Three Views of Marriage

This New York Times op-ed essay was brought to my attention through a friend on FaceBook yesterday. It's by David Brooks and was originally published in February 2016.

Brooks talks about three lens for viewing marriage: The Psychological, The Romantic, and The Moral. He closes with these words...

"In the romantic view, the heart is transformed by love, at any age. In the moral view, spiritual transformation — over a lifetime, not just over two passionate years — is the whole point. People have great power to go against their own natures and uplift their spouses, by showing a willingness to change, by supporting their journey from an old crippled self to a new more beautiful self. 

"The three lenses are operating at different levels: personality, emotions, the level of the virtues and the vices. The first two lenses are very common in our culture — in bookstores, songs and in movies. But the moral lens, with its view of marriage as a binding moral project, is less common. Maybe that’s one of the reasons the quality of the average marriage is in decline."

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