LOVE

The love that is peculiar to marriage must be Eros – romantic love.  This is essential.  If a couple aren’t in love, they are living a lie.  The marriage service talks about loving and cherishing.   The Bible makes clear in its opening passages that man would leave his mother and father and be united with his wife as ‘one flesh’.  Without a degree of romantic attraction, this would be impossible.

FRIENDSHIP

However, romance can die out.  The attraction of getting to know someone new, the first kiss, the butterflies in the stomach – this all goes.  With the practicalities of married life, there is often little time for romance.  Eventually, the romance becomes something else as you get older.  At times, sex won’t work at all for any number of reasons.  This can include sickness, impotence etc.  If this was all there was to marriage, you’d be in trouble.  Genesis gives the real reason Eve was created – Adam was lonely and needed companionship.  Friendship – being able to talk, have fun, do things together - is essential for a marriage to work.

SUMMARY

In some senses, real friendship and real love are the same thing.  Unconditional love means putting the other person first.  If you don’t do that, you’ll end up fighting, arguing and falling out.  A marriage requires this sort of love – a sacrificial friendship that involves giving all you have (as in the marriage service) and making the other person your priority.  This is what Jesus meant when he said ‘Love your neighbour as you love yourself’.  It is the sort of love described in 1 Corinthians 13 – patient, kind, does not keep a record of wrongs. Friendship and love are equally important, and if they’re going to keep a marriage together, they must include agape -  unconditional love.