Lies at the altar?

My computer was attacked by viruses last night. My sweet husband spent the entire night trying to rectify it for me. He managed to get rid of most of it except for this particular one which is so elusive that it kept over-riding the anti-virus software. As a result, I spent night in front of the TV while he was working on it and almost the whole day today computer-less, while the IT Department in my office tackle the elusive one.

What I happen to catch on TV while the viral war was at hand, was Oprah. I am not an Oprah fan but I do not mind checking out once in awhile what’s currently in on the American’s platter of life/thought Oprah-style.

The issue on last night’s show was marriage. It featured Lance Armstrong’s ex-wife who felt that being a wife eroded her lifestyle and own identity. It featured a writer-psychiatrist who wrote a book entitled Lies at the Altar. It featured 2 women who are about to get married doubting if they should be getting married. I suppose I watched the show (I missed the beginning and did not bother to watch the ending) with quite a frown.

I agree with the fact that communication is crucial to a marriage, before and after. I agree with being open and working at knowing more of each other but to put it in the way that Oprah has, I am not comfortable.

Oprah commented that she did not get married because she is not willing to give up herself for another man. She portrays an almost incredulous look at the idea of women who do. And yet she confirms that she is not against marriage. Go figure.

I thought it quite sad. Granted, marriage is not easy. It takes a lot of out men and women alike. But it is the very model that God has chosen to depict his relationship with us. Paul in Ephesians uses the analogy of the husband-wife relationship to describe the relationship between Christ and the church, though he also doubles up the passage as a household code.

Eph 5:22-33 (ESV)
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.
Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,
that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,
so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.
"Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh."
This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

I recognise that this biblical passage attracts a lot of attention, negative and positive. But reflecting on what Oprah is professing, my question is aren’t we all in submission at one time to another to someone, somebody or something? It is how we submit that matters. We are in submission to our country, to the laws that govern us, to our people around us in a “social-code”, to the organisation we work for that happens to take the majority of ur time. Wouldn’t these shape us an demand change in us to comply with their demands. So is the same in a marriage.

Maybe I read her wrong, I hope I did. I just did not like the way that it was presented. Lies at the altar?

Maeghan
Picture by Mike Goodwin