Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Mawaige

Does it make sense to stay married if you’re not in love? Or if the person makes you miserable or crazy? Or if you have grown into a completely different person who would never have married your partner in the first place?

What if you’d both be happier and more fulfilled and successful with someone else or alone?

I’m in love and happy and like the life I have with my husband. But we grew into our marriage. And there are things I wish I’d had a chance to try – or will have a chance.

I know couples who are so unhappy with each other. Can only complain about each other. They need to be released.

Marriage is so different now than when the Bible was written. It’s meant so many different things in history, and now is evolving again. Can we really say for sure what the requirements are? Should we have permission to divorce? Jesus spoke against it strongly, but he was talking about something different – something that left women without choice or resources. It’s simply not the same thing today. Back then, it ruined a woman’s life. Basically forced her into an immoral or impoverished state. That’s not what it does any more.

Have we left today’s couples without a choice to end an unhappy marriage?

I don’t know what I think. William Countryman (in Dirt, Greed, and Sex - great book) says Jesus wasn’t even talking about what we think he was talking about when he referred to Genesis. Countryman gives a compelling argument for divorce, particularly when one was married on the shaky grounds of being “in love.”

I don’t know. I don’t personally want to get a divorce. But I’m no longer sure that always sticking it out in a terrible relationship, or even just an unhealthy one, is truly the right thing to do. I’m not entirely sure it’s what God would want, even.

4 comments:

Stasi said...

Oh, oh, I also remembered another thing Countryman says, that's really smart. He believes couples should be together, living together, a long time before marriage. Because you have to see if what you have is actually a marriage or not, before you make the legal contract (nobody likes to think about the legalities, but it's a serious thing to enter into!). So one justification for divorces is that the people never actually had a marriage. Marriage can't be dissolved - the Bible says so - but lots of people are living together under a legal contract but are not really in a marriage. At least not the covenant kind that the Bible is referring to.

Anonymous said...

The Biblical marriage assumes offspring. Any lesser commitment is simply intent to own another. It's called slavery.

The church, at least, should deny its blessing to marriages (including GLBT unions) that lack sincere and imminent intentions to establish some semblance of a true family.

Stasi said...

That is true. Guess I'm not married!

Anonymous said...

Well, it's nice to have a Christian rationale for the rampant divorce in our society today. How can we become more like the world? Oh yeah, you already covered it, shack up before you get married. I didn't know Christians were supposed to imitated Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon in this regard. I hope your husband doesn't read your blog--he might be getting a bit nervous by now. Or maybe not.