In his book The Meaning of Marriage, Timothy Keller says that we have come to expect way too much out of marriage. We think marriage should be our path to self-fulfillment. This is not only unbiblical, it creates an idealism about marriage that few potential marriage partners can live up to. Keller points out the irony:
Older views are considered to be traditional and oppressive, while the newer view of the “me-Marriage” seems so liberating. And yet it is the newer view that has led to a steep decline in marriage and to an oppressive sense of hopelessness with regard to it. To conduct a Me-Marriage requires two completely well-adjusted, happy individuals, with very little in the way of emotional neediness of their own or character flaws that need a lot of work. The problem is—there is almost no one like that out there to marry! The new conception of marriage-as-self-realization has put us in a position of wanting too much out of marriage and yet not nearly enough—at the same time…
[Some people] do not see marriage as two flawed people coming together to create a space of stability, love, and consolation—a “haven in a heartless world,” as Christopher Lasch describes it. This will indeed require a woman who is a “novelist/astronaut with a background in fashion modeling” or the equivalent in a man. A marriage based not on self-denial but on self-fulfillment will require a low- or no-maintenance partner who meets your needs while making almost no claims on you. Simply put—today people are asking far too much in the marriage partner.[†]
† Timothy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage (New York: Dutton, 2011), 34-5.
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