The Wonder of Marrage After the Fall

JESSICA JONES

“O God, by whom woman is joined to man, and the companionship they had in the beginning is endowed with the one blessing not forfeited by original sin nor washed away by the flood.” So says the nuptial blessing in the Roman rite of marriage.

PHOTOGRAPHY: NIKAYLA & CO

If you’ve been to numerous weddings as I have, these words pronounced at the end of the nuptial Mass might seem familiar, comforting, even a tad stale. This part of the blessing, buried after praises for a God who created marriage as an inestimable gift of friendship and as a foreshadowing of the covenant Christ makes with his Church, does not seem remarkable. Praise for marriage as a gift of friendship and unity is not altogether unexpected.

Lately, however, I have been struck with this particular part of the nuptial blessing: that marriage is the one divine gift not forfeited by original sin. I wonder . . . why?

Why of all the gifts enjoyed preternaturally was marriage preserved for us who live in a postlapsarian world?

It cannot be that marriage, blessing though it is, preserves us completely from the effects of original sin. The priest friend who married us spoke of marriage at our reception as a “wound of love”: that through marriage, as with the rest of the sacraments, God takes imperfect, broken, sinful people, raising them up through their suffering (not in spite of, but through) to draw him closer to each other in true love and to Himself. So the gift must not be one that preserves us from the “something that is seriously wrong with human beings,” from the sin with which we still struggle after baptism or the guilt of original sin from which we must be expiated.

Then, why and how was marriage preserved? Saint Augustine gives a twofold answer of a natural and supernatural quality.

From the very beginning, Augustine reminds us that God created human beings with a certain nature. Our nature is not isolated or independent; our nature is social and dependent. For this reason, we thrive on the bonds of friendship and kinship—two of the greatest natural goods of human life.

The first “natural” bond of human beings, then, even prior to the Fall, is found most perfectly in marriage. In marriage, we have the coming together of two persons in friendship by a decision of their free will, which in turn leads to the propagation of that other great bond of nature, kinship. In the power of the marriage union, our very nature as social and dependent is made evident and even flourishes (De bon. coni. 9.9).

These natural bonds, of course, were not left untouched by the ravages of original sin—as Augustine describes so well in his Confessions, even the best of natural friendships without God’s grace are usurped by the desire to place earthly goods above God. We easily make idols.

But the supernatural answer to the preservation of marriage after the Fall provides a window into God’s plan for renewing our capacity to love him, others, and ourselves. Marriage is restored to its original glory in the sacrament: it becomes possible once more to enjoy true friendship and kinship through the bonds of Christian marriage.

If that was not enough, those natural goods are elevated. God reveals his ultimate design for marriage: it is to transform this covenant, as Augustine says, into a sign of “the unity of us all made subject to God, which shall be hereafter in one Heavenly City” (De bon. coni. 18.21).

The social nature of man, expressed in marriage before the Fall, is given an even more perfect salvific end. Marriage is a sign that redemption for us as individuals happens not alone but in community. God saves us according to our social nature, not in opposition to it.

Marriage is the one blessing not forfeited by the fall because we did not forfeit our nature because of the Fall. Our desires for friendship, kinship, and worship of God were badly broken, but not lost. At our reception, our priest friend spoke not only of the “wound of love,” but also of its communal character. Long before I met my husband, this friend had said to him once as they were converting to Catholicism, “You know I can’t do this without you.” Now we travel together—my husband and I in marriage, a covenant ordained by God to serve as the sign of the City of God, our friend wounded by love in a distinct, more perfect sense. His covenant with Christ is not mediated by another. And together, according to our nature, we live by God’s grace for the other side.

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About the Author: Jessica Jones resides in Washington, D.C. and is a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy. Her husband Patrick is also a Ph.D. student in moral theology. These days, you will find her, coffee in hand, writing furiously for her regular job or her dissertation on Plato, playing music with Patrick, winding her way through Julia Child's cookbook, or watching all Richard Linklater and Wes Anderson movies over again.

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Surprised by Smallness

JESSICA JONES

My husband and I were going to have a 250 person wedding. My sister and her husband were going to have a 150 person wedding. But the year was 2020, and our plans were about to be dashed again and again.

PHOTOGRAPHY: LAURA AND MATTHEW AS SEEN IN TIANA AND AJ’S FRANCISCAN UNIVERSITY PORT WEDDING

This is not an essay, however, on dashed plans. Instead, I want to talk about the hidden blessings of a pandemic wedding and why I’m so happy my sister and I did not get the weddings of our “dreams.” 

Now, of course, if you’re dreaming of or absolutely loved your huge wedding, that is wonderful! I love big weddings, as is probably clear from the fact that my husband and I at first wanted a large wedding ourselves. 

But now, in hindsight, after having the micro-est of micro-weddings (how’s 15 people for you?) and after attending my sister’s small wedding (50 people at a friend’s house for the reception!), I am ready to say: I’m utterly sold on the small wedding. 

And I hope that one of the many strange and unexpected blessings of this pandemic lasting into the future is that brides-to-be won’t be afraid to have an intimate, down-home wedding and reception.

Let me tell you for a moment how incredible it was.

Time stood still. 

I’ve heard many of my friends talk about how their wedding Mass was a blur; how walking down the aisle was so intimidating with all their friends and family staring; and how they really just wished they could have been in the moment more than they were. With a small wedding, my husband and I found that having only our closest family and friends there gave us immediate peace and security. 

I remember every single moment of our wedding Mass, and I actually got to contemplate and pray for my husband and our marriage as a result. So, while we’re glad to have a video of our Mass to show our children someday, it’s also wonderful to have distinct memories of that Mass and our vows. I consider it the greatest of gifts to have had the tranquility to pray with such attention at the beginning of our marriage.

We played music, danced, ate, and drank until our hearts’ content – and no one kicked us out! 

You may have the reception hall of your dreams picked out (I know I did!), but the pandemic has made me fall completely in love with the beauty, simplicity, and freedom of a home reception. Jam sessions erupted at both my sister’s and my wedding, we danced whenever we wanted for as long as we wanted, celebratory cigars and toasts were happening every fifteen minutes or so – and the end of each evening came naturally. 

It came not with the end of our time at a venue we had no real connection with, but instead ended at the proper moment, with guests belting out the final song which accompanies every WV native’s wedding, “Country Roads.” I just remembered thinking at both receptions, wow – this all feels so natural. It was wonderful.

We heard from all our family and friends at the reception. 

One of my favorite memories of our entire reception is the speeches and words of wisdom we heard from everyone at our reception. Everyone – and I mean everyone – gave a speech, from our maid of honor to our best man, to our parents, to our best friend and priest who married us, to friends from graduate school. And the crowning jewel, which we still talk about to this day, was my husband’s speech. He toasted everyone in the room by telling everyone his first memories of them and why he admired each person. I may be biased, but I think the comfort and intimacy of the moment created an atmosphere for the best toasts I’ve ever heard.

The people who were closest to us were there. 

Again, I thought I wanted a big party. I thought I wanted the 250-person guest list. But recently, after my sister’s and my wedding, I looked back at that extended guest list. And I realized that, in having an extremely trimmed guest list, we ended up with the people who care about us the most. 

I think this tiny list, much more so than the longer list we had, reflects the truth about human relationships. A marriage is sustained by a rather small, but critical set of people who want to be there for you and who have stood the test of time. And, to have this truth reflected at one’s wedding is a powerful thing, for at the beginning of your married life, you are surrounded by those who will truly be with you for your whole lives in support of your marriage.

I hope that the pandemic, then, does change the wedding industry for many brides-to-be! For the naturalness, simplicity, peace, and freedom of an intimate wedding are incredible graces I now wouldn’t trade for anything. What I did not know last year, I know now.

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About the Author: Jessica Jones resides in Washington, D.C. and is a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy. Her husband Patrick is also a Ph.D. student in moral theology. These days, you will find her, coffee in hand, writing furiously for her regular job or her dissertation on Plato, playing music with Patrick, winding her way through Julia Child's cookbook, or watching all Richard Linklater and Wes Anderson movies over again.

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Lessons from Literature | Three Classic Novels for Brides

JESSICA JONES

I didn’t plan to read novels about engagement and marriage in the year leading up to our marriage. It truly happened by accident.

PHOTOGRAPHY: HER WITNESS

It all started with a spur-of-the-moment decision to read Manzoni’s The Betrothed when I had an inkling that my now-husband was about to propose a year and a half ago. 

For some reason, that decision led to my reading one novel about marriage after another — George Eliot’s Middlemarch and Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter followed in close succession. 

I’m not sure why I read these novels over the past year, because though the theme of engagement and marriage persists through them all, there was no real intentionality to my choices. And yet, the fact that there was that loose theme all along has caused me to ask — what can one learn from reading novels depicting the joys and sorrows of engaged and married life?

I’m not going to walk you through a philosophical argument to answer this question (though, as a philosophy PhD, it’s always tempting to do so). Instead, I think an answer emerges for me — and perhaps it will for you too — in reminiscing about these novels and the reflections on engaged and married virtues that they’ve inspired. 

I hope that, in the reminiscing, it will emerge why novels and books describing marriage are indispensable, especially for young brides. 

For what’s better than peering through the looking glass of literature or history, either to grow in self-knowledge or to fill in the gaps of what one doesn’t know all that well?

The Betrothed by Alexander Manzoni

From The Betrothed, I considered what faithfulness and constancy look like in adventures and in the mundane. 

I began reading this novel the same summer that my husband and I got engaged. Not only did it turn out to be eerily prophetic of our own summer 2020 wedding experience (never again will I think of a plague as a remote possibility), the love story of the reckless, but endearing Renzo and his pious, kind Lucia proved to be a early reflection on how a couple in love can remain faithful and even joyful in facing inevitable trials. 

Lucia and Renzo are apart for most of the novel, separated and hunted by the evil Don Rodrigo who desires Lucia for his own. Yet, miraculously, the couple remains committed to each other through the protection and prayers of their family (Lucia’s mother Agnese) and good spiritual fathers (Fra Cristoforo and Cardinal Federigo). This fidelity is practiced not only amid the fantastical journey leading up to their marriage, but also in the travails of so-called “normal” life after their marriage. 

The novel ends with a surprising reflection on how unremarkable Lucia and Renzo are, especially Lucia—she is not beautiful, and when they settle down in their village once more, the townspeople begin to wonder why Renzo sacrificed so much for her. But this unremarkability of the couple and their mundane life after marriage contain the same temptations, passions, joys, and sorrows of their adventures. 

Fidelity is needed even here when the prosaic sets in:

“After discussing the question and casting around together a long time for a solution, they came to the conclusion that troubles often come to those who bring them on themselves, but that not even the most cautions and innocent behavior can ward them off; and that when they come – whether by our own fault or not – confidence in God can lighten them and turn them to our own improvement.” 

For us Christians, we are called to be faithful and to grow in virtue no matter the circumstance.

Middlemarch by George Eliot

From Middlemarch by George Eliot, I witnessed what happens to a marriage when there is a deficiency of humility and self-knowledge. 

The story of Dorothea and Causabon is admittedly far more depressing than that of Renzo and Lucia. It serves as a cautionary tale as much about marriage as it is about knowing oneself prior to marriage. 

Dorothea is too idealistic before she weds Causabon—she thinks only of using him as a way of entering into a world of intellectual riches she admires but has not been able to enjoy. Her loveless marriage is entirely a creation of her own decision and self-deception. 

While she remains faithful to him, she reaps the consequences of her choice even after Causabon’s sudden death when her inheritance depends on never marrying anyone else, most especially Causabon’s nephew, the vivacious Will Ladislaw. While the choice to be faithful to one person in a lifelong marriage is always a leap of faith, the events of Middlemarch remind one of the role that our interior blindness and flaws play in any bad decision, whether or not within marriage. 

Dorothea exhibits the fatal flaw of hubris early on — she refuses to listen to her sister Celia, who is more terrestrial than Dorothea but who knows her best, about Causabon’s boring and selfish behavior; she does not listen to her uncle, Mr. Brooke, who is aware of Causabon’s middling intellect and myopic behavior better than she is; and she does not allow herself time to see if Casuabon’s faults are forgivable flaws or deeply embedded selfish habits. 

The happy ending of Middlemarch is attained after Dorothea blossoms in wisdom, self-knowledge, and humility, but only once she has undergone extreme suffering because of her pride and renounces the fortune Causabon left her. Having dispersed with all the vestiges of her former folly, she finds happiness in her second marriage to Ladislaw, who exhibits both a care for her and a melding of intellectual and practical pursuits which Dorothea had desired all along. 

Humility and self-knowledge, even if they have been previously lacking in a relationship, blossom when the counsel of others and the proper time for a relationship to flourish is treasured.

Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset

From Kristin Lavransdatter, I thought about the necessity of ever-ready forgiveness for a marriage. 

The entire trilogy spanning the length of Kristin Lavransdatter’s life is a heartbreaking story of a marriage begun in less-than-ideal circumstances. But, it’s not as bleak as Middlemarch—there are significant moments of grace in spite of Kristin’s impassioned choice for the imprudent, unfaithful Ereland over her steadfast betrothed and the choice of her family, Simon Darre. 

As I followed Kristin as she reaped the sufferings that came with her choice to marry Ereland, I was struck by the fact that the hardships in Ereland and Kristin’s marriage not only came from personal flaws, but also from Kristin’s inability to forgive Ereland for past wrongs. She herself admits as much to Ereland’s priest brother Gunnulf: “Disobedience is my gravest sin, Gunnulf, and I was inconstant too . . . [Ereland] never became what you said or what I myself became. He never held on to anger or injustice any more than he held on to anything else.” 

What Kristin forgets for much of her marriage and remembers only at the end of her life when she devotes herself entirely to God, is the continual need for conversion, forgiveness, and re-consecration of spouses to Christ within a marriage. 

At various points in her marriage, Kristin’s relationship with God and the Church ebbs and flows; her greatest obstacle to happiness is often her own stubbornness. In this way, Kristin Lavransdatter is as hopeful as The Betrothed: no matter what wickedness Kirstin and Ereland commit together or towards one another, the grace of God is continually working to soften Kristin and Ereland’s hearts, if they will accept. 

As Kristin’s spiritual guide, Sira Eiliv, reminds her near the end of her life:

“Haven’t you realized yet, sister, that God has helped you each time you prayed, even when you prayed with half a heart or with little faith, and He gave you much more than you asked for.” 

In engagement and marriage, God molds us in spite of our stubbornness and asks that we forgive those closest to us, again and again, as He forgives us.

Each of these novels, in their own way, inspired extended reflections on virtues necessary for engaged and married life: faithfulness, humility, self-knowledge, and forgiveness.

And, of course, the presentation of these virtues led to conversations with my husband about the intricacies of each one and inward reflections on whether or not I exhibited such virtues in our relationship (spoiler: still working on them). 

I can’t say if I will continue to pursue this theme I’ve stumbled upon; but, what I can say is that, if you’re engaged, newlywed, or married, depictions of marriage in literature can offer incredibly complex and fruitful insights into what marriage is, what it is not, what it can be, and what it cannot be. 

Most of the time, those insights do not come from ourselves (we deceive ourselves too easily, much like Dorothea), but from another wiser, enticing, and occasionally brutally honest source — the novelist.

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About the Author: Jessica Jones resides in Washington, D.C. and is a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy. Her husband Patrick is also a Ph.D. student in moral theology. These days, you will find her, coffee in hand, writing furiously for her regular job or her dissertation on Plato, playing music with Patrick, winding her way through Julia Child's cookbook, or watching all Richard Linklater and Wes Anderson movies over again.

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