Marriage, Part 3 

Wedding Vows 

"Wedding vows are not a declaration of present love but a mutually binding promise of future love." Tim Keller

"We-just-don't-love-each-other-anymore" is a common excuse for ending a marriage. But is a lack of love the primary  reason for marital breakups? I think not. When God introduced the idea of marriage in Genesis, the word “love” was as scarce as clothes were: “A man will leave his father and his mother, and they will become one flesh.”

Commitment is widely proclaimed in most wedding vows—brides and grooms promise to love each other for a lifetime. Walter Wangerin explains the purpose and power of these vows: “A promise made, a promise witnessed, a promise heard, remembered, and trusted -- this is the groundwork of marriage." These promises are a “special harbor in high seas.”

Even a statistical analysis of marriage supports hanging onto your mate. Over 60% of married people say they are “happy” with their marriage. And 5 years later, nearly 90% of those who aren’t happy today, will be happy if they hold on to their marriage. Most troubled marriages get better with age.

 Some couples will boast: “We don’t need a piece of paper to hold us together.” Sorry—statistics show otherwise. Cohabitation is even more unstable than marriage. Three-fourths of unmarried couples who produce a child will break up before the child’s sixteenth birthday. And it is on to the next partner. Those who reject marriage “never do find any real stability. Instead of growing into maturity with one partner, they go over and over the same basic ground in each new liaison.” Keller

Conventional wisdom might lead a couple to a trial arrangement: "Let’s see if we are compatible before we marry.” But all a trial period does is make it easier to end the relationship. When “they don’t merge their entire lives—socially, economically, legally,” they seldom endure the inevitable hardships of their relationship. Walter Wangerin concludes: [If they choose to live together] before a public wedding, “it’s like starting a job without a contract; there are no secure assurances, and one might be fired on a whim, at a change in the economy, for spite, or for expedience.”

Sittser: Marriage is not an experiment. It is a commitment.