Published
February 17, 1983. One of the reasons some people may
be confused and down on marriage at the present time is the bad rap marriage
and family often receive from the press. Whenever something goes wrong, we hear
about it form a variety of sources. For those, however, who find marriage and
family to be worthwhile, there is little attention in the public media.
Dr. John S. Compere recently
addressed this trend in an essay titled “Who Speaks for Marriage?” Dr. Compere
is a clinical psychologist and marriage counselor at Bowman Gray School of
Medicine at Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He wrote:
Who speaks for marriage? Divorce rate figures remain
distressingly high and threaten to climb even higher as social and
psychological actions against it continue to shrink. Serial monogamy, it is
reasoned, is better than no monogamy at all. But is the concept of marriage not
fundamentally altered by this glib assumption?
Who speaks for marriage? Newspaper stories abound on the
gory events which occur all too frequently in unhappy marriages. A husband,
enraged, kills wife and children, and then himself . . . Sickened, we wonder is
marriage after all, an unworkable system?
Who speaks for marriage? Young people by the thousands,
disillusioned by the lack of genuinely caring relationships between their
parents and within other marriages they know intimately, are deciding that marriage
is not a viable option. It appears almost as if the marriage vows themselves
unleash demonic forces to poison and maim the tender feelings which led to the
marriage altar.
Who speaks for marriage? We do. With our dauntless hope,
despite all our disappointments and our dogged conviction that, despite all our
failures, that marriage can be a fit place for human beings to live.
Who speaks for marriage? We do. With our determination to
keep on working at our problems instead of running from them. With our
willingness to let our weaknesses show and to let our hopes for the future be
known without fear of being ridiculed.
Who speaks for marriage? We do. With our unpaid bills and
our unmade beds, with our couch recovered instead of buying a new one, with our
bank loans renewed after paying the interest, and with our next vacation plans
cancelled because a child’s teeth need braces.
Who speaks for marriage? We do and millions of other couples
like us, who continue to believe, years after romantic illusions have faded, in
the simple promise we made and make; “When you need me, I will be there.”
Who speaks for marriage? We do, my dear. We do.
I believe Dr. Compere has captured
in a few short lines the essence of commitment and sacrifice that is essential
for a fulfilling marriage and rewarding family life today. And now here is an
invitation to you, like Dr. Compere, to express your views about marriage.
Who, among the readers of this
column, is willing to speak out for marriage? What is it you like best about
being married? Write a few short paragraphs on the topic, “I speak for
marriage. Let your husband or wife read what you write and then mail it to me.
One or two of the best ones will be selected and printed in future columns.
In “Down Shoe Lane” James Douglas
noted “There is in marriage an energy and impulse of joy that lasts as long as
life and that survives all sorts of suffering and distress and weariness. The
triumph of marriage over all its antagonists is almost inexplicable.”
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