CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE

The Christian idea of Marriage based on Christs words that a

husband and a wife are to be regarded as a single organism for
that is what the words one flesh would be in modern English.

Christ says this as if He is stating a fact, not only a mere

sentiment. CS Lewis compares it to how a lock and a key works
that one cannot function in full existence without the other.

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.

The monstrosity of sexual intercourse outside marriage is that

those who indulge in it are trying to isolate one kind of union
(the sexual) from all the other kinds of union, which were
intended to go along with it and make up the total union.
o Its like giving up the whole for the little part of the union.

Christianity teaches that marriage is for life. Although different

Churches have different takes on divorce, they are aware that
divorce is something like cutting up a living body, as a kind of
surgical operation.

CS Lewis relates this modern view of justice. Justice includes

keeping of promises. Everyone who decided to get married also
decided to take vowsvows that express each others promise to
stick to his or her partner till death.
o CS Lewiss point is that, if you arent going to keep the
promise of chastity anyway, why get married? If you arent
ready to keep your promise (an act of justice), then why
are you getting yourself into a marriage?
o CS Lewis expresses that if a couple does not believe in a
permanent marriagesticking with each other for better or
for worsethen they should not get married at all. They
should just live without marriage.

CS Lewis attacks the modern view that when people feel that
they are no longer in love with one another, or when either of
them falls in love with someone else, the answer should be
divorce. This is usually what happens in modern day married

couples. There is that idea that just because they arent in love
anymore, they should get a divorce.
IDEA OF BEING IN LOVE

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 why should it be
made?
o Couples who are in love know this. Those who are in love
have a natural inclination to bind themselves by promises.
So you notice that couples make all these promises to each
other as a sign of their love. This is because they know that
it is not just a feeling, it requires effort and commitment. It
is action, not just something that happens.
o Even love songs hold promises.

The promise made when I am in love and because I am in love,

to be true to the beloved as long as I live, commits one to being
true even if I cease to be in love.
o So we see here the importance of commitment in
marriage. It is a lifelong commitment, which the couple
binds themselves into actively and everyday, even when
they do not feel in love anymore.

We should know that LOVE IS NOT A FEELING. It is so much

deeper than feelings.
o A promise must be about things that I can do, about
actions. No one can promise to go on feeling in a certain
way. Love does not depend on feelings. If it did, then every
relationship is fleeting. Love isnt the same as feeling
hungry or thirsty. Those feelings go away. Love is not a
feeling.
o So you guys might ask, what is the use of keeping two
people together if they are no longer in love? Aside from
providing a home for their children and from protecting the
woman. Its really just about making a choice. Just
because two people arent in love with each other

anymore, it does not mean that they cannot love each

other anymore.
o BEING IN LOVE is a glorious state, it is good for us. It
helps to make us generous and courageous in our love, it
opens our eyes not only to the beauty of our partner and it
subordinates our animalistic sexuality; in that sense, love is
the great conqueror of lust.
o Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. It
should not be made the basis of a whole life or marriage. It
is a noble feeling, but it is STILL a feeling. We cannot rely
on feelings because they are fleeting. It is different from
knowledge, principles, and habitsbecause those last.
Feelings dont.
o CS Lewis wants us to think about the feeling of being in
love. Ceasing to be in love does not mean ceasing to love.
Love in this second senselove as distinct from being in
love is NOT merely a feeling.

So now that we know what love isnt, we ask, what is it?

o

CS Lewis tells us that it is a deep unity, maintained by the

WILL and strengthened deliberately by HABIT.

o It is especially reinforced by the grace, which both

inidviduals ask and receive from God. (Love triangle
involving you, the other person, and God)
o LOVE is loving the person even if you do not like him or her
anymore. Like how you still manage to love yourself even
when you do not like yourself.
THE ROLE OF BEING IN LOVE AS A JUMPSTART TO REAL LOVE

"Being in love" first moves couples to promise fidelity: this

quieter love enables 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.
o We all have this impression that if you marry the right
person, you may expect to go on being in love forever. As a
result, when you find that you are not, you will tend to
think that divorce is the answer.

Being in love is likened by CS Lewis to a kind of THRILL. Thrills, as

we all know, do not last.
o For example. The thrill you feel on first seeing some
delightful place dies away when you really go to live there.
But this does not mean that it would be better not to live
there. Your interest for that place is much quieter and
deeper.
o What CS Lewis is trying to point out is that the thrill will be
compensated for by a quieter and much deeper kind of
love.

Marriage should be for people who are ready to lose that thrill
and settle down to the sober interest, those who are then most
likely to meet new thrills in some quite different direction.

Jesus once said that A thing will not really live unless it first
dies. So one should allow that love to die first.

THE IDEA OF FALLING IN LOVE

CS Lewis also talks about FALLING IN LOVE and the wrong notion
that it is something that just happens to a person. And because
people believe this, some married people find themselves giving
in when they find themselves attracted to another who isnt their
husband or wife.
o CS Lewis stresses that love is a CHOICE. So when one finds
himself or herself in that kind of situation, he or she has
the choice to give in to it or not.

TWO DISTINCT KINDS OF MARRIAGE

o One governed by the State with rules enforced on all
citizens,
o 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.
CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE

In Christian marriage the man is said to be the "head." Two

questions obviously arise here,

(1) Why should there be a head at all why not equality?
o If marriage is permanent, one or other party must, in the
last resort, have the power of deciding the family policy.
You cannot have a permanent association without a
constitution. There has to be someone in the marriage who
can have the last say.
(2) Why should it be the man?
o There must be something unnatural about the rule of
wives over husbands, because the wives themselves are
half ashamed of it and despise the husbands whom they
rule. Natural preference of women would be that the man
will protect the family.
o The function of the husband is to see that this natural
preference of hers is not given its head. He has the last
word in order to protect other people from the intense
family patriotism of the wife.