"I suspect that the church's greatest contribution to marital stability and growth will come from living a conviction that flies in the face of American individualism. Understood properly, marriage is a creational good that is part of a wider cosmic drama of human fallenness and redemption. By living out hope in a community that breaks down barriers of age, class, sex, and ethnicity, the church can model a love ethic from which families can draw strength. The American idolatry of romantic love has disconnected couples from living communities of discipline and love - communities that marriages need." - Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen (quoted in Context, Nov. 1, 1997, page 6)

"What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are, but how you are, but how you deal with incompatibility." - George Levinger

"Bo Lozoff is the author of the book on marriage called 'This Is Not a Book on Relationships.' He explains his title: 'Marriage is a union, a single entity, while a relationship exists between two separate individuals. The great problem in our culture is that the idea of getting married and maintaining separate identities is considered a healthy view. Yet the only way marriage can really work is if we realize that the act of getting married fundamentally and forever changes us. We are one part of a committed couple. That's the reason we wear a ring, so that everywhere we go people can recognize at a glance that we are not representing only ourselves.'" - Utne Reader, November/December 1996

"Marriage is a union between male and female. If the state of Hawaii wishes to establish some kind of protected and socially favored status for members of the same sex who wish to covenant with one another in life-long unions, it may do so, but it cannot make such a union marriage, any more than it can declare all dogs to be cats or men to be women. Defining homosexual unions as marriage is not 'tolerance,' but delirium. One might plausibly argue that for the sake of social peace in an increasingly degenerate nation, provision can and should be made for those homosexuals who wish to create lifelong union with marriage-like rights and duties do so. What cannot plausibly be argued is that such a union is a marriage, whatever the state legislatures, the Supreme Courts, or anyone else says." - Harold O.J. Brown, in Religion and Society Report, April 1996, page 7

"Black's Law Dictionary (1968) states: 'In marriage a man and a woman mutually engage with each other to live their whole lives together in the state of union which ought to exist between a husband and wife.' - National Review, May 29, 1995

"Marriage is an act of will, divorce an act of won't." - Screenwriter Josh Greenfield (quoted in U.S. News & World Report, Jan. 13, 1997, page 16)

"Today, most people value marriage primarily for what they personally can gain from it…Americans value marriage primarily as a means to individual happiness. Their tendency to value it for any other reason has seen a substantial decline in recent years." - American Demographics, June 1992

"Marriage, as defined by Webster's Dictionary, has taken some interesting shifts over the years: Webster's, 1828: A civil and religious contract, instituted by God, binding a man and woman in marital fidelity until death. It is honorable and the bed undefiled (Hebrews 13). Webster's, 1975: The state of being married; wedlock; the institution whereby men and women are joined in a special kind of social and legal dependence; the wedding ceremony and attendant ceremonies. Webster's, 1991: The following is added: 'An intimate living arrangement without legal sanction; a trial marriage. Any intimate association or union.'" - Eternal Perspectives Newsletter, February/March 1993

The Ten Commandments For Marriage by Dr. D. James Kennedy:

1. Thou shalt have no other human being before your husband or wife.
2. Thou shalt put nothing before your husband or wife.
3. Thou shalt not belittle, criticize, or fault find, but rather encourage your spouse in all ways.
4. Thou shalt remember His or Her Day to keep it special.
5. Thou shalt give honor not only to your father and mother, but to those who become your father-in-law and mother-in-law.
6. Thou shalt not destroy the spirit within your spouse.
7. Thou shalt give your passions only to each other, not to another.
8. Steal not from your husband or wife that which is their privilege to give and receive what is given with gratitude.
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness to each other.
10. Thou shalt not seek greener pastures, whether they be those things physical or material.

"A successful marriage is one that can go from crisis to crisis with a growth in commitment." - Phil Passon

"Love is an agreement on the part of two people to overestimate each other." - E. M. Cioran

"The real test of my loving is not that I feel loving, but the other person feels loved by me." - Morton T. Kelsey in Companions on the Inner Way

"Marriage is a lot like mowing the lawn. All too often we work on the easy stretches, avoiding those areas that take more time and require closer attention. The result? Overgrown patches that cause our marriages to lose their beauty." - Dan Seaborn (quoted in Wesleyan Advocate, Nov. 1996, page 17)

"Time magazine reported (1/22/95) that the earthquake in Kobe, Japan, occurred when two plates on a fault line fifteen miles offshore suddenly shifted against each other, violently lurching six to ten feet in opposite directions. The result was the worst Japanese earthquake since 1923. Thousands died. More than 46,000 buildings lay in ruins. One-fifth of the city's population was left instantly homeless. The destruction unleashed by those two tectonic plates depicts what happen when a Christian bonds unequally with a non-Christian. Two people committed to each other but going in different directions can only lead to trouble." - David Farnum, Rochester, N.Y.

"Marriage is no big thing - it is a bunch of little ones." - Anonymous

Marriage

"Advertising has altered humankind. We've gone from caveman and cavewoman to craveman and cravewoman. - Frank Tyger

"Imagine the globe's population reduced to a single village of 1,000. If that village was to accurately reflect the world's nationalities, then only 60 villagers would be American. The Americans would own 15 times more material possessions than any of their neighbors, and would enjoy an average life expectancy of 70 years as opposed to less than 40 years for the other villagers. And those same Americans would have 28 of the village's 53 telephones. "- Zondervan Press Syndicate, July 1995

"Prosperity has not been kind to the American family. It breeds short, shallow roots. Fragile anchors. It's not that prosperity and wealth are inherently evil. They aren't. But their presence constantly tempts us to believe we are secure without God and that money can be an adequate substitute for real family values. Dad's money can make up for Dad's absence. Things can replace time spent together. Cash can replace conviction. Wealth can pay for irresponsibility and buy mistakes. A big house can substitute for a sense of home." - Robert Lewis, Pastor, Fellowship Bible Church, Little Rock, AR

"Any problem that can be solved with money isn't a problem. It's an expense." - Anonymous

"The essence of life today is not having - it is having to have." - David Hansen

"Most of us would be willing to pay as we go if we could just finish paying for where we've been." - Ann Landers

"The main emotion of the adult American who has had all the advantages of wealth, education, and culture is disappointment." - John Cheever

"For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." - Matthew 6:21

Materialism