The Ultimate Relationship

(Part 3 of 3) I will recap my points from the previous posts, then in my blog I will move on to other topics.

Marriage, perhaps because it is under attack, has been promoted by well-meaning groups as a kind of Ultimate Relationship that fulfills all needs, has no limitations, and reaches all possibilities of human excellence. It has been promoted as a kind of Rosetta Stone to unlock the meaning of every aspect of Reality, a medicine to cure every spiritual and societal illness. I believe that this is an immoderate viewpoint.

A moderate assessment shows that marriage is good and holy and essential to human society and flourishing, but that it also places impediments and limitations on a relationship, by its very nature. To be a good husband to a woman means I cannot be a certain kind of friend for her. She must go to someone else for that kind of friendship. Being married to a woman means I should not be in a spiritual relationship with her. She must go to someone else for a spiritual relationship. The contrary is true also. To be a certain kind of friend for someone means that I cannot also be in the role of spouse or partner for that person.

We already intuit this in the case of kindred. Being a brother for my sister means I cannot be her husband. That would be Gross. But, in our time, we have lost the distinctions of marriage, spiritual affinity, and friendship. Our culture tries to force sexual relationships to fulfill the roles of all three at once. We are looking for one person to be our rock, our everything. We seek it because the movies, songs, and poems tell us to, and our peers and relatives say so.

What is the point of all of this? I find that the overvaluation of marriage, especially among the single, who don't see the reality from the inside, has lead to a kind of idolization resulting in envy and verging on despair. This sort of idolization causes some to grasp for (potential) spouses with an unhealthy attachment, meanwhile neglecting the other persons with whom God might be calling them to practice total self-gift. The (moderate) truth is that we are forced, in this short life, to practice total self-gift within the confines of limited relationships that cannot completely fulfill us, and marriage (like the relations of friends and kindred) is one of these limited relationships. To view it otherwise is to place it in a position that can only justly be occupied by our relationship with Christ, who is the only One with whom we can be in the Ultimate Relationship on either side of eternity.

In Scripture, Christ speaks to us in the language of all three: brother, friend, spouse. This is not insignificant. Each of these limited relationships gives us a glimpse into the reality of our relationship with Him.

Marriage and True Friendship

(Part 2 of 3) I was wrong to say that spouses are not entirely capable of true friendship. What I mean is that marriage, by its nature, excludes some of the equally excellent possibilities of true friendship. No one relationship, save our relationship with Christ, can exhibit all possibilities of friendship and love. To say yes to one relationship model with a person is to say no to other possibilities that are equally excellent. Marriage, by its nature, is a cleaving of two persons, who become one flesh, which inherently excludes some possibilities, but opens up other possibilities. In the same way, disinterested friendship is a bond that allows for the flourishing of possibilities that are diminished by the kind of attachment found in marriage. Thus, I would say that marriage has the possibility of becoming a true friendship, but that this true friendship is nonetheless limited by the very thing that makes marriage itself excellent: the unity of spouses and the procreation of children.

It was not God's plan that one human relationship should achieve all possibilities of excellence. This is why Adam and Eve were commanded to multiply. It would otherwise have been sufficient for Adam and Eve to be fruitful only: to have one male and one female child, who would marry and repeat the process. But we see, in God's plan, the desire for an abundance of persons, so that societies might flourish in the world, not merely man and woman and their nuclear family. Society consists of a variety and layering of relationships, each with its own kind of excellence and depth, to the exclusion of others. The conjugal dyad is not the crowning achievement, but it is the noble beginning of it all, and all ultimately points to our union with God in heaven.

As an example to show that there are a variety of relationships with excellence, which exclude other possibilities, St. Thomas Aquinas explains that those in a spiritual relationship with each other (through sponsorship in baptism or confirmation) cannot (validly or licitly) marry each other. And, if those who are married enter into a spiritual relationship, it is an impediment to the marriage, though it does not dissolve it. The reason why, according to Thomas, is that "spiritual relationship is by itself a sufficient reason for friendship", and, if you're looking to marry someone, you need to seek intimacy and friendship with someone else.

Valuing Marriage, Family, and Friendship

(Part 1 of 3) Marriage, family, and friendship together form a threefold foundation upon which society flourishes. In our time, all three are under assault. 

There was the Protestant/Puritan/Victorian prudishness, which viewed the body and sexuality as dirty and animalistic and which suppressed and hid this part of our nature (with some exceptions, such as outdoor nude swimming and bathing, which is too much for even our "sexually liberated" era). 

Then there was the Sexual Revolution, which was a reaction against this, oddly keeping the belief that the body and sexuality are dirty and animalistic, but going to the opposite extreme of reveling in it by behaving as animals and exhibiting and using the body as an object. Following this was the rapid destruction of the family and the ubiquitous practice of perverse, selfish, and disordered sexual acts. 

Following this, in my opinion, was another reaction, in many Catholic and other Christian circles, an overvaluation of family, marriage, and sexuality, which has caused its own problems. What are some examples of what I mean? The notion that sexual intimacy is the only or the highest form of intimacy. The framing of all Truth through the lens of marriage and sexuality.

What we need, then, is a solid valuation of marriage, family, and friendship, neither undervaluing, nor overvaluing, any one of the three. In my opinion, the overvaluing of marriage and sexuality actually worsens the assault against true marriage and sexuality. If in our society the sexual relationship is considered the highest and only true form of love and intimacy, and friendship is reduced to a kind of second-rate option, it is then no surprise that those who are not called to true marriage will be under heavy pressure to create false visions of marriage and sexuality, since love and self-gift are the vocation of all people. The best way to defend marriage and sexuality, as the Catechism suggests, is the cultivation of and flourishing of intimate (but chaste and disinterested) friendship.

Marital/sexual relationships should be valued, then, but moderately, in their place. The same applies to familial relationships and friendship. We need all three in order to flourish as a society. We must recognize the excellence and the limitations of all three.

Friendship is limited in that friends cannot achieve total unity, for they are not one flesh. Marriage is limited in that spouses cannot achieve total disinterestedness with one another, because they are one flesh. As it turns out, the excellence of each is also the limitation. Friendship is at its highest in disinterested love which gives birth to virtue and truth; marriage is at its highest in unitive love, which procreates new life. It is for this reason that there are some things a person can say and do with his/her spouse, but not with a friend; and there are some things he/she would say or do with a friend, but not with his/her spouse. (I contend, against what some would say, that spouses are not entirely capable of true friendship.)

Yet, both friendship and marriage, properly lived, are images of Charity, of Christ's sacrificial love. Only in our relationship with Christ can we achieve both total friendship and total unity. And the world needs examples of true marriage and true friendship to guide us to that end toward which we were made.