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Christian Marriage | C. S. Lewis · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reform Thinking and welcome to the Deep Dive, the
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show for you, the learner, where we get into the details and the
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structure of important ideas. Today we are definitely taking
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on a subject Lewis himself called well, probably the most
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unpopular doctrine in Christian ethics.
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We're talking about the structural rules around
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Christian marriage, divorce and and even the governance of the
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household. It's a huge topic.
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It is. We're doing a deep dive into CS
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Lewis's Mere Christianity, specifically that one chapter
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where he just lays out his arguments for the Christian view
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of marriage. And this isn't just, you know, a
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theological exercise. This is a really rigorous look
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at logic, at human will, and what happens when that intense
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but well, fleeting feeling of being in love clashes with a
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serious, public, lifelong promise.
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That's a really important way to frame it.
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Lewis is building a case here, a highly structured argument.
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He even says at the start that he knows these ideas are
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extremely unpopular. He does.
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He admits it upfront. And he points out he's speaking
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from secondhand observation since he hadn't been married
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when he wrote it. But he says he just can't this
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subject out if he's going to give an honest account of
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Christian morals. So our mission for you today is
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to really get into Lewis's argument, to grasp the the
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logical, sometimes difficult but surprisingly practical way he
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defines marriage. A.
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Contract of will and a matter of justice.
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That's so different from how our culture sees it.
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Completely different. It's a stark contrast to our
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modern reliance on, well, on feelings.
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OK, let's get into it. We have to start with the
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definition itself, which is, I mean, it's radical in its
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simplicity, Lewis's foundation of 1 flesh.
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Right, so Lewis asserts that the whole Christian idea of marriage
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is built on what Christ said, that a man and wife are one
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entity, a single Organism. A single Organism.
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And for Lewis, that ancient phrase, one flesh isn't just
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expressing a nice sentiment. It's not poetry, he's saying.
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It's stating a fact, a functional almost engineering
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principle. That distinction right there,
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fact versus sentiment, that's everything, isn't?
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It it is because if it were just a sentiment, it would, you know,
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depend on how you feel that day. But if it's a fact, it's a
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structural reality that exists whether you feel it or not.
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Like gravity, it's just there. Exactly.
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It's a concrete state of affairs, and Louis to make this
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clear, he gives these two fantastic analogies to show how
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two different things are actually meant to function as
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one single system. I love these analogies, they're
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so grounding. They are.
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The first one is mechanical. He compares the man, woman unit
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to a lock and its key. Right.
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You look at them separately and they're just two distinct
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objects. But when you think about what
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they do, well, they are designed to be, and they only really work
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as one single mechanism. You can't have one without the
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other for its purpose. You can't.
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And the second analogy is musical, a violin and a bow.
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You wouldn't say they're two different instruments.
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They are one instrument. The violin can't make music
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without the bow. The bow is useless without the
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violin. Lewis is saying that the
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inventor of the human machine, Christ, told us that the two
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halves, male and female, were made to combine totally.
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Totally. Not just sexually or
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emotionally. No, but functionally,
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structurally, economically to make up this single Organism.
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And that idea that totality leads him directly to his, well,
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his pretty uncomfortable analysis of sex outside of
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marriage. He calls it the monstrosity of
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fornication. That is a strong word.
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The monstrosity, as he puts it, is the attempt to isolate the
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sexual kind of union from all the other kinds of union that
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are supposed to make up the total Organism.
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He's very careful, though. He clarifies that Christianity
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isn't condemning sexual pleasure.
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Not at all. In fact, he compares it to the
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pleasure of eating. There's nothing at all wrong
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with enjoying your food. It's a good gift.
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But the moral error happens when you try to isolate that pleasure
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to get it by itself, separate from its actual purpose.
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And this is where he gives that that incredibly really powerful
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analogy, the one that really sticks with you.
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It really does, because it's so visceral.
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It defines the problem not, as you know, being approved, but as
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a form of consumption and waste. Go on, lay it out.
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Lewis says you must not isolate sexual pleasure any more than
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you should try to get the pleasure of taste without
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swallowing and digesting, that is, by chewing things up and
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then just spitting them out again.
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Let's just pause on that for a second.
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That image is so telling about his view of human design.
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For you, the learner, just think about that.
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Chewing and spitting. You get all the sensory
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pleasure, but you completely thwart the purpose.
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You thwart the purpose, yeah, which is nutrition, sustenance.
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Life. So if we apply that back to
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marriage, Lewis is saying the sexual act is designed not just
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for pleasure but to bond two people into a permanent total
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life giving thing, that single Organism.
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Precisely. So when you extract the pleasure
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and go after it on its own, apart from the total union, it
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becomes, well, it becomes a disposable act.
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It's functionally like chewing and spitting.
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You're frustrating the whole design of the machine.
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It's about fragmenting what's meant to be whole, taking apart
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and rejecting the system it belongs to.
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And when you ground the argument in this kind of structural
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design instead of just rules or feelings, the next logical step,
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permanence, becomes basically unavoidable.
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Right. So if marriage really is a
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single Organism, A factual condemnation, then it's very
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nature demands permanence. The Christian teaching is that
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marriage is for life. It is now Lewis is
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intellectually honest here. He knows there have been
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disagreements between different churches on this.
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Some deny divorce completely, others might allow it
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reluctantly in some very extreme cases.
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Sort of like desertion or something.
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Exactly. But he's quick to say that this
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internal debate is tiny compared to the main point of agreement,
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which is that all the churches agree with each other far, far
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more than any of them agree with the outside world on this.
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OK. And that shared views centers on
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how they see divorce itself. It's not a simple administrative
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process. It's not just a readjustment of
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partners. His descriptions are they're
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graphic. They are, he says.
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Divorce is seen as something like cutting up a living.
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Body A surgical operation. Or having both your legs cut
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off. It is the severing of something
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that has become structurally one.
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It's a catastrophe. And that language is clearly
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meant to be a shock to the system because it's so different
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from the modern idea that divorce is just what you do when
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you fall out of love or, you know, fall in love with someone
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new. He's setting up the battle right
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from the start. Divine structure versus volatile
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subjective feeling. And then he does something
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really brilliant strategically. He anticipates that some people
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are just not going to buy his arguments about chastity and
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sexual morality, so he pivots. He shifts the entire discussion
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away from sex and on to the virtue of justice.
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It's a masterful move because whether or not you accept the
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theology of the single organ Organism, you can't really argue
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with the need for justice that stands on its own.
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It does justice, Lewis reminds Everyone includes keeping your
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promises. Simple as that.
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Every single person married in a church makes a public, solemn
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vow to stick with their partner until death, and the duty to
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keep that promise exists on its own terms, just like any other
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contract. So he's saying if the sexual
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impulse is just like any other impulse, which is what modern
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thought often claims, yeah. Then it has to be controlled by
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promises, just like our impulses about money or power.
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And he adds that if that impulse is, in his words, morbidly
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inflamed in our culture, then we have to take special care to
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make sure it doesn't lead us into dishonesty.
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Which brings us to his absolutely blistering critique
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of perjury. The idea of making a vow you
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don't intend to keep. He just asks who were you trying
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to deceive? And he just walks through the
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options with that classic Lewis logic.
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Were you trying to fool God? Well, that's unwise Yourself,
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Not much better. Your new spouse, Their family,
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That's just treacherous. But his usual diagnosis is that
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it's all about public image. Yes, he says, they were hoping
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to deceive the public. They wanted the respectability
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that comes with marriage, the social status without paying the
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price. The price being permanence and
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fidelity. Right, He says they were
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imposters, they cheated the social contract.
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And he says if people are just happy being cheats, well, he
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doesn't have much to say to them.
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You can't talk about higher virtues if someone hasn't even
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grasped basic honesty. But for the person who does want
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to be honest, his conclusion is it's just staggering.
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It really turns things on their head.
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It does, he says. If people genuinely don't
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believe in permanent marriage, it is perhaps better that they
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just live together unmarried. Wait, say that again, he says.
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It's better to live together. Yes, in Christian terms they'd
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be guilty of fornication. But Lewis argues that unchastity
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is not improved by adding perjury to it.
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You don't fix one fault by adding a lie, a broken solemn
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promise. I have to stop on that because
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that just completely flips the modern script.
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Lewis is saying that for a Christian, when breaking a
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public solemn vow, dishonesty, perjury is structurally a worse
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sin than the private sexual act. He's prioritizing the integrity
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of the public row the contract. Above the physical act itself.
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Exactly. For Lewis, fidelity to your word
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is a matter of universal justice, and justice is the
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foundation for all the other virtues.
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If you can't be trusted to keep a vow you made before God in the
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state, how can your character be trusted anywhere else?
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The perjury undermines the whole moral order.
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So this argument about justice naturally leads us to the core
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conflict He wants to address the cultural tyranny of the feeling
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of being in love. Right.
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He argues that if being in love is the only reason to stay
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married, then marriage as a contractor, a promise, it just
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makes no sense. Why bother with the promise?
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If the feeling is everything, the promise adds nothing.
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It's expiration date is just your next strong emotion.
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And if the promise adds nothing, Lewis says, then you shouldn't
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make it. And what's so fascinating is, he
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says, that real lovers in the moment actually know this better
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than the people who just talk about love.
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He quotes Chesterton here. He does.
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The observation is that lovers who are really in love have this
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natural urge to bind themselves with promises.
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It's. True, you think about every love
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song ever written. It's all vows of eternal
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constancy. I love you forever.
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No one writes a song that says I'll love you until this feeling
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wears off. So the Christian law, Lewis
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argues, isn't adding some weird restrictive rule.
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It's just asking lovers to take seriously what their own passion
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is already pushing them to do. Which is to make the union
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permanent with a vow. Exactly, and that explains the
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whole point of the vow. The promise which you make when
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you're in that state of high feeling commits you to actions,
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even if that feeling fades, because a promise has to be
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about something you can control. That is the key feeling versus
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will. You can't promise to keep
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feeling a certain way. You can't promise you'll never
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have a headache. Feelings are not voluntary.
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But actions are actions. Are the Vow covers fidelity,
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support, care, justice, all things you can choose to do no
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matter what your emotional temperature is on a given
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Tuesday. OK.
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But let's play devil's advocate here for the listener.
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What is the actual value of forcing two people to stay
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together if that romantic feeling is just gone when it
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feels like a dry, empty contract?
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Louis gives a few layers of answers.
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First, there are the practical social reasons you need to
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provide a stable home for children.
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That's a primary duty. And protecting the woman.
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Yes, protecting the woman who he points out, has often damaged
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her own career by marrying, so she can't just be dropped when
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the man gets bored. These are duties of basic
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justice. But there's a deeper reason,
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right? The one he says he's very sure
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of. Yes, and it requires us to rank
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our impulses. We have to think in terms of
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good, better and best, he says. You can't just take one single
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impulse of your nature, even a noble one like being in love,
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and make it the absolute thing you follow at all costs.
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And he ranks being in love pretty high on this scale.
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Oh, he does. He says it's a glorious state.
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It makes us generous and courageous.
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It conquers lust. He says it's far better than
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just cold self centeredness, but it is not the best thing.
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It's good, but it's not the top of the pyramid.
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It has to be subordinate to the virtues of the will and duty.
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You just cannot build the entire structure of a life, a family, a
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covenant on a temporary involuntary feeling.
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All feelings, by their nature, are unreliable.
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And that gets us to the very engine of his argument, the
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essential reliability of feelings.
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He just observes that no feeling, no matter how intense,
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can be counted on to last. Feelings just come and go, so
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what's left to hold up the structure?
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Lewis says. Knowledge can last, principles
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can last and habits can last. These are the things that create
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continuity. But the state of being in love,
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with all the thrill and the glamour, that usually doesn't
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last. It doesn't.
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And he says that cultural myth that they lived happily ever
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after, if that's supposed to mean they felt the same
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excitement for 50 years, that's not only false, it would be
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horrible if it were true. Horrible.
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Think about it. Who could stand to live in that
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state of high pitched excitement for even five years?
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He says. It would destroy your work, your
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appetite, your sleep, your friendships.
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It's totally unsustainable. It's.
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Designed to be a catalyst, an explosion to get things started,
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not the fuel you run on forever. So here's the big distinction.
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Ceasing to be in love does not mean ceasing to love.
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Exactly. And he defines that second,
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quieter, more stable kind of love.
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Love. The verb is not a feeling, he
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says. It's a deep unity.
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And how is that Unity powered? It is maintained by the will,
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and it is deliberately strengthened by habit.
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And in a Christian marriage, it's reinforced by the grace
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they ask for and get from God. That's the power source for the
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structure. So this kind of love, this
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willed love, can exist even when the couple doesn't particularly
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like each other. Right, which is a reality in any
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long term relationship. He compares it to how you love
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yourself. You don't just abandoned ship
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when you're disgusted with something, you're done.
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You still love yourself. That's a great comparison.
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The initial feeling, the being in love, that was the beautiful
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explosion that started it all. But this quieter, more sober
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love, the one strengthened by the will that is the consistent,
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reliable engine the marriage runs on.
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It's what allows them to keep the promise they made back in
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that more volatile state. The tragedy, as Lewis sees it,
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is that people get this idea from novels and films that if
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you just marry the right person, that initial thrill will just
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last forever. And so when it inevitably fades,
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they think they've made a terrible mistake and that
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they're now entitled to a do over.
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Which just leads to a cycle. A completely self defeating
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cycle. They change partners and guess
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what? The glamour goes out of the new
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love just as it went out of the old one.
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Thrills, he says, are for the beginning of things.
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They can't last if you're trying to build something with
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substance. He has that great analogy about
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learning to fly or moving somewhere beautiful.
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The thrill of being in the air fades once you have to actually
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master the hard work of being a pilot.
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Or the thrill of the beautiful view fades when you have to deal
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with local taxes and a leaky roof.
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The point is, losing the first thrill isn't a failure, it's a
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necessary transition. It gets replaced by a quieter
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and more lasting kind of interest.
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You know, the actual mastery of the thing.
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And he says something really interesting here about human
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nature, that the people who are most willing to let go of that
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first thrill and settle into the sober work, they're the ones
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most likely to find new thrills in other places.
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Yes, the pilot who masters flight then discovers a passion
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for music. The person who settles into the
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landscape discovers gardening. The human need for novelty isn't
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killed, it just gets redirected into new disciplines, which
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allows the central structure, the marriage, to remain stable.
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And he connects this to a deep spiritual principle.
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He says this is part of what Christ meant when he said a
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thing will not really live unless it first dies.
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It's that act of self denial for the sake of a greater, more
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lasting reality. If you're always trying to
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prolong the thrill artificially by chasing novelty, you just
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make the thrills weaker and you end up bored.
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It's better to learn to swim than to keep trying to get back
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the feeling you had when you were a little kid just paddling
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at the edge of the water. A perfect way to put it, You
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shift from focusing on the feeling to mastering the action.
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The last thing Lewis tackles on this front is the cultural myth
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about the sheer irresistibility of falling in love.
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The idea that it's like catching the measles, you have no choice.
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Right. And he says this belief causes
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married people to just throw up the Spires the minute they feel
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an attraction to someone new. But Lewis pushes back on that
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idea of inevitability. He does.
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He says he's inclined to think that these overwhelming,
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irresistible passions are actually much rarer in real life
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than they are in books. Of course we meet attractive,
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admirable people. We should admire their good
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qualities. That's a good thing.
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But he questions the choice involved.
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He asks if it's not very largely in our own choice, whether that
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admiration turns into the all consuming feeling of being in
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love. We choose our environment, and
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our environment shapes our emotions.
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So if your mind is just saturated with sentimental
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novels and songs. Or your body is full of alcohol,
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as he puts it. Then you will naturally turn any
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admiration into that kind of disruptive love.
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It's like wearing blue glasses. Everything looks blue.
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But Louis concludes, that's our own fault.
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We've created the conditions for that to happen.
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OK so after laying all of that out, the Christian idea of
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marriage is this permanent will based thing.
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Lewis shifts gears completely. He wants to separate 2 questions
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that often get mixed up. A really important distinction
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to make. We've just covered question one,
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What is the Christian view of marriage?
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Question 2 is very different. How far should Christians try to
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force that view on the rest of society?
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Through divorce laws. And his answer might be
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surprising to some. It might be he is very clear he
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opposes trying to coerce non Christians into a Christian form
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of marriage. He says he'd be very angry if
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Muslims in England tried to pass a law preventing everyone else
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from drinking wine. So his political suggestion is
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actually pretty pragmatic. Very pragmatic, he says.
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The churches should just be honest and recognize that most
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people in a modern state are not Christians, so you can't expect
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them to live Christian lives. That's illogical.
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So what's his solution? A2 tier system, He suggests
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there ought to be two completely distinct kinds of marriage.
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One would be just for the state, a civil contract.
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Exactly. Governed by the state with rules
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for all citizens. And it would likely allow for
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divorce based on whatever the civil contract says.
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That's the government's business.
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And the second guy? The second would be governed by
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the Church with her own strict rules of permanence and duty,
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but enforced only on her own members.
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The goal is to make the distinction sharp, so everyone
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knows who is married in the Christian sense, bound till
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death, and who is just operating under a civil agreement.
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It preserves the integrity of the Christian vow without
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forcing it on anyone else. Exactly.
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Right. Finally, we have to get to the
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other and maybe even more unpopular doctrine.
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He talks about headship. The really controversial.
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One, the idea that wives promise to obey and that the man is the
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head. Lewis breaks this down into two
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very structural questions. First, why have a head at all?
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Why not just have perfect equality?
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And 2nd if you need one, why the man?
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So on the first question, why ahead, Lewis argues it follows
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directly from the idea of permanence.
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He hopes and assumes that most of the time in a good marriage,
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there's total agreement, so the question of a head never even
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comes up. That's the ideal, but.
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In a permanent partnership, there will eventually be real,
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honest to goodness disagreements where you just can't find a
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middle ground. You've talked it over, but you
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still don't agree. What to do then?
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Well, you've only got two options.
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Either you separate, which violates the permanence, or one
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person has to have the final casting vote to break the
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deadlock so the family can move forward, he says.
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You simply cannot have a permanent association without
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some kind of constitution. So it's not about one person
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being smarter or better, it's an organizational necessity to
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avoid paralysis. Precisely.
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Which brings us to the second, harder question.
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OK, if there has to be a head, why the man?
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And he starts with a cultural observation.
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He asks if there's really a serious wish for it to be the
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woman, and he observes that even women who rule their own homes
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don't seem to admire that arrangement when they see it
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next door. They say things like poor Mr. XI
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can't imagine why he lets her boss him around like that.
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He's suggesting there's something unnatural about it,
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that even the people involved are sort of embarrassed by it.
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That's his observation, but then he gives the structural reason,
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which he calls the foreign policy rationale.
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OK, this is the crucial part. The family's relationship with
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the outer world. It's foreign policy has to
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depend on the man. Why?
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Because, he says, the man always ought to be and usually is much
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more just to the outsiders. And the woman's priority is
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different. Fundamentally different.
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Her primary role, and he says this is almost a good thing, is
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to fight for her own children and husband against the world.
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She is the special trustee of her family's interests, and
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those interests tend to override everything else.
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For her. It's an intense family
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patriotism. So the husband's job is to what?
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Counterbalance that. Exactly.
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His function is to make sure that the wife's intense and
21:27
sometimes bias loyalty to her own family isn't given total
21:30
control. He has the last word to protect
21:33
other people, the neighbors, the community from the family's
21:36
powerful self-interest. He gives a couple of really
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simple examples to make this concrete.
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He does. He asks if your dog bites the
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neighbor's kid or your kid hurts the neighbor's dog, who would
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you rather have to deal with? The master of the house or the
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mistress? The assumption being the man
21:53
will be more objective. More impartial, less emotionally
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defensive of his own family's actions.
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He even asks married women directly.
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Isn't your husband's chief feeling that he's a bit of an
22:04
appeaser, that he doesn't stick up for the family's rights
22:07
against the neighbors as strongly as you'd like that?
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Very quality. That very quality, the man's
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greater concern for a broader, more abstract justice, even if
22:14
it's not to his own family's immediate advantage, is exactly
22:18
why Lewis argues he needs the casting vote on foreign policy.
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It's not about being better. It's about having a different
22:24
and necessary constitutional function.
22:27
Wow. That is, that is a lot to
22:30
process. This has been a really rigorous
22:32
dive into Lewis's view of marriage from Mere Christianity.
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For you, the learner, I think the key take away is that Lewis
22:39
gives us this clear, if challenging, logical framework.
22:42
Marriage is a fact, a single Organism, and its success
22:46
depends not on that first feeling but on the disciplined,
22:48
ongoing exercise, the will, keeping a promise and building
22:51
habits, all of which is basically the virtue of justice.
22:55
He really forces us to do a reality check.
22:57
He's asking you to evaluate your life based on what you actually
23:00
know about discipline and permanence, not on ideas you got
23:03
from movies that put a thrill up on a pedestal.
23:06
For Lewis, ceasing to be in love isn't a failure, it's the
23:09
normal, necessary death of the first stage.
23:11
It's the dying that lets true stable will based love the
23:15
structural engine actually grow. The ultimate distinction is
23:18
between the marriage started by a temporary explosion and the
23:21
one sustained by a permanent engine.
23:23
It's a definition of love that requires work, habit and choice.
23:27
So if Lewis is right, if true love is a deep unity that you
23:31
maintain with your will and strengthened by habit, you have
23:34
to ask how does our culture's focus on spontaneous,
23:37
irresistible feeling affect our ability to practice virtues like
23:41
patience, loyalty and self-control in every other part
23:44
of our lives? That's a great question.
23:46
Think about any habit you need for lasting success.
23:48
Starting a career, learning an instrument, even building a
23:51
tough relationship at work. They all start with some
23:54
excitement, but the real achievement only comes after
23:57
that feeling fades and the structure of your disciplined
23:59
will takes over. What other habits in your life
24:02
besides just marital fidelity require the death of that
24:06
initial thrill to truly succeed? That is where real life and true
24:09
mastery really begin.