What’s happening to marriage?

Today we shall begin our discussion on Selwyn Hughes (SH) book- “Marriage as God intended”. This chapter addresses why marriages break up.  Please note that throughout the book discussion over the next couple of weeks we would be picking key points from the chapters whilst adding in our own thoughts and not rewriting the whole book so I’ll highly recommended like I did last time that you get the book.

Let’s go there…. (I just had to chip that in...lol)

Ok so I won’t go into all the scary statistics but it is not news today that a lot of marriages are in trouble. We have all heard about Kim K's 72 days of marriage resulting in divorce. What a shame! A lot of marriages around us are breaking up and the numbers keep increasing by the day. Which worries me because it shows that marriage and family are becoming less and less important to people.

SH highlights 4 main reasons why marriages are going downhill:

1. Society’s increasing acceptance of temporary marriages

A long long time ago, society did not approve of unmarried couples living together or people getting divorced. This is not the case anymore. It is no longer a case of “till death do us part” but rather it is now “till divorce us do part”. A number of people enter into marriage with divorce as an “escape route” at the back of their minds you know, just in case the marriage doesn’t “work out”. SH says "there is something about holding in the mind the idea of an “escape route” that is antithetical to a deep and fulfilling relationship."

Nowadays, our society has adopted a throwaway mentality. From throwaway products to throwaway friendship which has now produced throwaway marriages.

2. Inadequate preparation of marriages

A number of people about to get married do not get the adequate preparation required either from their parents or church. Most people spend most of their time and resources preparing for the wedding day but cannot be bothered to prepare for the lifelong journey ahead of them.

Society, churches or even the courts should give more attention to the subject of premarital counseling before conducting wedding ceremonies. This will at least force couples to attend these sessions. SH personally would not conduct a wedding ceremony until the couple attend his premarital counseling sessions. He says apart from adequately preparing a couple for marriage, premarital counseling also helps ascertain if a couple should be getting married in the first place, or maybe postpone the wedding date till later.

If only more parents and churches will treat this matter of premarital counselling more seriously and enforce these classes. Churches and religious bodies are not meant to simply conduct weddings but to nurture marriages and reinforce family life.

  3. Sex before marriage-

oh yesss…the controversial subject. This is one area where more and more single people dabble into and say “what’s the big deal?” Even professing Christians are not “carrying last” when it comes to premarital sex.

SH discovered during counseling sessions with married couples that about 30% of couples he counselled, whose marital problems didn’t have to do with finances or in law palaver or the usual factors had to do with premarital sex. These couples never dealt with the spiritual principle they had broken during their courtship days. 

SH pointed out that fornication, (yes lets call it by it's name) undermines the very foundation on which a marriage must be built and unless necessary and important steps are taken to clear up the conflict which the act of fornication creates, then the marriage is wide open to problems. 

The bible clearly speaks against fornication/sexual impurity. For reference you can check 1 Corinthians 6:9-20, Galatians 5:19-21, Ephesians 5:3-12.

Many couples assume that even if they were involved in premarital sex and they still get married the matter is resolved. Unfortunately once a spiritual principle has been violated it cannot just be swept under the carpet but must be dealt with by confession and repentance. This involves confessing the sin to God, asking for forgiveness and asking each other for forgiveness. SH says this may sound simple but "when done in true humility and genuine repentance it removes the seeds of disintegration that lie at the base of the marriage". This brings a new atmosphere into the marriage where trust rules.

4. Changing roles

One of the most destructive elements in a marriage is the failure of the partners involved to identify, determine and mutually assign areas of responsibility. Nowadays wives are taking over the fundamental roles of husbands, and vice versa. God gave husbands the power to direct the affairs of the family, be the head of the home and leader of the relationship while wives are meant to submit to that leadership. This is another highly debated topic but will be addressed in the next chapter.

5. Romantic love- not enough

The last cause SH identified as contributing to the downfall of marriages is the attempt to build marriage on nothing more than romantic love. Don’t get it twisted, romantic love is important in a marriage BUT romantic love by itself is not a sufficiently strong base on which to build a marriage.

Marriage requires a quality of love that can stand up to the tests and difficulties it produces. When you ask some people “so why are u getting married”, they say “oh we love each other”, “I like the way he/she makes me feel”. I say “Shuo” (in my Nigerian accent), are you for real? My friend, you are on a looong thing o!

SH says when people stand at the altar expressing their vows, there is no assurance that five years later they will feel the same kind of love they felt as they walked up (or is it down) the aisle. The love that survives the problems of marriage (trust me, there are problems in marriage) is a love that has in it a degree of commitment and not just a flush of feeling. Marriage requires hard work and unfortunately many people in today’s society are not accustomed to working through problems (this takes us back to that escape route mentality). 

This type of love is called Agape love also known as unconditional love also known as God’s love. God has laid out a lot of good stuff in the bible on how to build a good and happy marriage and ours can be a happy one if we learn to practice the biblical principles that relate to it.

So what other reasons do you think result to marriages breaking up? One that readily comes to mind is not doing your due diligence before getting hitched. Checking out the person’s background and family, discovering how your "love" deals with different situation in life and also how they handle money. 


Please share your thoughts on the points above and also any other reasons you can think of. Thanks! 




photo credits- google images