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What Being Married Is Really Like
Young people sometimes have such rose-tinted glasses about being married that they plan more for the wedding than the marriage! Columnist Dave Barry recently suggested that the vows to be exchanged should be more realistic as to what married life was going to be like.
"Are you, John, troubled by the thought that no matter how large your bathroom is, your half will consist of three square inches, and even that will soon be taken over entirely by the Invasion of the Skin Care Products?"
"Do you, Mary, honestly think you will ever again be able to watch a TV program without John here scanning all of the other 57 cable channels roughly every 30 seconds in case there's something better on, such as a replay of the 1978 Super Bowl?"
As married folks we laugh — but we know how true it is that being married is far different than getting married. This is why preachers sometimes advise young Christians who are thinking about marriage to define just what marriage is from the Bible view. It's a real eye opener!
Is marriage defined as being in love? Seems to be more than that. Is it sex? It is more, or perhaps we should say, more basic than that. Is it living together? More basic than that.
It is primarily an agreement or vow. A man and woman are promising to each other and to God that they will be husband and wife — and only to each other throughout their lives. It is this that will keep them together through the changes that life brings, as they find out what marriage is really like. If the couple understands this then whatever problems come as they are "richer or poorer, in sickness and in health" they will deal with them together, just as they have promised. They will be determined all the more to, "love his wife even as himself and the wife see that she reverence her husband" (Ephesians 5:33).
