I came across this quotation in a book recently:
"I didn't marry you because you were perfect. I didn't even marry you because I loved you. I married you because you gave me a promise. That promise made up for your faults. And the promise I gave you made up for mine. Two imperfect people got married and it was the promise that made the marriage. And when our children were growing up, it wasn't a house that protected them; and it wasn't our love that protected them -- it was that promise." Thorton Wilder, The Skin of Our Teeth
That second sentence is jarring; to think that a man would enter marriage without love as his primary motivation. But think about it: who, especially when marrying relatively young, knows a thing of love? We understand tender affections, burning lusts, deep fondness. Those come naturally. But love is something proven across years, through deep pains and disappointments. One can feel tender affections toward a slumbering newborn. One loves a toddler who just smeared his own poop on his bedroom wall. Love is predicated upon the promise, whether biological and social as parenting often is or willfully given in betrothal. Tender affections may very well give rise to a profound love, but they are not a mark of love's genuineness. (I have felt very fond of and close to literary figures in my life. And even movie characters. That is never love).
In the contemporary Western context the promise often finds first utterance under the flushed cheeks of affections. We are motivated to commitment because of that feeling of pleasure and joy. Who wants that secure, comforting embrace to ever end? We will make it ours eternally. We promise.
The question immediately rises: to what are we promising ourselves? You see, if one soul believes that the ensuing love must be encompassing all human experiences, including pain and sacrifice, yet the other believes herself committing to a perpetually state of tender affections, then the promise itself is a dead letter. Then the currency of human relationship becomes nearly worthless, and silence is simply easier than carting around the huge bundles of cash which every sentence, every terse conversation requires.
That second sentence is jarring; to think that a man would enter marriage without love as his primary motivation. But think about it: who, especially when marrying relatively young, knows a thing of love? We understand tender affections, burning lusts, deep fondness. Those come naturally. But love is something proven across years, through deep pains and disappointments. One can feel tender affections toward a slumbering newborn. One loves a toddler who just smeared his own poop on his bedroom wall. Love is predicated upon the promise, whether biological and social as parenting often is or willfully given in betrothal. Tender affections may very well give rise to a profound love, but they are not a mark of love's genuineness. (I have felt very fond of and close to literary figures in my life. And even movie characters. That is never love).
In the contemporary Western context the promise often finds first utterance under the flushed cheeks of affections. We are motivated to commitment because of that feeling of pleasure and joy. Who wants that secure, comforting embrace to ever end? We will make it ours eternally. We promise.
The question immediately rises: to what are we promising ourselves? You see, if one soul believes that the ensuing love must be encompassing all human experiences, including pain and sacrifice, yet the other believes herself committing to a perpetually state of tender affections, then the promise itself is a dead letter. Then the currency of human relationship becomes nearly worthless, and silence is simply easier than carting around the huge bundles of cash which every sentence, every terse conversation requires.
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