Will I Marry Me? Part II

In our last reflection, we encountered the phenomenon of “self-marriage” that is trending in some circles today. We looked at two distinct analyses by critics of self-marriage, and noted that their emphases lacked mention of the universal desire to experience real love.  Just as it would be absurd to reduce the love of God to one Person of the Trinity (such as the Father only loving the Father), it follows that people are also making a profound mistake when they claim to marry themselves to experience real love. As Timothy George rightly observed, self-marriage is a spiritual disorder, being “twisted back into oneself.” The challenge remains: how do we “un-twist” the lie that a person can only find real love in himself or herself?

            Contrary to popular culture’s notion of love as subjective and “evolving,” for Christians, love is rooted in the abiding love God has for each of us. In the Old Testament we find the Psalmist meditating on this in terms of a loving Father with “everlasting love” toward his children (see Psalm 103). In the New Testament we see how Christ’s words and actions reveal the depth of God’s love for us, which is ultimately a self-sacrifice. God’s love is truly powerful, and can transform even the most hardened hearts. The numerous accounts of conversions based on personal experiences of God’s love attest to this.

Secondly, God created us as male and female in his image and likeness (Gen. 1:26-27), which is the basis of God’s plan for marriage. Man and woman, as St. John Paul II explains, have equal dignity, and together show the full meaning of personhood. Their unique gifts greatly enhance their marriage. We refer to this as “sexual difference and complementarity,” a concept that in my opinion, needs to be part of our new vocabulary to explain marriage as the life-long union between a man and woman. In a “self-marriage,” where bringing unique and complementary gifts is not even a possibility, it seems that a struggle with loneliness and isolation would arise.

Finally, married love is profoundly joyful. From the vivid imagery in the Song of Songs, to St. Augustine’s On the Good of Marriage, to John Paul II’s reflections in Love and Responsibility and the Theology of the Body, and more recently Pope Francis in Amoris Laetitia, we find a common thread: married love, as God intended it, is meant to be a joyful gift of self between a man and a woman. This includes vulnerability and therefore, the possibility of suffering with and for each other. With God’s blessing in the sacrament of marriage, we find the full flowering of married love because God’s grace (his very life) is present and active in marriage. 

Will I Marry Me? Part I

             Reading about the phenomenon of people deciding to marry themselves, it strikes me that this idea might make it into a Saturday Night Live skit. I can picture a soliloquy by a mid-thirties woman (adorned with a ring, bouquet of flowers, and, of course, a bridal gown):

            Female actress: “Do I promise to love myself until death do we part?”

            (Crickets chirping.)

            Female actress: “Um, I guess until death, since it’s only me instead of ‘we.’”

            Sadly, in the United States, marriage has been redefined into whatever two consenting people wish it to mean. Consequently, the legalization of “self”-marriage, or possibly “marriage” between more than two consenting parties, would not be surprising. At its core, marriage in secular culture seems to emphasize the choice of the individual to be in a “committed relationship,” and receive the traditional legal recognition.      

            It seems that in a twisted way, self-marriage could mimic traditional marriage: a promise to love and be faithful till death, and the possibility to procreate. A woman conceivably could “marry” herself, decide to become a mother (through adoption, or through Artificial Reproductive Techniques), and convince herself she is content.

            A question arises: does the choice to be in a “committed relationship” with oneself stem from an inflated self-love, or something else? Recently, Cosmo magazine published a piece extolling the rise of self-marriages. Julia Duin critiques this flowery portrayal of self-marriage, noting, “I think [self-marriage] is more about the revenge of single women going after the one institution that shuts them out more than a deconstruction of marriage itself. Marriage these days has been so re-defined and squeezed into structures it was never meant to occupy, that it’s no surprise that a certain class of people are choosing themselves as their sole priority and creating a ritual for it.” 

            Is this just about the revenge of single women? I disagree with Duin’s analysis that the choice to marry oneself is fueled by frustrated women whose “fairy-tail ending” never occurred. I think there is something much deeper happening when someone rejects traditional marriage. 

Timothy George, writing in First Things, believes the choice to marry oneself stems from an inflated self-love, yet it has a far more sinister root.  He writes, “Narcissism is more than modern rugged individualism gone to seed. At its heart is a spiritual disorder, what Martin Luther (borrowing a phrase from Augustine) described as incurvatus in se, ‘twisted back into one’s self.’” George notes how the breakdown of the family is partly to blame for this spiritual disorder, since people no longer have their own flesh and blood as their primary support system.

George’s analysis of a rampant spiritual disorder does not fully grasp the heart of the issue, however. I think that the desire to marry oneself stems from a desire to experience authentic love.  This desire is a good thing.  In fact, it’s been placed on our hearts by God.  

           How can we experience authentic love in a fallen world? 

           We will continue our reflection in Part II.