Love and Marriage and Literature
I’ll be getting married this June. Thus, I have been thinking about what love is; how I should love well; what a good, Biblical marriage looks like; and how I should live as a wife. Fortunately, I have not been left alone in my search for answers to these questions. God, in His grace and sovereignty, grants His children insight into these matters through a variety of means.
First, I am thankful most of all that God Himself has given us instruction on how we ought to live together as husband and wife. Indeed, Scripture is the first place we should look for clear instruction on having a God-honoring and good marriage. In His word, we find examples of marriage, instructions for marriage, and, perhaps most significantly, we learn that marriage more than any other human relationship reflects the glory of the gospel and the love Christ has for the church.
I’m thankful also for the influence and advice of other Christian couples who have walked both with Christ and with each other for years. They give insight into the marriage relationship, sharing the wisdom they have gained through their years of experience, their study of Scripture, and their daily reliance upon the Lord. Frank (my fiancé) and I are blessed to have examples of this in our parents’ marriages and in those many of our dear friends with whom we interact each day.
I’m thankful, too, that God has gifted believers to write books for the church that better help us apply God’s truth to our own lives. These works have been written since the days of the church fathers until the present time. They provide solid, Biblical advice to couples who seek to have a marriage that properly reflects the glory of the gospel and that God uses as a means of sanctification in their life together.[1]
However, I am also grateful for another, perhaps not as apparent, source for insight into what a good marriage looks like. Through great works of literature, I have encountered creative and compelling visions of marriage crafted by skilled authors. In these works, God displays His common grace by allowing authors to communicate His truth through artistic expression. Of course, the best lessons about good marriage come from authors who adhere to the faith themselves, but, because all truth is God’s truth, we can sometimes gain insight even from those who do not.
Certainly, literature is filled with memorable couples. Some are shining examples of married couples who “have it together,” so to speak; the reader is confident such marriages will succeed. They will provide each partner with the mutual love, respect, and admiration that will sustain the husband and wife through all seasons of life through a true, deep, and lasting companionship. Some couples or individual characters, on the other hand, provide us with quite the opposite perspective and serve as cautionary figures.
One need only read Jane Austen’s excellent work Pride and Prejudice to see both sorts of couples. Indeed, the novel is filled with examples of both good and bad marriages, from Lydia and Wickham to Mr. and Mrs. Bennet to Mr. Collins and Charlotte to Lizzy and Darcy. Much has been written to describe and analyze these relationships so I would like to examine two other examples, one bad and one good.
How Not to Be Married
Most people would be unlikely to recognize immediately the name “Dame Alison” in a list of important characters in literature. They are, however, more likely to know her by her descriptive title: the Wife of Bath. She is one of Chaucer’s pilgrims in his best known work, The Canterbury Tales. When the reader is introduced to her in Chaucer’s opening prologue, he discovers that she is a self-proclaimed expert in the art of love: she is, after all, in her fifth marriage!
The reader soon learns, however, that her views and opinions concerning marriage are not only non-traditional but also jarringly unorthodox. Though she is traveling with several members of the clergy and of the monastic life, the Wife of Bath is not at all timid in describing her personal life and in fact seems to revel in shocking her traveling companions with salacious descriptions of marriage and sexuality.
Alison’s first three husbands were old men whom she had apparently married for the wealth they possessed, but, perhaps more importantly, for the ability she would have to become the “whip” of the marriage, to be in control of her husbands and demand they submit to her. In Alison’s thinking, happiness in marriage is achieved only when the woman dominates the relationship, forcing her husband into the role of subservient companion. She continued this pattern of behavior with her next two husbands, though they were younger men. In these relationships, the Wife of Bath endured much more abuse in her efforts to gain control in the marriage, though, in the end and sometimes at great cost (such as the loss of her hearing in one ear during a domestic fight), she gained the upper hand.
This approach to marriage stands in sharp contrast to the Scriptural mandate for the marital relationship. In Ephesians, Paul instructs Christian husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the church, and, in turn, Christian wives should submit to their husbands as the church does to Christ. Through this mutually self-effacing pattern of behavior, the Christian couple may participate in displaying God’s glory through their marriage.
Indeed, despite any protestations to the contrary, the Wife of Bath has clearly never experienced a truly happy and fulfilling marriage. She did not have true companions with her elderly husbands, and she endured cruel physical and emotional abuse at the hands of the younger men. Because her goal was primarily to please herself in marriage, each marriage failed.
An Encouraging Couple
William Shakespeare offers many, many examples of love and marriage in his plays. A favorite literary couple is found in his work Much Ado About Nothing. Though he built the play primarily around the ups and downs of the intended marriage of Claudio and Hero, whose relationship is most characterized by rashness of decision, the relationship of Benedick and Beatrice offers a truer vision of the ingredients of a good marriage.
When the reader is first introduced to Benedick and Beatrice, he learns that they are engaged in a witty war of words, each quickly and eagerly taking any opportunity to mock the other scornfully. They do this in conversations with other characters and especially in their interactions with one another. In many ways, these seemingly antagonistic actions prove their regard for one another more than an actual active hate since they are so eager to talk to about the other.
The other characters in the play seemingly recognize the great potential this relationship has as well as the deep feelings Benedick and Beatrice possess and scheme to bring them together. This is accomplished through their allowing Benedick and Beatrice to “overhear” conversations in which the speakers describe the secret affections harbored by the other while discussing the character flaws that prevent the one listening from loving.
Benedick and Beatrice, though, are not offended or angered by the criticism they hear. Instead, they use this exposing of their faults as an opportunity to change and to prove their affection and regard. When they finally confess their reciprocal love to one another, the audience is in no doubt that their mutual respect and admiration is sincere and deeply felt. Benedick in particular portrays a willingness to make hard sacrifices in order to ensure Beatrice’s happiness, especially in his willingness to challenge a dear friend who has caused Beatrice great distress.
Though Benedick and Beatrice must overcome their pride and some rash words they had publicly stated earlier, the play ends with their public intention to marry. Victor Cahn writes, “Theirs is the true marriage of the play; one of the mind and heart. . . . We do not have much faith that Claudio and Hero will remain happy, for even by the end they offer hardly any signs of maturity or understanding. We are confident, though, that Benedick and Beatrice will continue to find one another a constant source of amusement.”[2]
In their willingness to turn from their failings, to swallow their pride, and to care sacrificially for one another, Benedick and Beatrice model a good marriage for Shakespeare’s audience. They are the embodiment of “the marriage of true minds” that Shakespeare so beautifully describes in Sonnet 116. In Christian marriage, we, too, are called to sacrificial love that recognizes we are no longer our own, as Paul explains in I Corinthians 7.
Conclusion
These two examples from Western literature, among myriad others, profoundly illustrate the common grace God gives us through human artistic endeavor. Though these focused on the concept of marriage, good art teaches us about so many other aspects of life. When we read, discuss, and consider good literature, we are better able to understand more fully what being human means, to engage in the culture thoughtfully, and to recognize the hand of God that is everywhere.
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[1]See St. John Chrystostom’s On Marriage and Family Life and Tim Keller’s The Meaning of Marriage for examples that span the centuries.
[2]Victor L. Cahn, Shakespeare the Playwright: A Companion to the Complete Tragedies, Histories, Comedies, and Romances (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996), 645.
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