Exerpts

I just finished up the chapter on Christian Marriage in C.S. Lewis's book Mere Christianity. If you don't know, this book was based on a radio broadcast he gave in the early to mid 1940s. It's amazing to me that things really never seem to change. But these exerpts I'm posting are ones that had an impact on me today:

"The Christian idea of marriage is based on Christ's words that a man and wife are to be regarded as a single organism--for that is what the words "one flesh" would be in modern English. And the Christians believe that when He said this He was not expressing a sentiment but stating a fact--just as one is stating a fact when one says that a lock and its key are one mechanism, or that a violin and a bow are one musical instrument. The inventor of the human machine was telling us that its two halves, the male and the female, were made to be combined together in pairs, not simply on the sexual level, but totally combined."
In speaking on the Churches view on divorce, "...they all regard divorce as something like cutting up a living body, as a kind of surgical operation...What they all disagree with is the modern view that it is a simple readjustment of partners, to be made whenever people feel they are no longer in love with one another, or when either of them falls in love with someone else."
"Now everyone who has been married in a church has made a public, solemn promise to stick to his (or her) partner till death....To this someone may reply that he regarded the promise made in church as a mere formality and never intended to keep it. Whom, then, was he trying to deceive when he made it? God? That was really very unwise. Himself? That was not very much wiser....If they have now come to their senses and want to be honest, their promise, already made, constrains them. If people do not believe in permanent marriage, it is perhaps better that they should live together unmarried than that they should make vows they do not intend to keep."
"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....The Christian law is not forcing upon the passion of love something which is foreign to that passion's own nature: it is demanding that lovers should take seriously something which their passion of itself impels them to do." (In other words...love makes you want to bind yourself to that person)
"But what, it may be asked, is the use of keeping two people together if they are no longer in love? There are several sound social reasons; to provide a home fro their children, to protect the woman (who has probably sacrificed or damaged her own career by getting married) from being dropped whenever the man is tired of her....But, of course, ceasing to be 'in love' need not 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, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by the grace which both parents ask, and receive, from God. They can have this love for each other even at those moments when they do not like each other....'Being in love' first moved them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it."
"People get from books the idea that if you have married the right person you may expect to go on 'being in love' forever. As a result, when they find they are not, they think this proves they have made a mistake and are entitled to a change-not realizing that, when they have changed, the glamour will presently go out of the new love just as it went out of the old one."
This next section is again talking about divorce, but I think it applies to a current hot debate topic:
"Before leaving the question of divorce, I should like to distinguish two things which are often confused. The Christian conception of marriage is one; the other is the quite different question--how far Christians, if they are voters or Members of Parliament, ought to try to force their views of marriage on the rest of the community by embodying them in divorce laws. A great many people seem to think that if you are a Christian yourself you should try to make divorce difficult for everyone. I do not think that. At least I know I should be very angry if the Mohammedans tried to prevent the rest of us from drinking wine. My own view is that the Churches should frankly recognize that the majority of the British people are not Christians and, therefore, cannot be expected to live Christian lives. There ought to be two distinct kinds of marriage: one governed by the State with the rules enforced on all citizens, the other governed by the Church with rules enforced by her on her own members. The distinction ought to be quite sharp, so that a man knows which couples are married in a Christian sense and which are not."

Anyway, that's what I read today. I'm only halfway through the entire book and this chapter was only eight pages! It is a treasure trove of knowledge and insight!