Several years ago I read a news article about something called an open marriage. I had never heard of such a thing and to this day I have had no more encounters with such a concept than that one news article.
I am actually horrified at the very idea of the definition of an open marriage. Aparently it means both husband and wife are free to have affairs with anyone they want. The very idea goes against everything I hold marriage to be.
Long before I was anything but a professing Christian, marriage was something special. I know I've written on marriage many times in the past. I can't even recall what all I wrote about it but I remember writing article after article on marriage. I think I've written about open marriages before. But...marriage deserves to be written on again. In fact it deserves to be written on often. It should be written on daily even.
Marriage is...
Amazing.
Marriage is...
Holy.
Marriage is...something special in this fallen world. Scripture paints the picture for us, telling us that men should leave their parents and cleave to their wives:
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. Genesis 2:24 ESV
With different verses Scripture paints such a beautiful picture showing us that marriage is honorable before all (Hebrews 13:4), that is represents the relationship between Christ and His people (Ephesians 5:22-33).
Marriage is honorable when it is kept between a man and a woman...one man, one woman...regardless of the spiritual condition of the soul of the two people that are married. Marriage is a remarkable thing that takes two people and makes them one person in two bodies.
I know what life is like without a husband. I remember what it was like. I faced life alone. No matter what happened, no matter who was around or how much those people loved me, I still faced life alone. I worked alone to tend to my home. I faced trials and struggles alone. I made choices alone. It was me...always me...alone. I was one person going through life, amidst family that loved me, but still, when all was said and done, I was alone.
Life is not like that in marriage. I know. I live life everyday married to the greatest man on earth, at least he is to me. I'm not the ideal wife but he loves me anyway. I fail and he loves me anyway. I stumble and he loves me. I am me and...he loves me.
My days, weeks, years...even moments...are no longer faced alone. I still have a multitude of family that loves me. I still love all of them. I know I could call any of them and they'd be there for me. That part of life is the same with or without a husband but...I am different with a husband. I am no longer me. Now I am my husband's wife.
Gone are the days when I make decisions alone. Gone are the days when I worried over home alone. Gone are the days when I faced trials and struggles alone. My husband cares for me and he shares my burdens. WE are a team that has completely obliterated I.
I no longer exist solely as me facing this world. Now I am one half of what makes up WE that face this world together. We struggle together. We face trials together. We make choices together. We have each other when times get tough.
I am gone.
And...
WE exist.
And the WE is like a living breathing entity that swallows up I. I am now me in the context of WE. And WE is amazing.
Oh, I can hear the outrage now. I can hear the people that will protest that. I can hear them parrot years of brainwashing back to me, telling me things I've heard before, telling me that I am me and my husband is he and we are not WE but two separate people. To that I can only say...
NO!
WE are he and I. WE are one with two separate halves that make up WE. And again...WE is amazing.
I know that not all marriages are amazing. I know that abuse happens, adultery happens. Marriages can be bad. I know that but that does not mean marriage is bad. It means the people in that marriage are bad and they are living the sinful life of total selfishness and are most likely unregenerate people that are living for self inside the boundaries (or lack of boundaries) of marriage.
Which brings us back to the article on open marriage. It wasn't all that long ago that my husband and I were having a conversation about something and the topic of marriage came up. I recall us discussing the difference in lusting after someone and taking notice of an attractive person. I told him I rarely notice enough about men I might encounter to know if they are attractive or not. One might say I have eyes only for my husband. I simply don't look at them enough to notice attractiveness.
Open marriage isn't something I have any interest in. It doesn't even hold a passing interest for me. If anything it's a concept that all but makes me shudder in revulsion. Why in the world would anyone want to have an affair with someone else when they are married?
I know the stories. I can sympathize with those in loveless marriages or with uncaring spouses, really I can, but...
Marriage is holy.
Marriage is, or should be, untouchable. Even if that marriage is bad the institute of marriage is such that it should not be betrayed. At least to me it is. And so an open marriage is something I have actually seen first hand with a relative but is still so awful in my mind that I just can't grasp why anyone would want such a thing.
I have a relative that actually moved two, that I know of, girlfriends into his home with his wife and children. He had numerous other girlfriends too but as far as I know he never moved them into his home with his family. So you see, this idea isn't new to me, I've seen it first hand, but...
Why?
The only answer I have is that the evil in the unregenerate's heart is so great that they seek more than they have. They covet what they don't have. One wife or one husband isn't good enough so they need someone else. They want the affection...the satisfaction...the attention...the...whatever...of someone other than their spouse.
Once upon a time people that dabbled in, or wallowed in, adultery kept their 'other' on the side, quietly. They had their cake and they ate it too, so to speak, but they did so quietly. It wasn't flaunted before the world, or at least it mostly wasn't flaunted before the world. Now...open marriages are embraced. That whole 'you do you, I'll do me' thing accepts and encourages every manner of sin that one wishes to become a glutton on.
Once upon a time married men with girlfriends had them on the sly. Some still do, I'm sure, but many do not. Now they advertise for intimacy on the internet and even have their girlfriends in their homes with their wives. Not only that but they announce it to other people like they would announce they have a wife. It's either a matter of fact thing or a pride thing but they toss it out there like it's nothing, like there's nothing wrong in it. And I guess for them there isn't. After all, if their spouse doesn't object why does it matter if anyone else does?
And so we have another case of sin in 'good taste'. They want their sin and they don't want to hide it. They want others to accept it so it's tossed before others with the expectation that anyone hearing about their life will embrace it, embrace them, and encourage them in what they are doing.
We have television shows about polygamy. I saw a news article about first cousins finding a way to skirt the law so they could marry because 'who cares what our family thinks'. I'm sure there are many more examples but the point is that whatever one wants so long as it's done in 'good taste' it's okay.
Open marriage is okay so long as...what? What makes the difference between the kind of adultery that is socially acceptable and the kind of adultery that isn't? Is adultery okay so long as the spouse is in agreement? Or is it okay so long as the 'other' is a law abiding, decent person? Is it something to be kept secret and looked down on by others if the 'other' is a prostitute?
And what of the 'other'? What makes someone, anyone, get involved with a married person...at all...ever...but especially knowing this person is married and plans to stay that way? What makes someone walk into such a situation with open eyes and yet they do it anyway?
Is it covetousness? Do they want that married person for their own so badly that they enter into adultery anyway? Is it covetousness because that married person can offer them a way of life, or encounters, that they cannot afford for themselves?
And more so than the married couple and the 'other'...what makes those in society decide that this is acceptable to the point that these people in open marriages feel no shame in announcing they have a girlfriend or boyfriend? No shame in moving someone else into their home, in exposing their family and friends, to their depravity?
No comments:
Post a Comment