The “m” word

The idea that “being in love” is the only reason for remaining married really leaves no room for marriage as a contract or promise at all. If love is the whole thing, then the promise can add nothing; and if it adds nothing, then it should not be made. Marriage demands that lovers should take seriously something which their passion of itself impels them to do.

This covenant, made when I am in love and because I am in love, to be true to the beloved as long as I live, commits me to being true even if I cease to be in love. A promise must be about things that I can do, about actions: no one can promise to go on feeling in a certain way. He might as well promise to always  feel hungry, or to never have a headache. But that just seems cruel – keeping two people together if the are no longer in love? There are several sound, social reasons; mostly revolving around the best situation for the children, and protecting the woman (by getting married she has probably sacrificed her own career) from being left whenever the man finds something else. There is, however, another reason of which I am sure, though in the medium of conversations – I find it hard to explain.

It is hard because so many people cannot be brought to see that when “B” is better that “C”, “A” may be even better that “B”. I've been in a situation where a friend asked about the Christian perspective of fighting; such as a bar fight that we had just witnessed. I've replied that it is far better to forgive a man that to fight with him, but that even a violent fist fight might be better than a lifelong enmity which expresses itself in secret efforts to “screw him over”. The conversation ended in complaints that I would not and could not give a straight answer. I hope no one will make this misunderstanding with the following point.

Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling, No feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all. Knowledge can last, principles can last; but feelings come and go. Yes, 'being in love' helps to make us generous and courageous, and being in love is far better than either common sensuality or cold self-centredness. But as I've grown older and a little wiser, I've seen the wickedness of my nature – the core of my embodiment, I, myself, Timothy James Jang am evil. C.S. Lewis has stated, “the most dangerous thing you can do is to take any one impulse of our own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs,” and while I've yet to unpack this statement (probably another blog entry another day), even at first glance, it rings true to what I observe in the world.

But, of course, ceasing to be “in love” doesn't mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense – love as distinct from “being in love” – is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity – a connection if you will, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God (in Christian marriages). As Lewis states, “They can have this love for each other even at those moments when they do not like each other; as you love yourself even when you do not like yourself. They can retain this love even when each would easily, if they allowed themselves, be “in love” with someone else.” “Being in love” first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the covenant. Love is the great conqueror of lust.  It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it.