Nicky was on the horns of a true dilemma. Her longtime boyfriend had been talking about marriage lately. Nicky had tried, as gently as she could, to discourage the talk because she had no intention of marrying her boyfriend. And she was sure that he had understood her hints. Yet Nicky could see that he wasn’t ready to let the subject go. To Nicky, it appeared that her boyfriend either wanted to marry her or to move on. The strange thing was that Nicky understood why he might well feel that way. Her problem was that she didn’t feel that way at all, at least about him. As she thought more about it, Nicky realized that she had long wanted to marry, too, but just not to her boyfriend. She would have married him long ago if she’d considered him a candidate. But she didn’t, and she had no clear idea why not.
Whom
Whom one marries matters a lot to most of us, although not necessarily to everyone. Some are just going to marry, no matter what the circumstances and no matter whom. You might have known someone of that surprising disposition, where marrying was more important than finding the putative right spouse. Those marriages where both spouses just want to be married more than to be married to one another can work out reasonably well, at least for the short term and perhaps longer. They may not have strong personal preferences for or aversions about certain people or, for that matter, about anything, feeling instead that any flavor of ice cream is good as long as it’s ice cream. But most of us aren’t that neutral about things. Most of us have at one time or another had greater attraction to someone and greater aversion from someone else, even if the rest of humanity falls somewhere in between. Whom you marry should probably matter, and probably does matter, to you.
Compatibility
A common conception about marriage is that spouses should be compatible. You hear the comment about some couples, for instance, that they were made for one another. You know how some dogs fit their owner to a tee? Some married couples seem the same way, although with human partners, the fit isn’t necessarily physical appearance, such as height, weight, musculature, and hair texture or color. The fit may instead be in the spouses’ similar energy level, chattiness, moodiness, or other brightness, dimness, or peculiarity of the disposition. To say that a couple is well matched usually implies that they came from similar backgrounds, socioeconomic status, family structure, traditions, or other such molds. And compatibility of those sorts can make good sense. If every decision within a marriage involves a negotiation over customs, cultures, commitments, preferences, or values, then the spouses may have little patience and energy remaining to just enjoy one another. Compatibility, in all its potential dimensions, can count for something in choosing whom to marry. Give it some thought in your case.
Complementarity
Yet as much as compatibility seems to be one potential measure of a marriage candidate’s fitness, you also see married couples who have vastly different, but somehow complementary, dispositions. They are very different, but their differences somehow work well. One spouse is chatty while the other sullen, making for a balance of the two. One spouse is moody while the other serene, once again producing a stable balance. One spouse is spontaneous while the other cautious, the tension producing just the right balance of cautious spontaneity. Differences not only in personality, energy level, mood, and disposition but even in values, customs, and commitments can also work well in some instances. Our aspirations can reflect a tremendously wide range of values, which we often swiftly and subtly shift from circumstance to circumstance. Why within that volatile personal mix should two individuals considering marriage expect to consistently feel the same way, when either one of them can flip flop on things in an instant? Complementarity can indeed balance one-end-of-the-spectrum personalities, making for a more-stable marital union than either of its two members. If your marriage candidate isn’t particularly compatible, give your candidate’s complementarity some alternative thought.
Faith
Whether you and the candidate you have identified for marriage share the same religious faith or denomination can have widely varying degrees of significance to your decision to investigate or pursue marriage. While the religious question might look like a simple one with a simple rule, such as to marry only within the faith under all circumstances, the answer for some couples is not nearly so simple and the rule not nearly so clear. Individuals considering marriage have a spectrum of faith commitments and interests as wide as exists. An agnostic may have no formal faith knowledge or commitment at all, while at the spectrum’s other end, some adherents have such abiding commitments to a formal and traditional expression of faith that their identities are inseparable from it. Having no faith knowledge or commitment, the agnostic might consider anyone as a suitable candidate for marriage, even one who had a deeply held faith. Having an abiding faith, the adherent might consider the agnostic a candidate for recruitment, while certainly no threat or risk. One need not warn the atheist not to marry the fundamentalist or vice versa because they are unlikely to attract one another in any case. Scripture implies both not to marry an unbeliever but also that the believing spouse’s faith sanctifies the unbeliever. With spiritual growth and changes of heart, room may exist for grace, making a good marriage of individuals who began with different faith commitments.
Family
Family may feel otherwise. Whether one should consider the opinions of parents, siblings, or other family members on the choice of a spouse may depend very much on the character and disposition of the family member and the relationship the courting individual has with them. A parent’s warning against a certain candidate for marriage may go both ways, either wisely informing the child or unwisely encouraging the child to plunge ahead. If you value your parent’s opinion or the opinion of another family member, then ask them for it, and listen to what you hear. If you receive an opinion that you did not solicit, listen to it anyway, although with a grain of salt. Parents are likely within their rights and responsibilities to warn a child of something objective they see about a candidate spouse, especially something alarming coming to their attention that the child does not know. Parents are likely not within their rights to share subjective opinions regarding the quality or complementarity of a match. Those subjective things are for the courting couple to judge. But again, if a family member expresses an unbidden opinion, hear them out. And if your family members are not as excited for you as you expect and hope, keep in mind that they may not be thinking of the candidate or you but instead of the changes they anticipate in their relationship with you, that they might be losing a part of you. They may take time to express their excitement.
Status
The question of relative socioeconomic status can loom in some instances over the question of whether to marry a particular candidate. Indeed, a large difference in socioeconomic status of mutually attracted marriage candidates is a common literary and artistic theme. See, for example, Pretty Woman and Beauty and the Beast in film and Pride and Prejudice in literature. The typical such portrayal is that others are much more concerned about the mismatch in wealth, standing, or social graces, than the smitten couple themselves. But that portrayal may not represent the full concern. Those individuals considering marriage may be just as concerned that the mismatch harbors future conflict, even if presently unseen. Those individuals considering marriage may also question their own motives or the motives of the other, in the way that status mismatches can. Gold digger is a pejorative way of characterizing one of those potentially unsavory motives, to marry for money rather than marriage’s higher objects. If you and your candidate are any kind of a substantial mismatch, consider working through any related questions of future conflict or present motive, if you at all can. Don’t let your doubts cloud your future.
Prenuptial
Some marrying couples deal in advance with a financial mismatch not just openly but also legally through a prenuptial agreement. A prenuptial agreement determines certain rights and obligations of the parties, especially around financial support and division of property in the event of the parties’ divorce. Prenuptial agreements are among the oddest of legal contracts. Going in, they assume the worst. They assume divorce, and then negotiate the terms for divorce work backward toward the time just before the marriage when the parties sign the prenuptial agreement. A prenup in effect answers how much of the rich spouse’s property and income the rich spouse will share with the poor spouse if they should happen to divorce. To say that negotiating a prenup is delicate is an understatement. The rich fiancé is inevitably the one to propose, which is to say impose and effectively demand, the prenup, the poor fiancé having no finances to protect. The demand inevitably sullies somewhat the poor fiancé’s dreams of wedded bliss, while entirely flattening the poor fiancé’s hopes of riches in the event of the sudden demise of that bliss. But what is the poor fiancé to do? Refuse to sign the prenup, and the poor fiancé may look and feel exactly like that which the poor fiancé claims not to be. If that’s your situation and you’re feeling all these things, you’re not alone. Others faced with a prenup feel the same way. Prenups are imperfect solutions to an unavoidable issue in financial mismatches.
Character
The prior chapter briefly mentioned the risk of a very poor marriage because of the potentially corrupt or even despicable character of the candidate spouse. Of course, some falls from grace of that type occur after the wedding, at some point during the marriage, and thus would be difficult or impossible to predict. Don’t blame yourself, at least not too badly, if you married a good person who gradually turned into a lout. You might not have had anything to do with it. But if you had any way to predict that unfortunate change in character, you’d try to do so. And in some cases, the evidence of poor character is already there during the courtship, even if carefully hidden. If you see or sense such signs, look into them as far as you are able. Direct inquiry of the candidate may be the fairest approach. It may also produce the least-reliable information. They say that psychopaths are the best liars because they believe their lies themselves. Getting to know your candidate’s network of family, friends, co-workers, and acquaintances can greatly help. You’re not exactly checking references, but then again, you are.
Procedure
Procedure helps when trying to discern among the most important and most difficult of life decisions, which is whom to marry. Courtship is a formal name for the process preceding marriage, although courtship implies that one or both of the involved individuals already intends, or at least has a very open view toward, marriage. Courtship can confirm or contradict the wisdom of the choice of candidates, in time to take the better course forward to engagement or backward to parting. See the next chapter for more about courtship. A pastor’s marriage counseling, typically following the formal engagement, can be another procedure for confirming or contradicting the wisdom of marrying the particular candidate. Take that counseling with a grain of salt. My wife’s pastor who counseled my wife (then fiancé) and I nearly fifty years ago told us he foresaw trouble for us, giving my wife a clear way out of our engagement. Fortunately for me, she didn’t take it. I hope and assume she feels the same way. But recognize that traditional rituals surrounding courtship and marriage can help to confirm the wisdom of a choice, in time to make the best decision possible under the circumstances.
Dating
The prior chapter mentions dating as another one of those procedures, indeed the primary procedure, to learn about candidates for marriage and to winnow the field, as it were. As already mentioned, dating can have other purposes entirely apart from any thoughts of marriage. You’ve heard people interested in finding marriage candidates who nonetheless rue having to enter the dating scene. For good reason, too, that the dating scene may be exactly where many people who don’t want to marry go, to enjoy without betrothal the intimate privileges of marriage. If you use the dating scene to meet and assess marriage candidates, be sure that your date sites and outings provide a sufficient variety of settings and challenges to reveal what you would want to know about any serious marriage candidate. Humorously, in retrospect, my wife and I confirmed our marital interest in one another on a way-too-long, exhausting, and hazardous canoe trip. I kept her in the canoe and out of the freezing cold water, barely, when our friends accompanying us on the trip weren’t so fortunate. Maybe that’s why we soon married.
Cohabiting
Some unmarried couples make the choice to live together for a period, whether expressly or impliedly in consideration of marriage, or without any serious thought of marriage, before eventually marrying. Views differ on the wisdom of doing so. Some hold to the sound tradition that premarital cohabitation spoils important and non-recoverable covenantal aspects of marriage. Others find cohabitation to be a necessary or helpful step in confirming or contradicting the wisdom of marrying at all and of marrying the particular cohabiting candidate. You may find, though, that dating can satisfy nearly the full procedural course you’d want to follow to confirm the good character of your prime marriage candidate, without spoiling marriage’s last covenantal step. On one hand, the choice not to cohabitate before marriage can be straightforward, clear, rational, and simple, while in any specific circumstance cohabiting can look significantly more tempting and complex.
Acquaintances
Fortunately, dating or cohabiting aren’t the only ways to get to know enough about another person to have a sense of that person’s fitness, compatibility, complementarity, or character for marriage. Individuals with whom you grew up and have stayed in touch provide one pool of marriage candidates who, given their familiarity, may need no dating investigation. College, university, and graduate school classmates provide another candidate pool, potentially needing less vetting, depending on the length and degree of interaction you had with them in school. Having a close and trusted friend introduce you to a lifelong friend or co-worker of theirs, whom they regard as a strong marriage candidate for you, can likewise resolve in advance some of the bigger character questions. If your friend knows and trusts them enough to help you make the connection, the candidate already has at least one reliable endorsement. Don’t overlook childhood friends, classmates, co-workers, and those to whom close friends introduce you. Listen to old married couples share how they met one another, and you’ll see these patterns. Value the patterns. They may be telling you something.
Online
The existence of online dating services illustrates the exact opposite end of the spectrum. The whole point of dating services is to introduce you to people whom you don’t know and who aren’t within your friends’ networks. And unfortunately, that’s exactly the attraction and advantage of online dating services that predators seek. A substantial percentage of online profiles are outright fakes, typically assembled by scammers intent on some form of fraud. Predators of more-dangerous types also patrol dating services. That’s not to say that you can’t meet a sound character on a dating site. You probably have acquaintances who met their spouse through a dating service. You might have met your current date or spouse in that manner. It’s just to say that you place yourself at a fairly severe information disadvantage when trying to connect with a potential marriage partner through an online dating service. Be aware of that disadvantage, and make extra efforts to reduce its risks.
Intuition
Much of the above discussion takes the common view of finding the right marriage partner, as if it involved a pool of potential candidates and a process of winnowing and assessing. That’s the way we tend to reason, through a process, based on criteria, instrumentally toward a goal. Yet just as with the decision whether to marry, the decision whom to marry may be less susceptible of reason and more susceptible to intuition. Our spirits and senses may be far more subtle and sensitive than our brute conscious reason. Events, symbols, and patterns may be showing you things that you do not consciously acknowledge and cannot verbally articulate. The creator may be whispering into your soul, directing you toward the one for whom he made you and whom he made for you, while warning you away from others. Those barely perceptible or imperceptible influences may be telling you to wait or not to wait, to move forward or to move back. They may be telling you yes you’ve found the one, or no you’ve not. Discern in whatever intuitive way you can. Doing so may prove far more effective in finding the right marriage partner than any conscious reasoning.
Reflection
On a scale of one to ten, how compatible are you with your spouse or the one whom you are considering marrying or are engaged to marry? How do you differ? How might your differences be complementary, balancing one another out? Do you and your spouse, fiancé, or friend whom you are considering marrying have widely disparate finances, education, incomes, or other status or standing? How might those differences be affecting you now? How might they affect you in the future? What is the character of your spouse, fiancé, or friend whom you are considering marrying? How did you first learn your spouse’s character before marriage or your fiancé’s character before engagement? What, in all frankness, is your own character relative to marriage? What did your intuition tell you about your spouse before marrying or your fiancé before engagement? Would you have married or gotten engaged were it not for your intuited sense? If you’re not yet engaged or married but have a candidate in mind, what are you intuiting about whether they might be your spouse? What signs have you noticed pointing you forward or away, or for what signs should you watch?
Key Points
Whom one considers marrying has a lot to do with whether to marry.
Compatibility can count as a positive factor for a marriage candidate.
Complementarity may do as well where compatibility is in doubt.
Disparate socioeconomic status can raise conflict prospects.
A prenup addresses the question of motive as to disparate wealth.
Character is the big question, easy to conceal, hard to predict.
Be thoughtful in how you assess your marriage candidate’s character.
Dating is a traditional way to evaluate a marriage candidate.
Cohabiting tests a candidate at the loss of marriage covenants.
Friends, schoolmates, and coworkers can be familiar candidates.
Beware online dating services as a field for marriage candidates.
Intuition may tell us more than we can consciously discern.