Many books and movies end with a wedding and an assumption that happily-ever-after just “happens.” However, in most cases, the real adventure begins after “I do.” Because our literature and films usually depict the dating and courtship side of romance, oftentimes we don’t know how the adventure of marriage should play out.
‘David Copperfield’ by Charles Dickens: Choosing Wisely and Living With the Consequences
This 1850 novel tells the life story of David Copperfield, from infancy to maturity. David is a sweet-tempered, earnest boy who grows up and seeks his fortune in the world. Even as a young adult, he retains a childishness and innocence—partly in the sense of moral goodness, partly in the sense of naivete and ignorance.
Fresh out of school, a young David works for a businessman named Mr. Spenlow, who has a charming and pretty daughter. David falls for her, and suddenly all his energies and daydreams, even his life itself, revolve around Dora. With his soul quickened by the blush and bloom of youth’s first attraction, David places her upon a pedestal. “I don’t think I had any definite idea where Dora came from, or in what degree she was related to a higher order of beings; but I am quite sure I should have scouted the notion of her being simply human, like any other young lady, with indignation and contempt. If I may so express it, I was steeped in Dora.”
Carried away by the devotion he feels, David marries Dora as soon as he is able. The trouble is, Dora, though sweet-natured and good-willed, is as much a child as David—probably more so. She’s airheaded, irresponsible, and ill-formed. As they settle into married life after the honeymoon, David begins to realize that he has not sought out a wife with depth of character. He sought out a romance of pretty smiles, intoxicating charm, flirtation, and immaturity.
On a practical level, for instance, Dora can’t run a household or manage the couple’s servant. They live in a state of chaos. When David tries to broach the subject with her, she evades the question by coquettishly drawing with a pencil on his forehead, then bursting into tears and calling him “cruel.”
Later, when discussing the matter with his aunt, she offers him this good advice:
“These are early days ... and Rome was not built in a day, nor in a year. You have chosen freely for yourself ... and you have chosen a very pretty and a very affectionate creature. It will be your duty, and it will be your pleasure too—of course I know that; I am not delivering a lecture—to estimate her (as you chose her) by the qualities she has, and not by the qualities she may not have. The latter you must develop in her, if you can. And if you cannot, child ... you must just accustom yourself to do without ‘em.”
‘Pride and Prejudice’ by Jane Austen: Marriage Must Be Founded on Virtue
In her 1813 novel “Pride and Prejudice,” Jane Austen presents a detailed study of character and its relationship to successful and unsuccessful marriages. The novel presents a range of marriages and comments on what each gets right and wrong.
Elizabeth’s parents’ marriage is a warning to Elizabeth. Mrs. Bennet is famous for her foolishness, gossiping, smallness of mind, obsession with marrying off her daughters, and absolute inability to understand or relate to her husband, who amuses himself by teasing her. It is a marriage of unequal minds and temperaments.
Austen narrates, “[Elizabeth’s] father, captivated by youth and beauty, and that appearance of good-humour which youth and beauty generally give, had married a woman whose weak understanding and illiberal mind had very early in their marriage put an end to all real affection for her. Respect, esteem, and confidence had vanished for ever; and all his views of domestic happiness were overthrown.”
Not unlike David Copperfield, Mr. Bennet gave way to an infatuation based upon externals, not depth of character. The consequences were even worse for Mr. Bennet than they were for David.
Mr. Bennet’s marriage arose merely from emotion, without consideration of the reasonableness of the match between himself and his fiancée. In contrast, Austen offers the example of Elizabeth’s friend, Charlotte Lucas, whose approach to marriage falls on the other end of the spectrum. She chooses a loveless, emotionless marriage to a buffoon named Mr. Collins simply for material security and comfort it will provide her. She falsely believes that there’s nothing one can do to improve chances for happiness in marriage, and there’s no point in trying: “Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance ... it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life.”
From the overly emotional marriage of her father and the emotionally barren marriage of her friend, Elizabeth learns that a good marriage balances feeling and foresight, emotion, and reason, and, most importantly, she also learns through her relationship with Darcy the importance of a marriage founded on virtue. Part of the delight of the much-beloved love story between Elizabeth and Darcy stems from the lovers’ ability to improve one another. They hold each other accountable—first out of anger, and later out of love.
J.R.R. Tolkien’s Letter: Marriage Requires a Firm Effort of the Will
However, a more accurate view of the relationship between the sexes would understand that men and women are “companions in shipwreck,” that is, both carry their own faults and weaknesses and both need a higher ideal outside themselves.
Tolkien writes about the chivalric tradition, which took man’s tendency to idolize women and enshrined it in a code of ethics. Tolkien sees both positives and negatives in it, the greatest danger being the deification of the female, which is ultimately disappointing and damaging to both sexes.
Tolkien told his son that fidelity in marriage demands effort and strength of will. It requires self-denial and suffering. It’s only through this effort that the best in marriage can be achieved. “No man, however truly he loved his betrothed and bride as a young man, has lived faithful to her as a wife in mind and body without deliberate conscious exercise of the will, without self-denial,” he writes.
Moreover, says Tolkien, part of self-denial is to resist the temptation to believe that the real soulmate is somewhere else. In a statement that Dickens would likely agree with, Tolkien says: “Only a very wise man at the end of his life could make a sound judgement concerning whom, amongst the total possible chances, he ought most profitably to have married! Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a little more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might have found more suitable mates. But the ‘real soul-mate’ is the one you are actually married to.”
Great writers such as Dickens, Austen, and Tolkien gave us a gift: their penetrating insight into human life and the age-old institution of marriage. We’d be foolish not to profit from it.
