Why the Marriage Bond Is a Great Mystery

He begins with Christ’s achievements: “Love your wives as Christ also loved the Church.” Then he turns to human nature: “Husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies.” Then again to Christ: “Because we are members of His body, from His flesh and from His bones.” Then back again to human nature: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife.” After reading this law, Paul says, “This mystery is great.”

Tell me, how is it great? A young woman who has spent all her life sheltered at home and has never before seen the bridegroom can, from the first day, desire him and love him as her own body. Likewise, the man places above everyone else—from the first day—a woman he has never seen and with whom he has never even shared a conversation. He places her before friends, relatives, and even the parents who gave him birth.

Parents themselves behave similarly. If money is taken from them in some other matter, they are hurt and distressed and drag the person responsible into court. Yet they entrust both their own daughter and a large dowry to a man whom they may never before have seen or known. They rejoice while doing this and do not think what is happening is a loss. They watch their daughter being led away and do not remember their long familiarity, grieve, or feel pain. Instead they give thanks and regard it as an answer to prayer that their daughter leaves the house together with considerable property.

Paul considered all this: both leave their parents and are bound to one another; the meeting of that moment becomes more tyrannical than familiarity of so many years. He recognized that this is not merely human, but that God planted these loves and caused both those giving in marriage and those being given to do this with joy. So he said, “This mystery is great.”