When Marriage Becomes an Idol

Katherine and I have been read­ing assorted blogs which dis­cuss life and the­ol­ogy, as well as the notes on Facebook writ­ten by our friends and acquain­tances. One con­sis­tently recur­ring theme which appears are essays writ­ten by young women in the 18–35 age group — our age group — in which the women write about how to pre­pare one­self for mar­riage and what they need to learn before God will pro­vide them with a husband.

We appre­ci­ate the pas­sion of these women and we value their desire to share encour­age­ment and guid­ance with others.

However, we have very strong con­cerns about the ideas pre­sented in their essays.

Marriage as an Idol

We see a recur­ring pat­tern which risks turn­ing the insti­tu­tion of mar­riage, which is by all accounts a bless­ing from God, into an idol.

An idol is any ele­ment that we con­struct in order to find ful­fill­ment while dis­tract­ing our­selves from God.

Singletons fre­quently get tan­gled in the idea of mar­riage; the idea of get­ting and being mar­ried can become an enor­mous ele­ment in one’s life. The desire to be mar­ried can become a dis­trac­tion away from God and from what God wants in one’s per­sonal growth. The idea of mar­riage becomes con­structed as an idol in one’s life.

The idol-construct of mar­riage can take sev­eral forms. For exam­ple: unre­al­is­tic expec­ta­tions about mar­ried life. Some Christians view mar­riage as the only cir­cum­stance in which they will be happy, ful­filled, and pro­duc­tive. This leads to frus­tra­tion and dis­cour­age­ment as a result of sin­gle­ness, which squan­ders the unique oppor­tu­ni­ties for growth, joy, and pro­duc­tiv­ity avail­able to singletons.

The idol-construct of mar­riage is appar­ent in sin­gle­tons who focus on the growth towards and the achieve­ment of becom­ing mar­ried; bit­ter­ness and resent­ment devel­ops and fes­ters into a des­per­ate anger with friends who become mar­ried, the Spouse-Who-Has-Not-Yet-Arrived, and ulti­mately with God.

This trap is dan­ger­ous because it is usu­ally masked in God-speak. A sin­gle­ton might focus on devel­op­ing all man­ner of skills and char­ac­ter­is­tics under the guise of becom­ing a more godly future-spouse. In real­ity, all such skills and char­ac­ter­is­tics should be devel­oped by Christians regard­less of mar­i­tal sta­tus — such skills are just a nor­mal part of human devel­op­ment. If any­thing but God is the focus, then the devel­op­ment is both incom­plete and done for the wrong rea­son. God must be the moti­va­tion, not marriage.

Not a reward system

Too often sin­gle­tons engage in a decep­tive and unbib­li­cal attempt to cre­ate a reward system:

“I will develop this skill set and God will give me a husband.”

“I will take the ini­tia­tive and God will give me a wife.”

“What do I have to do before God will give me a spouse?!”

This, frankly, is a sick­ness which lacks any mea­sure of bib­li­cal support.

Singleness is not a failure

Humans are not fail­ures if they remain sin­gle. Humans are not sucesses if they become mar­ried. Marriage is a neu­tral state.

Consider:
Two women exist. Both women are equally pur­su­ing God, fol­low­ing God’s will, and ful­fill­ing God’s work. One woman is sin­gle. One woman is married.

These two women are viewed equally by God. One is not val­ued more or con­sid­ered more hon­or­able or ful­filled because of her mar­i­tal status.

A woman’s iden­tity and life is not lim­ited to nor nec­es­sar­ily focused upon being married.

The respon­si­bil­ity of all humans is to accept Christ. Every one of us has this oppor­tu­nity. Some of us choose to accept and become Christians.

Christians have a fur­ther respon­si­bil­ity: to love and there­fore to serve God. Every indi­vid­ual Christian has a dif­fer­ent set of tasks and gifts assigned by God. Some female Christians find their set of tasks to be pri­mar­ily ori­ented around being a wife and a mother. Not all female Christians, nor per­haps even most, are intended by God to ori­ent the whole of their exis­tence to this purpose.

Some female Christians are called to be lead­ers. Some are called to be teach­ers. Counselors. Advocates. Professionals.

VITAL: Not all sin­gle­tons are future-spouses. Not all sin­gle­tons are intended by God to be future-spouses.

Self-sabotage and destruction

The focus of a sin­gle­ton on the desire to get mar­ried squan­ders the cur­rent abil­ity and poten­tial of that individual.

When we accept any idol in our lives, we can­not devote our all to God. We ignore our tasks. We squan­der our gifts.

Conclusion for EVERY Singleton:
Live your life. Pursue God. Seek His tasks and set about ful­fill­ing them. If you hap­pen to encounter another per­son along the way whose life’s work is com­pat­i­ble, then pur­sue God towards mar­riage if that is what He wants for you WHEN HE BRINGS IT TO YOU. Stop focus­ing on the sub­ject now, because it can only dis­tract you from God and the task God has assigned.