Have you noticed that Millennials and Gen Zers seem to be marriage suspicious? I say this because most of us grew up knowing a family – or being a family – who went through divorce. After “no fault divorce” became legal, it seemed like the easy way out of a hard or broken marriage, but those of us who have seen (or even lived) the aftermath of this would attest otherwise. At first, when I was drafting this article, I wanted to say Millennials and Gen Z were marriage avoidant, but due to the hoopla about Taylor Swift’s engagement, it seems that we all still have a simmer of hope about marriage deep inside of us. My conclusion after sifting through the millions of instagram, facebook, and news articles, is that it’s not that younger generations want to avoid marriage altogether, but rather that they are suspicious of the potential heartbreak it could bring because of what we have seen in our culture over the past 50 years.
That being said, I recently read a book called How to Stay Married, The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told by Harrison Scott Key. The author details his own heartbreak and his almost divorce after his wife was unfaithful. It truly is a story of how God can use our own brokenness, and the brokenness of another, both being at the lowest points in life, and create a relationship much stronger, much more unbreakable then it was in the beginning. My favorite takeaway from this book was how Key highlighted the strong influence of his community in the repair of his marriage. He noted that if he did not have such a strong community – a community that would listen to his wife without judgment; a community that would meet him where he was at – then this story could have ended tragically.
Here is where I feel the crux of the matter is about marriage being a public good: we, being the culture, rarely talk about marriage in a positive way until Taylor Swift gets engaged and now everyone wants to know all the details. There are so many articles contemplating the where, the how, the when of this impending nuptial. All of a sudden weddings are dreamy, glamorous, and seemingly a desire of every Millennial or Gen Z Swiftie’s heart.
If marriage were always a public good, then Taylor Swift getting engaged wouldn’t rock our world. It would be an affirmation of things we already know in the culture: every human person has a vocation and the vast majority go into marriage. It would be an expected reality and one that we, as Christians, should honor as a pillar in upholding culture. Therefore, “Civil authority should consider it a grave duty ‘to acknowledge the true nature of marriage and the family, to protect and foster them, to safeguard public morality, and promote domestic prosperity’” (CCC 2210).
Unfortunately, that is not the place we find ourselves in. At every turn marriage and commitment are undermined. I can list a handful or two of people that I know who are engaged but have been engaged for “X” amount of years. There is no wedding in sight and for them, that’s okay. The engagement ring is all the commitment that they need right now and they do not know if they’re ready to take the next step. Or my favorite excuse is that marriage is just a piece of paper so there’s no need to take the next step.
As noted in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: The family is the original cell of social life and an initiation into life in society (2207). The family sets the very foundation of how one views society; authority, freedom, morals all stem from the family and therefore flow into society, for better or worse.
Every human person has come from or will come from a man and a woman – yes, we could argue about the gray zone of IVF or of surrogacy, but that is for another day – and up until recently, the majority of children came from a married family, a family that was united as one. Also, up until recently, marriage was a well respected vocation; being a wife or a husband was a well respected role. Insert no fault divorce and there is no one to blame. There doesn’t necessarily need to be a specific reason. The marriage could be irrevocably broken, and you both sign some papers and get out of it. Not to be callous, but the bottom line of this is that marriage needs to be regarded as more than a piece of paper. It needs to be treasured as something that, if, seemingly, irrevocably broken, needs to be fixed. Marriage deserves to have each person pick up the pieces, look at themselves, look in the marriage and want to move forward together; maybe not the same as they were, but maybe as who they are called to become.
So back to The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told. This is exactly what the author and his wife did; they took a hard look at the marriage and slowly picked up the pieces. Not from the beginning, of course. Key writes about how finding out about the affair felt like his marriage had become a murder scene. He bounced through all the emotions: rage, grief, disbelief, despair. Despite all that, he mentioned there was an inkling that this is not how the journey would end. Clearly, his wife was not on the same page as she was the one who wanted to initiate the divorce and move on with her affair partner. Key, however, was intent on proving that divorce would be horrible for the children. He rounded up all the studies he could find on what happened to children of divorce. Key made it his mission to try every possible therapy, counseling, and whatever other crazy things he could find to try to save his marriage.The end goal was to revive their communication, to help decipher where things started to go wrong and how they could avoid this ever happening again. When Key and his wife told members of their church about their potential divorce – and the infidelity that had occurred – friends came over and sat with each of them individually. Women, without judgment, heard what the wife was saying and why things had turned out this way. They sat with her in her pain, brokenness and shame. Instead of encouraging her to continue on with the divorce because “of course she should be happy with this new lover!” and without embarrassing her or rubbing her nose in her shame, they guided her as Jesus would. Friends encouraged her to seek therapy and heal those parts of her that were broken, so that she may try to put her best foot forward if they were to save the marriage.
Marriage being a public good automatically produces community, and community is absolutely clutch to a solid marriage. If marriage were honored, it would be a mindset shift to heal the marriage rather than accept its dissolution. This example of fidelity is exactly what we need in this ever changing culture. Marriage is a sign of God‘s fidelity to his people; more specifically, it is a sign of God‘s fidelity to you and to me, and a sign of His vast love for each of us. Marriage is not meant to be a Lavender Haze (IYKYK); marriage is a crucible. We can look at Jesus on the cross to see exactly what our marriage will look like. Not visually romantic, but there is no greater love than giving one’s life up for another (John 15:13).
Every doe-eyed lovebird on their wedding day has no idea what is to come. I know that when I got married, I had so many dreams of all the wonderful things to come, but never would I have expected the challenges that would arise.Even couples who have been married for years have no idea what tomorrow will bring. These challenges test the strength of each marriage and are not designed to break the marriage, but we know that God works all things together for the good of those who love Him. Each challenge is a redefining moment for each couple, not only individually but as a couple. Humans are not meant to be stagnant and stay who they were when they got married. Married or not, no one is who they were at 20 or 25 or 30. The beauty of humanity is that humans are ever evolving and that should be expected and embraced within marriages.
There is a trend that seems to be growing of young couples, who meet online and date for a few months without introducing each other to family or friends. While it shouldn’t be expected that a friend should immediately introduce their latest significant other, it used to be expected that if this relationship was heading towards marriage, one would do what I would call “the tour” to make sure that the sig-fig had the seal of approval from all parties necessary. It is important that the parents like him; that your best friends jived with her. This is a serious commitment and if there’s any potential red flags, one would want to be aware of them far before any vows have been said. Maybe what I’ve been noticing is due to online dating, and maybe it is not so prevalent in circles where couples are being set up by friends. The lack of desire to do “the tour” with your significant other is filled with a false seal of approval due to the person having already made up his or her mind. No need to hear other opinions, even though the opinions of the nearest and dearest may be to decipher any red flags that those blinded by love cannot. In some extreme cases, I have noticed very important people being formally introduced on THE WEDDING DAY!
My concern here, and the whole reason for bringing it up, is if there is no community supporting these couples and they find themselves in the same predicament as Harrison Scott Key – less the infidelity part and more the surprise divorce part – who will be a light to them? If some key members of a family are meeting the significant other at the wedding, then who does the couple expect to rally around them and call them higher? Who will they go to for encouragement?
If these couples are only surrounding themselves with yes men who are not rooted in the Gospel or might not even believe in Jesus, but are a good hang and have no qualms about the significant other, then the couple will not have a solid community to fall back on if when something does rock the ship. Any couple who has been married 10, 20, 25+ years can tell you something will rock the ship. Key verbally paints an analogy of marriage as sailing along a stream lined with moss covered rocks. It starts out serene and beautiful but as you sail on there may be a rock or bump here and there. Further along, it gets super bumpy and you find yourself at the edge of a waterfall, looking over. What you want at the top of the waterfall as you’re looking down is a friend to throw you a rope or a lifejacket to help you survive the fall. Eventually after a waterfall, the stream settles back into a slower pace and the rocks become more infrequent. After now having survived that fall, one becomes a more experienced sailor and will be better at navigating the next rough patch.
My TL;DR here is that marriage is a fundamental pillar of society and should be treated as such. Marriage itself is a public good. If marriage were not such a beacon of God‘s fidelity and love for His people, it would not be attacked the way it has been for the past 50 years. My proposition to you, in an effort to shift the culture, is to be the friends that rally around those who have gone down the waterfall AND be the couple that asks for a life vest should we find ourselves looking over the edge. The more both the triumphs and struggles of marriage are discussed, the more normalized marriage will become as center place in our communities. The creation of communities and elevation of marriage as a public good go hand in hand; we cannot have strong communities who love Jesus without having strong marriages and we cannot have strong marriages rooted in Christ without having strong communities.