The Betrothal State in Marriage

A Sermon by the Rev. James P. Cooper

For as a young man marries a virgin, so shall your sons marry you; and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you. (Isaiah 62:5)

Marriage is the natural state of life for all men and women. Everyone in heaven is married, and remains married to eternity. Marriage is the most important relationship we will establish in our lives. It is therefore in our own best interests to learn as much about marriage as possible.

When we look at marriage as a purely natural thing, a customary arrangement for the sake of sorting out the inheritance of offspring, it is very difficult to treat it seriously, to resist the temptations to break the marriage vows. If marriage is just a social contract, what harm can there be in a little adultery as long as it is kept quiet so no one is hurt? The low success rate of modern marriages is probably the result, at least in part, of the increasingly natural view of marriage as a temporary social contract between two adults that can be easily broken and new relationships arranged.

But marriage is not a purely natural thing: it originates in God Himself. God is Divine Love itself and Divine Wisdom itself. From His Divine Love, God wanted to create a heaven from the human race. From His Divine Wisdom, He conceived a plan to accomplish this goal. When the desire and the plan were conjoined and made one, the universe was created over a period of time, and in an orderly way. The creation of a heaven full of human beings is God's greatest pleasure. This is the origin of marriage, for the wife represents the Divine Love, and the husband represents the Divine Wisdom. When they come together in marriage and conjoin themselves, they can create new human beings for heaven. The pleasure of conceiving and rearing children is the greatest delight of human life, and it is a gift from God because it is a correspondence of the great delight He Himself felt in creating the universe.

Marriage seems a natural thing because it involves the fulfillment of so many natural desires. However, the doctrines of the New Church have revealed not only that it is a spiritual creation, but they have also revealed how we can prepare for marriage so that the spiritual things come before the natural things and so the marriage can continue to grow in wisdom and delight to eternity. We prepare ourselves for a lovely, eternal, spiritual marriage with one through shunning evils as sins, looking to the Lord to provide a partner, and the states of betrothal.

We usually think of betrothal as a ritual that takes place after then engagement and a few weeks or months before a young couple gets married, and that is one correct view. But the purpose of that ritual is to mark their mutual belief and consent that they are going to enter into a spiritual marriage before they enter into the natural marriage. Do conviction and heart- felt belief end with the marriage ceremony? Why do young couples give each other tokens and gifts at the time of betrothal except to remember this important spiritual step in their lives? Why else do they continue to wear these tokens throughout their life except to remind them of the beautiful, tender first states of mutual love? It is my contention that the betrothal ceremony marks the beginning of a life-long effort to bring what is spiritual into marriage so that what is natural can serve its proper use and be in its proper place. Those who are not yet married should look forward to being betrothed, those who are betrothed should enjoy the state, and those who are married should look back on those states and principles of marriage to bring new life and restore spiritual direction in the marriage they have. Let us now review the main states of betrothal so that they can be recognized, cherished, and renewed.

The first state of betrothal has to do with choice, and the fact that men and women make choices in different ways. With men, facts predominate, while with women, feelings and intuitions are more important. The doctrines teach that because of these differences in their nature, it is for the man to seek out and approach a potential partner. This is because a woman who is looking toward marriage will be strongly attracted to a man who shows interest in her without necessarily examining all the facts about his character and background. In general, women tend to be carried along according to the appearances. Literature is full of examples of women who are swept into marrying bad men for all the wrong reasons and who say that they "cannot help themselves," and are buoyed by the hope that somehow such a man can be changed into something good "by the love of a good woman." In a novel, this may work out. In real life, however, it is seldom the case.

The reason for the different way that men and women think about potential partners is that they have a different kind of love of the sex. At first, men are in the love of the sex in general, while women are generally in a form of love that is stirred by and focused on one individual only. This has the effect that a man can have casual, friendly relationships with many women at once, without becoming permanently attached by "bonds of love" to any one of them. With women, there is the implanted love of one of the sex which bonds them to the first one they meet who stirs that love.

Once a young couple discover each other and fall in love, they begin to think seriously about marriage. The Doctrines tell us that a woman should consult her parents before she consents to marry her young man. There are three reasons given for this: parents should be consulted because they counsel from judgment, knowledge, and love. From judgment because they are more advanced in age, and age improves the judgment and give clear sight regarding suitableness and incompatibility, from knowledge of both the suitor and of their daughter. Knowledge concerning their daughter they already have. It is therefore with a joint sight that they form their conclusion as to each of them. From love, because to consult the welfare of their daughter and to provide a home for her is also to consult their own welfare and to provide for themselves.

It is also specifically said that a daughter should not give consent independently of her parents for several reasons. Good judgment requires more than a good mind, it requires the experience of life which most young people do not yet have. There is also the matter of practical experience, although in these days when so many young people have an apartment with friends before they marry, a young person today is much more experienced and able to make decisions than her counterpart from one hundred years ago. These experiences may help them to make much better judgments about the men in their lives.

However, we must remember the danger that comes from the pressure of a young love which is powerful, and undirected. It can cloud reason and overpower the facts. A young woman needs to have a sound relationship with others whom she trusts and with whom she can counsel in a sphere of trust and love. If a young woman enters into a marriage without consulting knowledge and judgment, as well as love, there is no genuine consent, and it is the mutual consent that makes a spiritual marriage, a conjugial marriage. A marriage based only on physical attraction may seem to begin well, but it is likely to deteriorate into lust and adulteries. This corrupts and destroys conjugial love.

Some young people balk at this teaching because they imagine it to mean that the man must come and ask for the daughter's hand in some formal, old fashioned way. Many young women today object to these teachings, because they imagine that it suggests that a young woman is not rational, not able to make good decisions on her own, that she is, like the women of the Bible, owned by her parents.

It would be a shame to reject this passage because so many things are read into it that are not there. I believe that what this says is that a young woman should be in constant, open communication with her parents about her suitors from the very beginning. She should tell them what she feels about them. The young men should be included in family outings and times at home so they can all get to know each other in normal circumstances. If there is a normal courtship, when the time comes that the young man does finally get up the nerve to ask her to marry him, she will already know what her parents think, she will have already taken much counsel from them, and can answer for herself, from her heart, but also on the basis of her parent's knowledge, judgment, and love for her. Should the young man be in the same kind of constant communication with his parents? Should he be bringing potential partners home to get to know his family? Should he take counsel from his parents and listen to their knowledge and judgment, given from love? Absolutely.

Conjugial love ascends and descends: it ascends first from their minds toward their souls and the effort to conjunction there, and then it descends by influx into their body where it clothes itself with affections for and delights with the married partner. Conjugial love is of the same nature in its descent as it is in the height to which it has ascended. If it is in its height (an orderly conjunction of souls) then it descends chaste (and delightful). If it does not ascend so high, but only to the lower parts of the mind, then it descends unchaste, for it picks up its character of the part of the mind in which it resides.

This shows the importance of betrothal, for by focusing the minds of the couple on spiritual principles of marriage, conjugial love can reach a greater height, and can descend from a more elevated and more pure position. If the young couple are only interested in making their sexual pleasures acceptable in the eyes of society, and indulge in them before their marriage, then they cannot expect a spiritual marriage to result as if by magic because they have participated in a church service.

With those who think about marriages from religion, the marriage of the spirit precedes, and that of the body follows. They are thus separated from the love of the sex in general and it is replaced with a tender love of one of the sex as they look to an eternal and everlasting union with one. Those who think only of marriage as a conjunction of bodies during life in the natural world will not be able to elevate themselves into a spiritual marriage because they do not even know that such a thing exists--so how can they work toward it?

The purpose of betrothal is to focus on spiritual things before natural things. To support this focus on the spiritual marriage as being prior to, and more important than, the natural marriage, the Writings forbid physical conjunction during the time of betrothal. To clarify this point, the Writings never recommend sexual relations outside of marriage, but they do recognize that people sometimes find themselves in circumstances where marriage is impossible, but the need for marriage is very strong. The Writings suggest ways of solving this problem in the least disorderly way, and point out that it is the intention that governs whether a particular evil is actually a sin. Always, the intention of these laws of mercy is to help lead people to commit the mildest of sins, and to act in the least disorderly way possible so that Conjugial Love may be preserved with them.

However, once a couple have come before the Lord in the presence of a minister with the intention of declaring their mutual love and their desire for an eternal, spiritual marriage, they must then become doubly careful to avoid situations where they might be tempted to have sexual relations, for that could damage that special sphere that is being created, and which will be a foundation of their marriage forever.

Betrothal is not only a state for young lovers, but a state that can and should be enkindled in mature marriages as well. The state of betrothal, the determination to have the spiritual marriage precede the natural marriage, is the spiritual force within a marriage, it represents the desire for an eternal spiritual marriage with one partner. All marriages have states of warmth and cold that fluctuate from time to time as the partners go through their individual trials and temptations in life. In the difficult times, there is value in remembering the promises made during courtship, there is value in remembering the hopes and dreams that made you fall in love with each other. By remembering those early states, by thinking about the tokens of your love for each other, by reading Conjugial Love again, together, you will find that your marriage could be revitalized. You can talk about the things you have learned since you were married, and enjoy those "borrowed states" of heaven once again. Such reminders can carry you over the rough spots that naturally occur in every one's life.

In the New Church, we know that marriage is more than a natural agreement, but the grind of daily life can make us forget our ideals, our spiritual goals. The point is to take time for each other and for the care and feeding of your marriage. Time and personal attention are they key to success in most areas of life, and marriage is no exception. The goal is to restore and uplift the desire for an eternal, spiritual marriage with one. AMEN.

Lessons: John 4:1-26, Genesis 29:1-20, CL 71-72