The Hollywoodization of America

I just started attending a new church, and funny enough, the past two sermons have been about marriage. I've discussed before my cynicism about marriage. So to hear that it can not only work, but also be this beautiful, fruitful, peaceful thing... well, let's just say I'm beginning to warm up to the idea again.

There are three specific details mentioned in these sermons that completely shook the core of my previous conceptions about marriage. No matter what your spiritual beliefs are, I'm confident you can learn from them as well. I will be paraphrasing the words of Gary Thomas and Bob Bouwer, respectively, who gave the sermons. Of course, they tell it much better than I do, so if you'd like to download the podcasts, you can do so here.

Check this out...

1) Gary Thomas says that the idea of "falling in love" with someone before marrying them, didn't even exist until about the 1400s. The concept of romantic love was later perpetuated by the romantic poets like Shakespeare, and of course now is all over the place in today's American culture. But for thousands of years, before the 1400s, people married solely out of natural necessity rather than love. This puts into perspective the way our selection process has drastically changed, and makes the idea of marrying simply for romantic love, seem kind of silly.

2) Similarly, according to Bob Bouwer, there was a recent study done on Christian marriages in the U.S. versus India. In all of the American marriages studied, the couples had gone through the process of dating, falling in love and then choosing to get married. The Indian marriages, however, were all pre-arranged. There was no dating or courting; some of them didn't even meet until their wedding day. And according to this study, 41% of American Christian marriages end in divorce. The Indian marriages? Less than 2%. Unbelievable. This goes to show that our reasons for marrying may be just a tad off base. Bouwer put it this way: "The commitment should always come first. Then the love."

3) You know those big swooping feelings you get when you first fall in love with someone? How you think about them constantly and you get butterflies in your stomach and all that jazz? Well, according to Gary Thomas, it is a proven, scientific, biological fact that those feelings inevitably go away after only 12 to 18 months. So that means, if you're choosing or have chosen to marry someone because you've never felt that way about anyone in your whole life, then you will surely be disappointed when, after a couple of years, that feeling disappears. Thomas's point is that our culture's expectations are out of whack. We focus too much on looking for that perfect someone who will sweep us off of our feet, when the reality is, that person will only end up falling off of the superficial pedestal we have placed them on.

What's refreshing about knowing these facts is that it shifts our lofty ideas of what marriage should be. I think we have been so Hollywood-ized, brainwashed to believe in soulmates and love at first sight. So sometimes, when reality turns out to be anything less than that perfect picture, we think we've made a mistake. Like we've chosen the wrong mate and therefore need to find the right one. And the downward spiral begins.

I know not every marriage is like this. I personally know many married couples who have not fallen into this spiral, because they understand the idea of commitment-over-love. I want to congratulate these couples, and also emulate them. So beginning this week, I am going to highlight some of the strongest married couples I know. They will be sharing how they found each other, and how they stick together even during life's most unstickable moments. I think everyone—married or not—will have a lot to learn from these amazing people. So stay tuned!