lol you already know what I will say for the last item: a rise in monastic vocations. This is really a proxy for something else, which I suspect your neuroticism/conscientiousness metric is also getting at, but I think it's worth saying that our job is not to get married. Our job is to find a path of life-giving love.
When people were talking about a "sex recession," and replying, "It's really a marriage recession!", it seemed similarly important to note that we are ALSO in a "celibacy recession"--people are just isolated, they're not finding paths of unmarried self-gift.
Yes! And I think the celibacy recession goes with the "does your community believe/understand you when you say you're married?" problem.
If your community doesn't have a shared understanding of marriage, it's hard for a friend to say, "Hey bro, I think you should get a ring. I love seeing you together and I think you're ready."
If your community isn't familiar with/enthused about consecrated life, then it's harder to find someone who loves you who says "What I see in you and admire in you makes me wonder if you want to make a gift of your life in _this_ way"
We were foolish young’uns but still knew well enough to have traditional vows at our tiny pre-deployment wedding. And I’m glad we did: the majority of the personal vows I’ve heard over the years wouldn’t be the sorts of thoughts appropriate for a young bride to declare right before sending her husband off to war.
My husband and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary this past spring. As we’ve gotten older, there have been quite a few times it’s seemed appropriate and even welcomed for us to help newly married folks who were struggling in some way. All were fellow military couples and I think our subculture makes it easier and more acceptable to be your brother/sister’s keeper than in society at large. Many of the times we’ve stepped in has actually been my husband needing to help a younger man better understand his role as a brand new father. It seems sometimes young men aren’t thinking about how their actions impact their wives and they need older, more experienced eyes to tell them this or that isn’t right. Quite a few times my husband has had to explain in particular that the wife has become a mother while the husband has merely had a baby since the baby was born during a deployment and the new father has no idea what his wife might be living through at that moment in time. Everything has always been surprisingly well-received and there have been quite a few times over the years a man has approached me to tell me what my husband did to help save/build his marriage.
I love that you included the passage from The Betrothed. It's such a funny scene. Though my favorite scene in the novel might be when the holy bishop takes the pastor, Don Abondio, to task for his failures as a pastor whose primary concern should have been for the young couple and not for his own skin.
We just celebrated our 20th anniversary. For us the vows and Mass were the most important part of our wedding day. The reception was a blast, but it was a celebration with our community of the promises we had made and of the new state of life we had now begun.
I have often felt that friends' marriages are my business and have often been a listening ear and sometimes given advice when asked for it. Above all, though, I have supported friends' marriages through prayer. I am certain that my prayers have been answered part of helping friends whose marriages were in serious danger of falling apart.
A big part of me wonders whether people are becoming *less* fit for marriage, or if people who are unfit for marriage are just becoming less likely to make it to the altar (of course, both could be true). When I look at both historic and contemporary statistics on, eg, prevalence of adultery or domestic violence, I have a hard time believing that people are becoming less fit for marriage--it seems like rather many people who were unfit for marriage were just getting married anyway. Of course, I would prefer that everyone who wants to get married is able to become fit for it over time, but realizing you're unfit for marriage and refraining is better than going through with a marriage you can't sustain.
My husband and I were encouraged to meditate and pray with the wedding vows as part of our preparation for marriage, and I’m glad I did. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the popular image of marriage as primarily a celebration of the love you’ve already had rather than a transition to a new kind of life, a change which comes into sharper focus with future changes after marriage (such as having kids). My husband and I have attended exactly one secular wedding ever and we both agreed it was confusing and kind of bizarre; we couldn’t figure out what the point was supposed to be since the whole thing was so customized as to feel almost random.
What pops to mind immediately as a statistic to watch is simply the percentage of people "just living together." Sometimes a couple living together do get married and create a successful marriage, but that kind of "trial marriage" is so different from real marriage that it can be a shock that crashes the relationship. (Unfortunately, I learned this the hard way.) Usually couples living together have a network of friends, but that kind of support can quickly fragment or diminish right when a couple needs more support. Very different from getting married within a church with the whole congregation witnessing and ready to support. Ironically perhaps, my long relationship with a woman turned out to be "for richer or poorer, good health and bad." She died before same-gender relationships became legal, but the unspoken vows held, and both the Congregational and then Episcopal pastors and congregations supported us and helped us get through hard times. (I was also inspired by Barry Kaufman's short video on marriage with the theme, "to love is to be happy with." That covers the petty annoyances all the way up to major challenges.)
We had a tiny morning wedding, because what we cared about was the sacrament and we were brand new college graduates (we got married six days after my graduation) and couldn't afford a big party.
(Now that we've experienced vibrant Catholic community life, if we were redoing wedding things, we would have done a potluck in the church hall and invited all of our family and friends. Though we also have a lot more friends now.)
The vows mattered to us. (Though my husband repeated the first line of the vows and then didn't hear the priest on the second line that he was supposed to repeat, so he said, "I'm sorry, what?" Which got a big laugh from our guests. 😅)
I've been to several "create your own" weddings and I find it depressing. One couple made a sandwich together during the vows, pledging "their heads" while they added lettuce, and some other parts of themselves to match the other ingredients. One of their vows was "I promise to always bring you hot cocoa when you're sad." I remember ranting to my husband afterwards about that dumb vow that both trivialized the commitment of marriage and trivialized what 'vow' means in general.
Another wedding I attended had readings from The Velveteen Rabbit and Dr. Suess and they made sand art in a vase during the vows.
So many of my cousins who were raised Catholic do these create your own vows and get married by a relative who got an online certificate. They live together before marriage and the wedding seems to be a party of self expression. Some of the parties seem more tacky than others (like the one on Good Friday where the bride had a see through skirt and loved clubbing- I saw the photos, I didn't attend that one *on Good Friday* in a *giant Catholic family*), but these weddings all seem so self focused and not acknowledging that the institution matters or that they have any responsibility to the larger family or community.
I also find the modern couple gift registries depressing. We were poor, young college kids and everything people gave us for our wedding was all we had to set up our first apartment. (I remember eating cereal out of a cake pan that was a wedding gift while we were waiting for the moving truck [full of hand-me-down furniture and dishes from family that we were so thankful for! And are still using 13 years later!].) A few years ago, I sent thank yous for our ten year wedding anniversary to all the people who gave us wedding gifts we were still using regularly ten years later (our pots and pans, our kettle, our toaster, etc). My cousins getting married have all been living together for years and don't need kitchen things, their gift lists either want cash for a destination honeymoon with adventures or they want alcohol or gaming accessories that clearly show they have no thoughts of children or child proofing in the foreseeable future. I want to buy bowls or measuring cups or a toaster or towels that a couple will use for years, I don't want to get a hot topic or game stop gift card (literally on the last wedding registry I was scrolling through...!) that will be spent and evaporated on thoughtless consumption of unnecessary randomness.
When my wife and I asked our (then) Anglican priest to preside at our wedding, he said, "Sure, but just so you know, your wedding won't be about *you.* It'll be an open service of the parish. And you don't get to write your own vows. The prayer book has a liturgy for that."
After decades in the secular, make-it-all-up-as-you-go-along limbo of postmodern America, this sounded amazing. It was such a relief not to have to write new vows, and even better, the demand to step into a preexisting, normative institution was presented as a *challenge.* I was being asked to step into something difficult that wasn't made for me, rather than to keep being endlessly mollycoddled. I was finally being treated like a man. Total win.
When my husband and I married, we weren’t in a highly liturgical or “traditional” tradition, but I remember feeling strongly drawn to historic, time-honored vows. Also to the idea of the whole parish being included. Definitely felt like evidence of becoming part of something much larger and older and stronger than just the two of us.
Hi Leah, answering your questions! Really enjoy your Substack:) My husband and I will be celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary in a few weeks. Regarding your 1st question we took our vows very seriously, in fact I think we both would agree that the mass and our vows were the most important aspect of the entire day! We had a great party that lasted all day and night btw but still that sacrament was so special to us and especially to share it publicly. All of our friends ( we graduated from the same Catholic college and shared a large group of friends)were married in a church - not sure if all felt the same about the vows but that’s what most people did back then. Regarding the 2nd question. I was at my much younger cousins wedding about 10 years ago in which she got married in her mom’s backyard by her uncle ( who got a certificate on line ) and they said their own vows. My husband and I both agreed that the vows in particular made the marriage vows seem very trite. The entire affair made us feel very depressed. And it has only gotten worse. I am seeing most of the Catholic children of friends neighbors and family choosing not to marry in a church. Frequently, creating their own vows and having a close friend or relation marry them. More recently a neighbors Catholic raised daughter went off and said their vow alone- this is a first for me. Regarding the 3rd question. I have been made aware of how another’s marriage is my business more recently when dealing with a friends troubled marriage. The friendship is new about 2 years. My friend has shared her frustration that they have tended to not do very much together as a couple. I’ve strongly encouraged getting together as couples which I think this has been very good and an opportunity for growth for them. Regarding 4, on a positive note and a statistic I would follow, is my church welcomed about 25 new families this spring/summer. It’s very encouraging to see so many young families coming regularly to church. I don’t want to sound judgy but when I was raising my kids ( I have 5 the youngest about to turn 19 and oldest is 26) it felt like going to church was more of a check off the box thing for many people - as lots of families dropped off coming as children grew into pre-teen and teenagers. The young families I see at church have a different quality - many dress up or wear veils and even their children seem approach mass differently. Recently, I noticed two children (in the same mass )as they were walking to go to the bathroom along the edges of the church and behind pews stop and genuflect near the alter - mind you this was not crossing the alter directly at all. It was so sweet and wonderful to see ❤️
To me it's difficult to get right to troubleshooting getting people ready for marriage without addressing why a lot of people are not interested in getting married in traditional religious institutions: bans on all forms of contraception, the idealization of sexual purity and virginity, incredible levels of ignorance about women's healthcare, bans on gay relationships, and a lack of support and empathy for anyone who doesn't fall into the SAHM, pro-life, single-income life mold makes it extremely hard for many people to see themselves in a lot of these places. As someone who grew up surrounded by Catholic homeschoolers, i was formed to idealize marriage and to deeply desire to be that kind of wife and mom - and while i still want a family, I feel like the 'price' of marriage is to agree (or pretend) to agree with a bunch of teachings which make little sense to me anymore- so how to get married (within the Church) at this point? It's either basically dissent from the Church and be barred from marriage, or pretend to be in agreement with the Church, do violence to your conscience, and be allowed to marry. Or, of course, seek a third way outside of the Church entirely. Haven't done that yet; still practice and just am in dissent on stuff- don't know what else to do. My point being, there is a 'tax' on marriage in religious circles and it is total assent to the teachings of the institution- it is not an unconditioned good. There's an assumption behind the embrace of marriage as framed in this piece, in my opinion, and that assumption is a pre-existing secure religious identity - if you lack that, how are you supposed to approach marriage?
The breakdown of marriage, the breakdown of community, the breakdown of strong religious allegiance - I don't think that's just neuroticism or lack of self-giving, though it is often painted as such- I think it reflects people choosing to find community and family elsewhere because life within traditional faith institutions is failing them in important ways. There really are massive issues with a lot of traditional religious institutions that make it hard to get excited about being involved- I am assuming that you are imagining that churches and clergy are the primary people supposed to be forming people for marriage? or are you imagining a secular project? if this is not based in churches, how would you mentor people outside of traditional faith traditions and communities to get married? The rise in cohabitation is not just a product of ignorance and selfishness; it's also an extremely legible desire to avoid what often feels like exploitative institutions.
It sounds nice to be interested in forming young people for marriage, but I fear this is ultimately preaching to the choir (though maybe that is your primary intent - but are orthodox religious people really struggling to get married?) If you do have a broader lens, what do we know about how people who are together but not married understand their love and commitment? do we know why they chose not to get married? or is it all reducible to lack of faith, lack of community role models and neuroticism? how would you address the substantive issues young people often have with traditional marriage and places that tout traditional marriage to people who are NOT already within that world? who are the public spokespeople for marriage- do they reflect anyone who is not largely within the traditional gender roles, unconditionally no contraception, disproportionately politically conservative, single-income, upper/middle-income, highly educated, highly religious world? where are the other people?
I don't mean this as a combative post but something felt off about this piece to me and i am trying to put my finger on it.
Your suggested approach of avoiding self-concocted vows and making the wedding a public affair of the community are well taken. Are you familiar with the marriage ceremony of the Eastern Christian (Orthodox) Church?
In the Orthodox rite, only God and the attending community ever actually speak in the service. There are no vows on the part of the couple because it is God who binds us. We are under no delusion about our ability to keep our promises faithfully, so when we behave badly in the marriage, the marriage isn't threatened. Rather, we're beholden to our God, one another, and our community of the faithful to repent. Perhaps this helps explain the fact that our divorce rate (~9%) is reportedly less than half that of the next highest divorce rate (Catholics - 19%+) and a third of most Protestant traditions. It's fascinating--I'd like to hear your take on this.
On vows: My wife and I "wrote our own vows" -- by which I mean that we added a single new line: "through faith and through doubt". We thought this was appropriate as an application of the core philosophy behind the typical "in X and not-X" progression to the modern prevalence/recognition of doubt in the lives of Christians we know. We need each other -- both in our marriage and in the church in general -- to have strong faith when our own wavers. As Bonhoeffer memorably put it:
“The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother; his own heart is uncertain, his brother’s is sure. And that also clarifies the goal of all Christian community: they meet one another as bringers of the message of salvation.”
I am 2.5 years into marriage and really loved/love praying with our vows. I LOVE that they are so simple and yet all encompassing. I think they also are humbling because I know that they require God’s grace to maintain. Being in a community with other friends who made the same vows is also a really beautiful gift & feels like a place of communion within those friendships. I wish I had the mental capacity right now to put into words more of what I mean! But I am really looking forward to reading your two pieces!
About someone else's marriage being my business....Unfortunately, even with my small Episcopal church, couples get into trouble and presto, divorced. As far as I know, no one at church knew till it was too late. I think small church groups of married couples could be helpful, both in noticing each other's needs, listening well, and praying together. Of course these gatherings are spiced up with food, fun, and humor. One thing our church has done is schedule "parents nights out" -- with volunteers having the kids at the church for the evening, so the couples get time just for each other.
lol you already know what I will say for the last item: a rise in monastic vocations. This is really a proxy for something else, which I suspect your neuroticism/conscientiousness metric is also getting at, but I think it's worth saying that our job is not to get married. Our job is to find a path of life-giving love.
When people were talking about a "sex recession," and replying, "It's really a marriage recession!", it seemed similarly important to note that we are ALSO in a "celibacy recession"--people are just isolated, they're not finding paths of unmarried self-gift.
Yes! And I think the celibacy recession goes with the "does your community believe/understand you when you say you're married?" problem.
If your community doesn't have a shared understanding of marriage, it's hard for a friend to say, "Hey bro, I think you should get a ring. I love seeing you together and I think you're ready."
If your community isn't familiar with/enthused about consecrated life, then it's harder to find someone who loves you who says "What I see in you and admire in you makes me wonder if you want to make a gift of your life in _this_ way"
As a privately vowed celibate Catholic layperson who just celebrated 2 years of my vow profession earlier this summer, I agree completely!!!
God bless you and the gift you're making of your life!
Thank you so much! And same for you and your husband and children! Oremus pro invicem!
I had nothing left to add when I read her piece, then I read your comment and realized I definitely had nothing left to add. Brilliant stuff, Eve.
We were foolish young’uns but still knew well enough to have traditional vows at our tiny pre-deployment wedding. And I’m glad we did: the majority of the personal vows I’ve heard over the years wouldn’t be the sorts of thoughts appropriate for a young bride to declare right before sending her husband off to war.
My husband and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary this past spring. As we’ve gotten older, there have been quite a few times it’s seemed appropriate and even welcomed for us to help newly married folks who were struggling in some way. All were fellow military couples and I think our subculture makes it easier and more acceptable to be your brother/sister’s keeper than in society at large. Many of the times we’ve stepped in has actually been my husband needing to help a younger man better understand his role as a brand new father. It seems sometimes young men aren’t thinking about how their actions impact their wives and they need older, more experienced eyes to tell them this or that isn’t right. Quite a few times my husband has had to explain in particular that the wife has become a mother while the husband has merely had a baby since the baby was born during a deployment and the new father has no idea what his wife might be living through at that moment in time. Everything has always been surprisingly well-received and there have been quite a few times over the years a man has approached me to tell me what my husband did to help save/build his marriage.
That's very beautiful, thank you <3
I love that you included the passage from The Betrothed. It's such a funny scene. Though my favorite scene in the novel might be when the holy bishop takes the pastor, Don Abondio, to task for his failures as a pastor whose primary concern should have been for the young couple and not for his own skin.
We just celebrated our 20th anniversary. For us the vows and Mass were the most important part of our wedding day. The reception was a blast, but it was a celebration with our community of the promises we had made and of the new state of life we had now begun.
I have often felt that friends' marriages are my business and have often been a listening ear and sometimes given advice when asked for it. Above all, though, I have supported friends' marriages through prayer. I am certain that my prayers have been answered part of helping friends whose marriages were in serious danger of falling apart.
A big part of me wonders whether people are becoming *less* fit for marriage, or if people who are unfit for marriage are just becoming less likely to make it to the altar (of course, both could be true). When I look at both historic and contemporary statistics on, eg, prevalence of adultery or domestic violence, I have a hard time believing that people are becoming less fit for marriage--it seems like rather many people who were unfit for marriage were just getting married anyway. Of course, I would prefer that everyone who wants to get married is able to become fit for it over time, but realizing you're unfit for marriage and refraining is better than going through with a marriage you can't sustain.
My husband and I were encouraged to meditate and pray with the wedding vows as part of our preparation for marriage, and I’m glad I did. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the popular image of marriage as primarily a celebration of the love you’ve already had rather than a transition to a new kind of life, a change which comes into sharper focus with future changes after marriage (such as having kids). My husband and I have attended exactly one secular wedding ever and we both agreed it was confusing and kind of bizarre; we couldn’t figure out what the point was supposed to be since the whole thing was so customized as to feel almost random.
What pops to mind immediately as a statistic to watch is simply the percentage of people "just living together." Sometimes a couple living together do get married and create a successful marriage, but that kind of "trial marriage" is so different from real marriage that it can be a shock that crashes the relationship. (Unfortunately, I learned this the hard way.) Usually couples living together have a network of friends, but that kind of support can quickly fragment or diminish right when a couple needs more support. Very different from getting married within a church with the whole congregation witnessing and ready to support. Ironically perhaps, my long relationship with a woman turned out to be "for richer or poorer, good health and bad." She died before same-gender relationships became legal, but the unspoken vows held, and both the Congregational and then Episcopal pastors and congregations supported us and helped us get through hard times. (I was also inspired by Barry Kaufman's short video on marriage with the theme, "to love is to be happy with." That covers the petty annoyances all the way up to major challenges.)
❤️
We had a tiny morning wedding, because what we cared about was the sacrament and we were brand new college graduates (we got married six days after my graduation) and couldn't afford a big party.
(Now that we've experienced vibrant Catholic community life, if we were redoing wedding things, we would have done a potluck in the church hall and invited all of our family and friends. Though we also have a lot more friends now.)
The vows mattered to us. (Though my husband repeated the first line of the vows and then didn't hear the priest on the second line that he was supposed to repeat, so he said, "I'm sorry, what?" Which got a big laugh from our guests. 😅)
I've been to several "create your own" weddings and I find it depressing. One couple made a sandwich together during the vows, pledging "their heads" while they added lettuce, and some other parts of themselves to match the other ingredients. One of their vows was "I promise to always bring you hot cocoa when you're sad." I remember ranting to my husband afterwards about that dumb vow that both trivialized the commitment of marriage and trivialized what 'vow' means in general.
Another wedding I attended had readings from The Velveteen Rabbit and Dr. Suess and they made sand art in a vase during the vows.
So many of my cousins who were raised Catholic do these create your own vows and get married by a relative who got an online certificate. They live together before marriage and the wedding seems to be a party of self expression. Some of the parties seem more tacky than others (like the one on Good Friday where the bride had a see through skirt and loved clubbing- I saw the photos, I didn't attend that one *on Good Friday* in a *giant Catholic family*), but these weddings all seem so self focused and not acknowledging that the institution matters or that they have any responsibility to the larger family or community.
I also find the modern couple gift registries depressing. We were poor, young college kids and everything people gave us for our wedding was all we had to set up our first apartment. (I remember eating cereal out of a cake pan that was a wedding gift while we were waiting for the moving truck [full of hand-me-down furniture and dishes from family that we were so thankful for! And are still using 13 years later!].) A few years ago, I sent thank yous for our ten year wedding anniversary to all the people who gave us wedding gifts we were still using regularly ten years later (our pots and pans, our kettle, our toaster, etc). My cousins getting married have all been living together for years and don't need kitchen things, their gift lists either want cash for a destination honeymoon with adventures or they want alcohol or gaming accessories that clearly show they have no thoughts of children or child proofing in the foreseeable future. I want to buy bowls or measuring cups or a toaster or towels that a couple will use for years, I don't want to get a hot topic or game stop gift card (literally on the last wedding registry I was scrolling through...!) that will be spent and evaporated on thoughtless consumption of unnecessary randomness.
When my wife and I asked our (then) Anglican priest to preside at our wedding, he said, "Sure, but just so you know, your wedding won't be about *you.* It'll be an open service of the parish. And you don't get to write your own vows. The prayer book has a liturgy for that."
After decades in the secular, make-it-all-up-as-you-go-along limbo of postmodern America, this sounded amazing. It was such a relief not to have to write new vows, and even better, the demand to step into a preexisting, normative institution was presented as a *challenge.* I was being asked to step into something difficult that wasn't made for me, rather than to keep being endlessly mollycoddled. I was finally being treated like a man. Total win.
When my husband and I married, we weren’t in a highly liturgical or “traditional” tradition, but I remember feeling strongly drawn to historic, time-honored vows. Also to the idea of the whole parish being included. Definitely felt like evidence of becoming part of something much larger and older and stronger than just the two of us.
Yeah, I really liked that the wedding was open to the whole parish. Or anyone who walked past on the street.
Hi Leah, answering your questions! Really enjoy your Substack:) My husband and I will be celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary in a few weeks. Regarding your 1st question we took our vows very seriously, in fact I think we both would agree that the mass and our vows were the most important aspect of the entire day! We had a great party that lasted all day and night btw but still that sacrament was so special to us and especially to share it publicly. All of our friends ( we graduated from the same Catholic college and shared a large group of friends)were married in a church - not sure if all felt the same about the vows but that’s what most people did back then. Regarding the 2nd question. I was at my much younger cousins wedding about 10 years ago in which she got married in her mom’s backyard by her uncle ( who got a certificate on line ) and they said their own vows. My husband and I both agreed that the vows in particular made the marriage vows seem very trite. The entire affair made us feel very depressed. And it has only gotten worse. I am seeing most of the Catholic children of friends neighbors and family choosing not to marry in a church. Frequently, creating their own vows and having a close friend or relation marry them. More recently a neighbors Catholic raised daughter went off and said their vow alone- this is a first for me. Regarding the 3rd question. I have been made aware of how another’s marriage is my business more recently when dealing with a friends troubled marriage. The friendship is new about 2 years. My friend has shared her frustration that they have tended to not do very much together as a couple. I’ve strongly encouraged getting together as couples which I think this has been very good and an opportunity for growth for them. Regarding 4, on a positive note and a statistic I would follow, is my church welcomed about 25 new families this spring/summer. It’s very encouraging to see so many young families coming regularly to church. I don’t want to sound judgy but when I was raising my kids ( I have 5 the youngest about to turn 19 and oldest is 26) it felt like going to church was more of a check off the box thing for many people - as lots of families dropped off coming as children grew into pre-teen and teenagers. The young families I see at church have a different quality - many dress up or wear veils and even their children seem approach mass differently. Recently, I noticed two children (in the same mass )as they were walking to go to the bathroom along the edges of the church and behind pews stop and genuflect near the alter - mind you this was not crossing the alter directly at all. It was so sweet and wonderful to see ❤️
To me it's difficult to get right to troubleshooting getting people ready for marriage without addressing why a lot of people are not interested in getting married in traditional religious institutions: bans on all forms of contraception, the idealization of sexual purity and virginity, incredible levels of ignorance about women's healthcare, bans on gay relationships, and a lack of support and empathy for anyone who doesn't fall into the SAHM, pro-life, single-income life mold makes it extremely hard for many people to see themselves in a lot of these places. As someone who grew up surrounded by Catholic homeschoolers, i was formed to idealize marriage and to deeply desire to be that kind of wife and mom - and while i still want a family, I feel like the 'price' of marriage is to agree (or pretend) to agree with a bunch of teachings which make little sense to me anymore- so how to get married (within the Church) at this point? It's either basically dissent from the Church and be barred from marriage, or pretend to be in agreement with the Church, do violence to your conscience, and be allowed to marry. Or, of course, seek a third way outside of the Church entirely. Haven't done that yet; still practice and just am in dissent on stuff- don't know what else to do. My point being, there is a 'tax' on marriage in religious circles and it is total assent to the teachings of the institution- it is not an unconditioned good. There's an assumption behind the embrace of marriage as framed in this piece, in my opinion, and that assumption is a pre-existing secure religious identity - if you lack that, how are you supposed to approach marriage?
The breakdown of marriage, the breakdown of community, the breakdown of strong religious allegiance - I don't think that's just neuroticism or lack of self-giving, though it is often painted as such- I think it reflects people choosing to find community and family elsewhere because life within traditional faith institutions is failing them in important ways. There really are massive issues with a lot of traditional religious institutions that make it hard to get excited about being involved- I am assuming that you are imagining that churches and clergy are the primary people supposed to be forming people for marriage? or are you imagining a secular project? if this is not based in churches, how would you mentor people outside of traditional faith traditions and communities to get married? The rise in cohabitation is not just a product of ignorance and selfishness; it's also an extremely legible desire to avoid what often feels like exploitative institutions.
It sounds nice to be interested in forming young people for marriage, but I fear this is ultimately preaching to the choir (though maybe that is your primary intent - but are orthodox religious people really struggling to get married?) If you do have a broader lens, what do we know about how people who are together but not married understand their love and commitment? do we know why they chose not to get married? or is it all reducible to lack of faith, lack of community role models and neuroticism? how would you address the substantive issues young people often have with traditional marriage and places that tout traditional marriage to people who are NOT already within that world? who are the public spokespeople for marriage- do they reflect anyone who is not largely within the traditional gender roles, unconditionally no contraception, disproportionately politically conservative, single-income, upper/middle-income, highly educated, highly religious world? where are the other people?
I don't mean this as a combative post but something felt off about this piece to me and i am trying to put my finger on it.
Your suggested approach of avoiding self-concocted vows and making the wedding a public affair of the community are well taken. Are you familiar with the marriage ceremony of the Eastern Christian (Orthodox) Church?
In the Orthodox rite, only God and the attending community ever actually speak in the service. There are no vows on the part of the couple because it is God who binds us. We are under no delusion about our ability to keep our promises faithfully, so when we behave badly in the marriage, the marriage isn't threatened. Rather, we're beholden to our God, one another, and our community of the faithful to repent. Perhaps this helps explain the fact that our divorce rate (~9%) is reportedly less than half that of the next highest divorce rate (Catholics - 19%+) and a third of most Protestant traditions. It's fascinating--I'd like to hear your take on this.
On vows: My wife and I "wrote our own vows" -- by which I mean that we added a single new line: "through faith and through doubt". We thought this was appropriate as an application of the core philosophy behind the typical "in X and not-X" progression to the modern prevalence/recognition of doubt in the lives of Christians we know. We need each other -- both in our marriage and in the church in general -- to have strong faith when our own wavers. As Bonhoeffer memorably put it:
“The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother; his own heart is uncertain, his brother’s is sure. And that also clarifies the goal of all Christian community: they meet one another as bringers of the message of salvation.”
I am 2.5 years into marriage and really loved/love praying with our vows. I LOVE that they are so simple and yet all encompassing. I think they also are humbling because I know that they require God’s grace to maintain. Being in a community with other friends who made the same vows is also a really beautiful gift & feels like a place of communion within those friendships. I wish I had the mental capacity right now to put into words more of what I mean! But I am really looking forward to reading your two pieces!
About someone else's marriage being my business....Unfortunately, even with my small Episcopal church, couples get into trouble and presto, divorced. As far as I know, no one at church knew till it was too late. I think small church groups of married couples could be helpful, both in noticing each other's needs, listening well, and praying together. Of course these gatherings are spiced up with food, fun, and humor. One thing our church has done is schedule "parents nights out" -- with volunteers having the kids at the church for the evening, so the couples get time just for each other.