St. Thomas Aquinas lists fortitude—courage—among the four cardinal virtues. For the Angelic Doctor, fortitude is the virtue that enables a person to overcome great difficulties or obstacles to do what is right and good. I want to suggest that marriage, particularly in our day, requires fortitude.
I make that observation in conjunction with modern sociological data, which show that people are putting marriage off. Men and women marry on average later than ever before, if they marry at all. Plenty of ersatz substitutes today replace permanent marriage. And even though the Church still speaks of marital indissolubility, our society puts less enforcement behind the marriage contract than a plumbing contract.
Yes, I know—there are many socio-economic factors that inhibit marriage. Prolonged education, college debt, finding a job, establishing oneself in one’s profession, inflation, the cost of housing, woke norms for relations between the sexes—all these factors impinge negatively on getting married. Facing and then surmounting them takes courage. Advancing to parenthood—which, as the Church sees it, is a normal next step, not an “optional accessory” to marriage—requires even more courage. The fact that the gap between marriage and having children is also growing attests to this.
Young people might say, “Well, I’m not afraid of marriage per se. I don’t know how to find the right person, and I’m afraid I’ll lose my kids and money if she divorces me.” I’ve met good spouses like this, left on ice.
We shouldn’t downplay those concerns. Dating, too, has not just declined, but also assumed some unhealthy forms. If there’s one thing young adults criticize about the Church, it is how it’s “there” (or, rather, “not there”) for them. In an earlier, more church-going age, parishes might be places to meet. But today’s parish social life more often caters to seniors than spouse-seekers. Male educational and earning declines, coupled with something of a mutated double standard (“I’m independent, but I want a guy who protects and can support me”) make concerns about permanence real (even though the divorce rate has been declining).
These are real worries. Some require social fixes (e.g., how men are “falling behind”). Some can be addressed at the parish (e.g., a parish supper or movie night for young adults). All helping hands welcome!
In the end, though, we still come back to courage. It takes courage to set out into the deep, whether in the particular circumstances that living in our day requires or those certain constants to marriage that have always required courage.
One of them is faith. Do you believe in love? Do you believe that God gives you the grace to be with this one person, ’til death do you part?
In conjunction with that, do you see marriage as a vocation? The Church’s vocabulary has long cheated marriage by speaking of “vocations” as primarily connected with the priesthood and religious life. But marriage is a vocation.
“Marriage as vocation” probably requires a new catechesis of marriage. Young Catholics know that marriage is a sacrament. But what does that mean? First, as a sacrament of vocation, marriage is not—to borrow a modern phrase—a “moment.” It is not just “the wedding day.” It begins on the wedding day but ends on the day of death. Second, one is assuming spiritual responsibility for another. Marriage affects the spiritual, which means that thinking about marriage—and the things that lead up to it, like courtship and dating—will require Catholics to get a bit “serious.” Juice Newton had it right: “It’s hard to be a lover when you say you’re only in it for fun.”
That, of course, therefore implies that the choice of a spouse also involves spiritual discernment. Does this person share my values in what counts? In God? In the Church? In how we live as married people? In how we bear and raise children? Those things—and not just common interests, hobbies, or preferences—are what matters. They also raise questions about “mixed marriages.”
When people tell me that the religious dimension of their wedding and wedding plans are something subordinate, something “I’ll get to,” that should be a warning bell: it’s the marital equivalent of doing everything for Christmas except getting ready for Christ.
If one can trust another “’til death do us part” after such a process of discernment, then by all means, do the courageous thing and marry. Of course, that requires prudence (another cardinal virtue). Do I have a job? Some savings? Can we make a go of things?
But don’t let “prudence” turn into fearful paralysis. You cannot control everything. In fact, you’ll find in life that what you can control is relatively modest. Prudence means not being reckless, but prudence also is paired with another vital reality: faith in Providence, that “God who has begun this good work in you will now bring it to completion” . . . even if you might not know just how he’s going to do it. Because it may be in totally unexpected ways. All you should do is recognize that “God makes all things work for the good of those who love him” (Rom. 8:28)—especially when that love is multiplied by two or more “gathered in my name” (Matt. 18:20).
National Marriage Week is February 7-14, World Marriage Sunday February 9. Reading the signs of the times, we know there are challenges out there, and they are real. We know that there are lots of resistance to the Catholic vision of marriage. But when we consider the vision the Church offers us in marriage and, with faith that “God is for us,” let us make Jesus’s words our own: “Take courage; I have conquered the world” (John 16:33).