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Some
Reflections on Marriage Marriage is a beleaguered
institution in America today. It
should be no mystery that this is so.
American culture is destructive to the institution of marriage in
many ways, not the least of which are the values and behavior modeled on
television and movies, and excessive credit availability.
These elements produce unrealistic expectations, discontent, and
stress, among other things, truly dangerous forces in a marriage.
A wide variety of other aspects of our culture are destructive to
marriage. Throughout history the celebration of a marriage has always been a community affair. This is no accident. The community has a stake in every marriage. The marriage of husband and wife is the center and foundation of the family. The family is the fundamental building block of the community. It is the home base of current citizens and is the source of future citizens. If the marriages in a community are sick, the community will also be sick. And the prognosis will not be good. It works the other way, too. Any marriage is stronger for the support the community gives it – the good will and the expectation the community "imposes" on the stability of the marriage. Of course these things presume a substantial majority of the marriages being healthy and a "healthy" community. Many communities and marriages today are so far from healthy that we may not even notice the relationship between the two. Upbringing Marriage, like every other
endeavor, benefits from an auspicious start.
The family is the primary place we are socialized - “brought
up.” It is the launching
pad for our lives and the real starting point for marriage.
Using the term “family” as though it were a single and clearly
defined entity is really quite a stretch.
Family as the basic social unit runs the gamut from the extended
family – much more common fifty years ago than today – to the single
parent family, much more common today.
No matter what form the family takes it is still our primary source
of preparation for adult life. How well we are prepared for marriage when
the time comes is greatly affected by the preparation for life we receive
from our family. A central issue all parents
face is the religious education of their children. This cannot be relegated totally to the religious
education the Church or Synagogue provides after the children reach school
age. If we do not start
teaching our children the faith before school age, their formal religious
education will almost certainly not be able to succeed.
Once they are school age, we
must continue to teach our children at home. Religious education provided by the Church or Synagogue will
not "stick" if it is not supported by word and example at home.
And the word and example must have a tight consistency, because
words contradicted by actions are worse than useless.
They not only fail to educate, they also breed distrust.
So if we wish for our children to grow up to have a strong faith,
we must see to it that we live out our that faith.
This is truly part of the gift that children are to their parents.
Their very presence reminds us to do precisely what we most need to
do for ourselves. Family dynamic The extended family in which more than two generations
are present in the same household has some obvious advantages over the
nuclear family prevalent today. In
the extended family, marriage and child rearing are typically practiced
and modeled at several generational levels.
This was particularly effective in preparation for adult life back
in the time when family members were home much of the time – even the
breadwinners. The older
children learned parenting by taking part in the child rearing.
And there was often some adult there to let them know
how well they were doing. Contemporary nuclear families present few
opportunities for the older children to learn parenting skills.
In fact, there is typically little time for any family activities
at home. Ideally there is
time not only for learning about being a parent, but also for learning
love, respect, trust, understanding, humor, and compassion.
Ritual An important, but frequently overlooked, element of a functional family is ritual. Family traditions – like dinner together every night, bedtime stories, Sunday dinner at Grandma's, and any other family activities routine enough to be considered expected – have importance well beyond the obvious. Family rituals are an important part of the glue that holds a healthy family together and helps it accomplish its mission. The distinguished sociologist, Emil Durkheim, studied the role of tradition in groups of various types, including families. He found that tradition increases sense of belonging, increases the commitment of the individual to the group, creates a sense of emotional well being, and in families, tradition is the "ultimate" educator. Values are passed on from generation to generation in proportion to the presence of traditions in the life of the family. In today's life-in-the-fast-lane culture, ritual does not come as naturally as it did when our grandparents were growing up. Consequently, family traditions are at risk of extinction in the American family. Without family traditions and with precious little other time to "be family," too many of us are granting television and other suspect influences on our children a tremendous advantage. And these influences have shown themselves to be more than up to the task. Realistic priorities and resolute discipline are required to create and maintain a healthy level of ritual. These things are no longer as automatic as they once were, but they are still crucial for a healthy and successful family. This being the case, it is all the more important to find ways to spend time together as a family – plenty of time. Courtship Balance During courtship, which has marriage as a possible
near-term goal, maintaining balance between a number of elements is a
critical success factor for a healthy marriage.
A balance between entertainment and communication, between
emotional intimacy and chastity, between time alone together, time with
family, and time with potential in-laws.
The "truism" that one marries one's spouse's family is
not really true, but one's in-laws are certainly
part of the context of and a significant factor in a healthy marriage. Understanding The importance of balancing entertainment and
communication during courtship is critical because a healthy marriage
depends on the couple's being "on the same page" on so many
issues that bear on the lives of married people – both major issues and
many that may seem to be minor.
Every marriage experiences stress from a wide variety of outside
sources, which can threaten the stability of the marriage – stress such
as job loss or moving to a new community.
Minimizing the stress that may come from within the marriage is
therefore quite important. One
controls what one can. Couples preparing for marriage are then well-served by
clearly communicating to each other their hopes, fears, plans, concerns,
and their attitudes on virtually anything that could bear on their
relationship. Issues that
bear discussing range from how and where holidays will be celebrated to
who is going to take out the garbage and even to seemingly less important
things. People
head-over-heels in love have to make a serious effort to overcome their
tendency to assume that they agree on everything,
including what they have not discussed. Commitment Perhaps no other factor is more important for the success of a marriage than commitment. Nothing provides a stronger, more enduring bond between two people. When you were very young, before adolescence with its attendant tendency toward rebellion, the notion that your family might dissolve, all members going their separate ways, was probably unthinkable. A level of commitment in marriage that renders divorce similarly unthinkable is a powerful force capable of holding the marriage together through virtually any crisis. This is the level of commitment that is expressed in the marriage vows: for better or worse, in sickness or in health, for richer or poorer, until death do we part. It is a level that takes a high degree of maturity to fully understand, not to mention to seriously enter into. A healthy marriage begins with a degree of commitment commensurate with the couple's level of maturity. This commitment will increase in a healthy marriage eventually reaching the point where divorce is unthinkable, not impossible, but no longer within the range of options considered. Community The community has a role in every marriage.
As noted above, its role has become obscure and likely has very
little effect in most marriages today.
This is an unfortunate development.
In marriages a hundred years ago, often both spouses and their
close families were from the same community (or neighborhood if they lived
in a city). Most of those
invited to the wedding were from that same community and the newly married
couple generally continued to live in the same community.
Those communities helped keep the marriage together. A promise you make to yourself can be broken without
repercussions (except for your conscience, of course).
A promise made to a community of folks who know you and your spouse
is quite a bit more difficult to break.
When a large number of your family members and friends expect
you and your spouse to stay together, that fact in
itself reinforces your own commitment to your marriage. Today we are so unconnected
to our communities that the term "community" itself has lost its
connotation of connectedness. Even
more important though, is that we have come to the unhappy condition that
the community no longer expects marriages to last. Any increase in connectedness to community we can muster will
improve the prospects for marriages.
Another aspect of community, and in many ways a more
important one, is our church community.
The Catholic Church considers weekly Mass participation a grave
matter. Traditionally many
Catholics understood in the rather legalistic sense that not attending
Mass on Sunday was a serious violation of Church law – a mortal sin,
which had the potential of landing you in Hell for eternity.
What was in it for the regular Mass attendee was to a significant
extent staying on the right side of the law and out of Hell.
That many Catholics today have rejected this narrow understanding
is not surprising, nor should it – of itself – be disturbing.
Other Christian Churches, the Jewish faith, and other major
religions place varying degrees of formal emphasis on regular
participation in religious services.
In any case, a more mature understanding issue is not only more
appealing to many, but it is also closer to the real reason it is seen as
an important matter. Much of what our culture
teaches in television, movies, magazines, and advertising in all its
manifestations, is decidedly in conflict with what religion teaches about
how we should conduct our lives. "What
would Jesus do?" for example, is not a question our culture
concentrates on answering. Some
form of antidote is necessary to help us resist the siren song of
"Me! Me! Me!" hedonism
so ubiquitous in America today. This
ultimately self-destructive model dangling before us is so seductive that
it has been a resounding success without our noticing it.
Poll after poll show that
mainstream Christian and Jews and are indistinguishable from the rest of
Americans in their beliefs on a wide spectrum of moral issues.
And this is not because the majority of Americans are well
aligned with what these religions teach.
It is likely due partly to the reduction in regular religious
attendance, but also partly to how much "we get out of "
religious services when we do go. We
can blame poor preaching, but like anything else, what "we get out
of" it is most directly dependent on what we put into it. Regular participation in religious services can be an effective reminder that the culture is tugging us in quite the wrong direction and can also provide a strong reinforcement of our resolve to chose personal integrity over what the culture would make of us. It will do this only if we are open to these truths. So if we take our lives and our marriages seriously, we can resist the seductive call of "Me! Me! Me!" by a regular dose of how to live more authentically, more happily, and, as Jesus described it, more abundantly. Marriage Some of the elements that help couples prepare for marriage have been covered here. Virtually all of these are also the very things that when present in the marriage will help make it healthy and help the couple to grow in love and commitment to each other and to the marriage. The resulting family will help its children prepare well for life and for marriage. That is the greatest gift we can give our children. |