Well, boy, was I wrong.
I started seeing the article pop up in my own social media feeds. To make matters worse, people were praising the article for the truth and wisdom it held. Honestly I was perplexed. Not only did I find it to be another blog post to be fueled mostly by an unsupported intuition but I found it not helpful, if not dangerous to actually believe. The article in question is none other than "Marriage Isn't Hard".
Don't get me wrong, I think I understand what the writer is trying to say. But reading to understand intentions is different then reading what is actually stated. We mean a lot of things but sometimes we say none of them.
If you have found yourself at this blog post I want you to know I am writing this because I care for you. I want you to be challenged to think critically, especially about sacred things. I want to help build you up so you can have a solid foundation by which you think about and engage the world and society. Also, Mrs. Kali, if you somehow find yourself at this post, I merely want to let this serve as a notice of how things could have been discussed better. That being said I want to show you why I found Mrs. Kali's article unhelpful and dangerous. I'm afraid my style might be a bit formal- I will first review parts of the post and then conclude with my overall thoughts.
Post Analysis
The first thing I feel I must address is in paragraph 3 where Mrs. Kali defends her authority to write on the topic; "You might say, oh Kali, you have only been married 10 months so you just wait- your time is coming. First off, people need to stop saying things like that." She then goes on to list some tough experiences that she and her husband have dealt with in their 10 months. I'm not bringing this up to invalidate her experiences but to simply point out that there is a humility in realizing that it's only been 10 months. Imagine what 5 years will be like if the first 10 months are full of growing experiences! But this has little significance to the rest of the post because she does not dive into experential evidence of why marriage is not hard but into a rational discourse based on theological principle.
I agree with her that to be able to discuss theological principles and topics age and experience may not matter if you are studied in the topic. Here is where I find the grounds for some correction- it is in her handling of principles that I believe she misinterprets things categorically. Let us go further into her post for examples.
In paragraph 5 she states "But I just can't imagine 'hard' being the picture that God intends to paint as the love between Christ and the Church, and it's not the one we should adopt." The reason why this quote is hard for me to swallow is because I do not actually see it supported in the Bible. For instance, if marriage is supposed to be a picture of Christ and the church then there is much suffering involved. A lot of suffering, even the most beneficial and sacrificial kind, is hard. Usually the best things in life are the hard things.
But I believe there might be a categorical error that is not being stated in the post- confusing the form (separated from other variables) with the particular (connected to other variables). Mrs. Kali may be referring to marriage qua marriage, or marriage before the fall. I'm inferencing this from the next sentence where she seems to be wanting to separate marriage from "sin and brokenness". This is fine, but not all that helpful. This is because the only glimpses we see of marriage untainted by sin and brokenness is before the fall in two short chapters in Genesis and after glorification in Revelation at the marriage feast. Even then, we are given abstract and vague descriptions of what this might be like. There is still discussion whether these times were and are going to be absent of difficulty.
In the next paragraph Mrs. Kali states, "Singles, don't believe that marriage is another hard thing to do on a list of hard things. Don't fear the beautiful union of marriage because the concept of 'denying yourself, and taking up your cross daily' (Luke 9:23) will be tested in its truest form. And if you are married, quit moving blame from your sin to the institute of marriage." The first issue that I find with this statement is that I do not know of any single people where this is the thing keeping them from marriage. Second issue is that Mrs. Kali seems to be admitting that it is hard? Denying yourself and taking up your cross daily does sound like a hard endeavor, especially if it is going to be tested "in its truest form". The last issue I will mention with this is that I also do not know any married couples that use the phrase "marriage is hard" as a way to blame-shift sin to marriage. When most people say marriage is hard it's because they are finding new issues that singleness simply does not have. But more on this later.
The next paragraph you find similar puzzling sentiments. "It's as if we believe that all of our sin and selfishness we fought our entire lives to lay at the feet of Jesus, didn't exist until 'I do.'" Again, I do not know anyone who has actually believed this. The rest of the paragraph, though, rings true and discusses what marriage does and what makes it difficult. Another thing that she does not mention in this paragraph is that marriage brings out a depth to several areas of our life that would not be possible without marriage. For instance, I relate to her sentiment that I am the same sinful person that I was before I was married. One of those areas of sin is selfishness. But as a single person my selfishness was simply not challenged as it was in marriage. I did not live with someone whom I was responsible for leading them or make sure they were loved. For a single guy I was pretty selfless of my time and resources. Marriage took this to the next level. My selflessness as a single was nowhere close to enough to fulfill the responsibilities that I have as a husband.
Paragraph 8 is awesome. Nothing else need be said.
I believe paragraph 9 was the part in which I was most frustrated. Mrs. Kali continues, "If our reflection of this love is 'it's hard', we not only rob ourselves of the joy found in displaying the love of Christ but we honestly downplay the beauty of it. Marriage is a window from which we have the opportunity to shine the glory of God." If this sentence does not impress you as obtuse then we may need to have a different conversation about the gospel. But the main question to ask yourself here is how does something being difficult rob the joy out of it? Experentially speaking, some of the hardest things I have done are the things I love the most. Some of the things I love the most required me to do hard things. If marriage cost nothing, what would that say of its worth?
A friend of mine has recently officiated some weddings and he has been helping preach at his church while they go through Revelation. One conclusion that he recently stressed in a wedding was that a lot of the beauty displayed in a ceremony is the beauty of the bride herself. He stated that the radiance and the white dress is a taste of what Christ has done for the church- giving the church his righteousness through his sacrifice. Marriage is a window that gives us the opportunity to shine the glory of God. The Father that sent his Son to give himself as a sacrifice for his bride. The difficulties in marriage combine with the sublime moments to "point to the heavenly and perfect union we long for in Christ". The difficult or hard nature of marriage does not subtract from it.
The blog post was edited at some point where she deleted much of a concluding paragraph and inserted her end note in its place. In this paragraph she states, "When we experience hardship within marriage, it is not because of marriage, it is because of sin." Here is where we find another categorical error. It is mostly expressed in the fallacy of composition; there are parts of marriage that are hard because of sin but that is not the whole difficulty of marriage. The problem is that the writer does not qualify any of these statements to make room for difficulties in marriage that are not sinful. I would not call miscommunication, misunderstandings, missing your spouse when you are apart, sacrificing things I desire to serve my spouse, deeper self-discovery through marriage, etc sinful things. I could go on about the inherent difficulties that come up when you take two subjective beings that have spent the beginning of their lives apart and you put them in a relationship that, Lord willing, only happens once in a lifetime. The process of two becoming one is not automatic or easy.
Summary and Conclusion
I alluded in the beginning that this whole post could be a case of well-intentioned thoughts that were simply not communicated precisely. In that case those more sympathetic to the original post may think I have wasted my time. But I do not think this is the case. When dealing with something as sacred as marriage I believe we can do ourselves a disservice by selling it short. The spirit of the article, to maintain the beauty of marriage, is something I share with Mrs. Kali. But the way she goes about trying to defend it I believe actually weakens it.
Some may scoff at the use of "categorical errors". But the reason why I believe this is important in discussing a philosophical/theological principle is because we need to make sure we are clear in what we are speaking about and the purpose that it serves. If the labor of studying theology and philosophy is to better understand and live into reality, then we need to do our best to not mix what is with what was or what will be. We are people living after the Fall and before Glorification. Understanding marriage qua marriage may be helpful in some regards but we are given way more information, analogies, and exhortation on marriage in the present, sinful world.
Finally, I reject a couple of the core ideas in the post as they were communicated. Marriage is not solely hard because of sin. Marriage is not robbed of its joys and symbolism of the Gospel because it is hard. In fact it is quite the opposite.
All that being said, it is almost as if Mrs. Kali and I are talking about two very different things. I must confess that I am naive on the topic of marriage by itself. I do not think I have ever seen, experienced, or read about marriage separated from hardship, sin, brokenness, and the need for forgiveness. Most pastors and authors make the observation that marriage must be important to God because the Bible begins and ends with a wedding. But we forget that the wedding at the end is the redemption of the fall of the first.
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