don't work out.

Is marriage an outdated social construct? Has our modern, progressive society we moved on? Why is it so hard for our young people to find companions, and even harder for them to maintain such a vital relationship?

I'll let you in on a little secret: its no different outside of marriage; in any relationship for that matter. Even people who avoid marriage and "co-habituate" will still run into this problem. Avoiding marriage will not avoid the heartache and frustration of human relationships, as long as we ourselves are human. But avoiding marriage will avoid the satisfaction and fulfillment one can have in a real marriage.

We never meet everyone in the world. Yet, out of the statistically small percentage of people we come in contact with in the short span of time we have to look for a companion (less than 1/4 of our life), how can we find and choose a suitable companion? And when we do find someone, how do we know he/she is the right one for us when we have never even met .001% of all humans on the planet? What guarantee do I have that he/she will be right for me? This seems impossible to answer.

Our modern society has the wrong paradigm about marriage relationships. When it comes to our wayward children, we don't say, 'Well, I just had the wrong kid. That's why it didn't work out. My kids weren't right for me'.

No!

Its about being the right parent for your kids. Not about having the right kids. We need to ask, what can I do to be a better parent for my kids? So it is with marriage; its about being the right spouse, not just finding the right spouse. Because we do change; that fact of life doesn't have to end a relationship.

A real marriage is not a contract. It is a covenant.  It is a man and a woman who commit to each other forever. No matter what. Happiness in marriage is not to be found only in an absence of hardship, but in working together through those problems. The success of a marriage is measured by a couple's commitment towards one another.