On Marriage

Here is an excellent take for Christian marriage from the perspective of a traditionalist Christian.

The author, Charles Haywood, is not without controversy (though to be panned by Wikipedia and Rod Dreher is a little like being called names by the ELCA and Planned Parenthood). So take this as a disclaimer: whether you agree with everything Haywood writes or not, it doesn’t matter. If Lutherans can read and benefit from post-Reformation popes and pre-Christian Pagan philosophers, we can certainly read with maturity (and charity) even thinkers whose views may seem “extreme” to some. And in this day of guilt-by-association, we run the risk of self-censorship and timidity that we essentially allow the Left to dictate what we are allowed to read and discuss - even micromanaging the very words we are allowed to use right down to pronoun selection. So with a disclaimer that should never have to be given, namely, that this article is not a blanket endorsement of every word or opinion of Charles Haywood, this is too good of a practicum on marriage to pass up.

Last month, my wife Grace and I celebrated our thirtieth anniversary. Miz Grace ran across this essay, and shared it with me. And in fact, we put on the audio and listened together. It struck us just how much this resonated. Though we have some outstanding familial and friendly role models regarding married life, neither of us were raised following a completely “trad” model of marriage and family. But we managed to stumble into it simply by living the life of one-flesh within the context of traditional, confessional, liturgical, and sacramental Christianity.

The Haywoods also did not start out on the trajectory that they eventually landed on. This article has some interesting autobiographical detail.

We wish we had such guidance as this article when we were that “young couple.” Three decades down the road, we commend this article to the young couples who will hopefully themselves traverse the path together and become old and mature couples with the passage of time - even as so many marriages dissolve into chaos, nihilism, pain, and destruction. In other words, there is great wisdom here for not only staying together, but growing together - and flourishing together.

Charles Haywood authors this piece with chunks of it written as asides by Alison, his wife of 21 years (they have five children). And as I said, you can listen to the piece read by both of them in their own voices here at Podbean, and I encourage everyone to read and/or listen whether you read my commentary or not.

I’m going to summarize the essay’s principles with quotes from the authors and my own commentary.

Marriage is a True Partnership

Charles Haywood writes:

The first principle is that a good marriage is a true partnership—but one in which each spouse participates unequally in nearly every aspect of the couple’s joint life. The man and woman each has, both by nature and by choice, his or her own sphere. Some of those spheres are obvious. Most broadly, the man defends the family, the woman nurtures it, whether that is a just-married couple or a family with ten children. Each sphere is first dictated by the nature of each sex, and within that frame, by the personality of the man and woman involved.

This talk of “partnership” might be off-putting to some traditionalists. In fact, there was a recent dust-up on Twitter as a self-declared trad from the Right encouraged men to marry a low-IQ woman and avoid deep discussions with her. This cartoonish view is so far removed from actual traditional marriage that one can only wonder if the person making this assertion is really a left-wing plant.

When Mr. Haywood speaks of “partnership,” it is not like the gross Leftist vision where the husband and wife approach their marriage like a contractual business model, with a deliberate pre-planned 50-50 breakdown of household chores - thus reducing Holy Matrimony to the status of the sterility of a couple of same-sex college roommates figuring out how to keep the bathroom clean.

Mrs. Haywood points out how important “kindness” is in the marriage partnership - even things like courtesy, saying “please” and “thank you,” and showing gratitude. And, once again, this is not the gross, virtue-signaling “be kind” harangue from the Left: the kind of Pharisaical posing that people put on a yard sign to show how much better than you they are. Her advice is simply that husbands and wives not take one another for granted. For we live in a state of grace, let us respond by living in a state of gratitude - to God and to one another. It is a way to call to mind just how much husbands and wives do for one another on a day to day basis - and it draws us closer together in mutual affection and respect.

Each Spouse Must Commit Fully to His or Her Roles

Alison writes:

Men: Protect, care, support and love your wife. You should be proud to be able to have your wife stay home and be with your children. You should do everything you can to make this possible. You should show what it means to be a gentleman to your children. Open doors, carry heavy things, offer to do the dirty jobs and help her when she’s flagging….

Women: Be feminine, embrace motherhood, make your home beautiful and welcoming. Delight in these things. You should approach being a mother and a wife like it’s your job—because it is. The world tells us that children are a burden, that we should complain a lot and drink even more. I’m not opposed to a lovely glass of wine, but don’t put alcohol in your water bottle. Being a mother is not a sacrifice. You don’t have to give up your brain or your education because you have children. You will be stretched and tested in ways you cannot imagine as a parent, and it will be worth it.

She relates an anecdote when she was dealing with a person at the door. Charles returned home, kissed her, relieved her of the baby on her hip, and took the children inside while his wife took charge of her sphere of authority in the home. The Left has a stereotype of the traditionalist family that the wife leads a life of drudgery while the men put their feet up and live like indolent aristocrats. This is not how this works at all.

The Man Should Not Subordinate Himself in the Marriage

Charles:

This challenge arises because our rulers demand a man deem himself inferior, in order to atone for supposed masculine toxicity and the imaginary patriarchy and its imaginary crimes. In his nature, however, a man bridles at subordination, which is why subordination degrades his meaning as a man, and as a husband.

Alison:

Do not insist on having your own way or on telling your spouse “the way it’s going to be.” Ladies, this does not make you a girl-boss, strong or fierce. It makes you a harridan. Do not use tears or emotional manipulation to get your way either. It’s lazy and disrespectful. Men should not be impatient and should take the time to listen. If you want your partnership to work, you need to communicate and recognize that you have different sensibilities. Let the masculine and feminine complement and temper each other rather than clash.

Of course, this is biblically sound advice because it comports with our created nature, and flies in the face of our feminist, Luciferian cultural imperatives. I am reminded of a great book that I like to give newlyweds, and which I also give to people who are struggling in their marriage: Emerson Eggerich’s Love & Respect. It is a quick read, solid, laced with joy and humor and biblical wisdom. It is really the only book of its type that I recommend to anyone, and I recommend it to all married couples and those who think they would like to marry in the future.

The Relationship Between Husband and Wife

is the Most Important One in the Home

The prioritization of your spouse does not detract from your family life as a whole. Making your marriage the centerpiece of the larger family structure does not take away from your relationship with your children, but rather enhances it. I would add that it models a healthy married life for children who are typically surrounded by wreckage and pathology all around them outside of their homes. You are teaching them how to be godly husbands and wives.

A Man Should Ignore the Vast Majority of Advice from the Internet

Here, Charles takes on some of the self-appointed gurus of masculinity, such as Andrew Tate. And this is a real pitfall for right-wing and traditionalist men. I see this kind of mindless reactionism to the Left along the lines of: “Since the Left accuses us of misogyny, I’m going to misogyny harder.” And it is amazing how many men claim the mantle of teacher of marriage and family life who themselves have never been married, or are divorced. This is not to say that we cannot learn from such men (St. Paul was never married, and a man who has been through divorce may be able to offer hard-learned lessons), but wisdom dictates that we should not just pounce on advice because the advice-giver “really owns the libs” or says the right things about economics, politics, and the problems facing Christianity.

The Expectations of Society Should be Presumed False and Harmful.

Avoiding social pressure isn’t just a matter of personal toughness. The failed paradigm of modern society (which is egalitarian, feminist, and anti-Christian) is in the air we breathe. It is all over the media, in entertainment, and is even the assumed framework of most mainstream conservatives. The Haywoods speak of being “propagandized” to not want children and conditioned to be obsessed over money and “self-actualization.” The sooner you realize that this is all nonsense, the better. And it really is.

Alison writes:

Marry young, if at all feasible. Plan for children, plan for their education, plan as much as possible where you will live and what your life will look like. This kind of planning involves giving things up to make it possible to have the family life you want. If you want to provide your children a classical Christian education, if you want to live liturgically, then necessarily you have to give up a consumerist lifestyle.

You Should Both Make Sex a Priority

Given the degree to which sexuality dominates the world of unbelievers and the Left - and not in a healthy way - it is perhaps a danger to traditionalist couples to dabble in Gnosticism by downplaying their sex life. Or they may just be so busy that this part of their existence as one-flesh suffers. Alison’s remarks on this topic are laced with humor, as well as wisdom.

A Good Marriage is not a Right

This is subtle, but important. Both spouses must avoid falling into a kind-of entitlement mentality. Charles offers:

[I]f you think marriage is hard, you are not doing it right. A well-formed marriage is not hard, but it requires both spouses to enter the marriage with the correct frame of mind. You need to work hard to make yourself a desirable husband. If you are fat and won’t leave your house, or if you prefer video games to breadwinning, or if you smoke weed more than once every ten years, it will harm your marriage, and your ability to get married. Similarly for any other behavior showing lack of discipline and lack of character, at any phase from courtship to “death do us part.” Don’t be a loser. (And, to be sure, you have every right to insist the same of your wife, in the ways relevant to women.)

I agree. Marriage takes cultivation, but a good and healthy marriage is not labor. In other words, in Eden, Adam worked the garden. But this is a different kind of work than what came as a result of the Fall. Your married life should be a joy, but that also means it takes attention. And for a traditionalist man, it doesn’t mean bossing your wife around. It means bossing yourself around through self-discipline.

Stigma Should be Broadly Applied… to Anyone Who Misbehaves in a Marriage

Marriage is not a private matter. Families far too often adopt a hands-off approach when getting involved could have served to help a struggling couple get on track. We bend over backwards to avoid stigma at all cost, when all the while, stigma - when rightly applied - can provide the impetus that our out-of-control, anything-goes, society lacks.

Finally, Alison offers some specific advice for women that can also be extrapolated to the men as well:

Don’t Marry a Beta

She writes:

A lot of marital problems can be avoided if you marry a man who is secure in his masculinity and is sure of what he believes. At the rehearsal dinner for our wedding, I thanked my future mother-in-law because my husband has the greatest sense of right and wrong of any man I ever met. This strong moral compass and understanding of self is one of the rocks on which our marriage is built. A man who approaches the world in a tenuous or hesitant manner will not prove a good husband.

Don’t complain about your husband. It’s fashionable for women to complain about how hopeless their husbands are, how stupid and incapable. This is a sure way to breed contempt. Women initiate the majority of divorces and often cite the fact that their husbands don’t “help” enough around the house or fail to step up. Maybe those men are tired of being criticized, maybe they can never do anything right, maybe they’re emasculated, and they’ve given up because there’s no respect. Maybe those men are tired of you caring more about what another man (your boss) thinks. Noticing all the things your husband does for you and your family is not only good and courteous, it also creates an environment of mutual admiration and support. Instead of complaining, make the extra effort to praise him to your girlfriends and family.

I would add that men also need to marry wisely. The canard that you want a low-IQ bimbette who will just prattle on about nonsense and obey you is terrible advice that is indicative of a man who is insecure in his own manhood.

Both husbands and wives need to operate under the hard and fast rule that they will not belittle the other. They will not badmouth one another to their friends. They will not call one another hurtful names or use foul language toward one another (both in public and in private). They will not gripe about one another on social media. And they must never even make jokes about divorce. TV, movies, and years of bad habits have conspired to make husbands and wives self-righteously complain about each other to their friends. This is toxic and it must simply never be done. Seeking private counsel is one thing, but we all know that this is not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about grievance-collecting and complaining because that is just what people do.

I believe an accurate barometer of the health of one’s marriage is shown in Alison’s description of her relationship with Charles:

We talk about everything. We joke that we are the same person. We have been called a “self-contained unit,” and have surprised people with our “hive mind.” Everything is harmonized before it leaves our home. We also present a united front to our children. Even though there is no daylight between us, they work hard to find cracks—which is why we say, channeling our former lawyer selves, “no forum shopping.” Joking aside, we are not, in fact, the same person. We are masculine and feminine. We recognize the need for each of us to have time with our friends in male-only and female-only spaces.

This natural tendency of the one-flesh union is what Grace and I call “brainshare.” The more you see this happen, the better. If you find yourself at odds, if your daily interactions are more like “brainclash,” if you have no idea what your spouse is thinking, or if you find yourself withdrawing because you find silence preferable to the sound of gears grinding - then you would do well to reflect on this article, and work on yourself to make yourself a better spouse.

As St. Paul identifies in Ephesians 5, a good wife respects her husband, and a good husband loves his wife. Find ways to move the ball forward, even if only a little, every day. Go out of your way to be patient and kind and appreciative. Heap praise upon your spouse in the hearing of your children. Talk about things that matter. Reading together is a good way to build bridges and rapport. Excel in your own role within the god-ordained family structure. Make yourself better, and your spouse will follow suit. Don’t expect results overnight, but prayerfully and prudently, be willing to take a risk. Don’t be selfish. That is self-defeating. Even if your marriage is not healthy, you can make it grow and develop with proper attention and the grace of God.

Thank you to the Haywoods for this truly inspiring cache of wisdom!