"The idea that ‘being in love’ is the only reason for remaining
married really leaves no room for marriage as a contract or promise at
all. If love is the whole thing, then the promise can add nothing; and
if it adds nothing, then it should not be made. The curious thing is
that lovers themselves, while they remain really in love, know this
better than those who talk about love. As Chesterton pointed out, those
who are in love have a natural inclination to bind themselves by
promises. Love songs all over the world are full of vows of eternal
constancy. The Christian law is not forcing upon the passion of love
something which is foreign to that passion’s own nature: it is demanding
that lovers should take seriously something which their passion of
itself impels them to do.
And, of course, the promise, made when I
am in love and because I am in love, to be true to the beloved as long
as I live, commits me to being true even if I cease to be in love. A
promise must be about things that I can do, about actions: no one can
promise to go on feeling in a certain way. He might as well promise
never to have a headache or always to feel hungry."
From
Mere Christianity
Compiled in
A Year with C.S. Lewis
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