Happily Ever After for Real

Is it a coincidence that so many fairy tales and traditional stories in the western tradition end with a wedding?  But they never continue with a marriage, beyond “and they lived happily ever after.”

It’s as if the wedding itself is what the story was reaching for, even though it may have looked like the story was about conquering fear or receiving one’s just reward o forgiving one’s enemies.  The reward of the hero or heroine’s striving is consummation—literal, spiritual, and social.  The marriage that follows the wedding is an induction into what we might call real life: establishment and responsibility.  One life merges with another and produces new life—more individuals who will set off from safe homes on dangerous missions to become who they are and receive marriage as a reward, from which they will make homes for the next wave of individuals to set out and become  . .

The marriage is not the story, because happily-ever-after is not an essential conflict.  Marriage brackets the story; it’s the home-situation at the beginning and the fading horizon at the end.  It’s what we came from and what we are going toward.

I wonder if one reason for the dissolution of the family in modern American society is that we’re trying to make marriage the story, instead of the launchpad and culmination of the story.

Here’s what I mean.  Stories are about struggle.  Every story has to have a conflict, and the essential conflict is how the individual makes peace with the world (or the situation).  Stories are about individuals, not groups.  Even those interminable James Michener sagas that unfold the history of an entire nation or a group of people could only work by zooming in on the experience of individuals throughout the centuries.  In a story the individual is always at war—with social norms, with injustice, with rivals for glory, goods, or affection, with the darker or less admirable traits within, or any combination of these.

There’s no better visual illustration of conflict, perhaps, than distinctions between male and female.  She is soft where he is tough; she relates while he competes; she nurtures while he protects, and so on.  (I am aware that these are stereotypes, but stereotypes are built on fact.)

How can an individual man or woman be at peace?  How can disparate personalities reconcile?  That’s the question asked in all great fiction: Will Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy stop looking past each other?  Will Belle recognize her love for the Beast before it’s too late?  Will Anna silence her guilty conscience and find happiness with Vronsky?

And the greatest conflict of all, though not fictional: Can a holy God be reconciled with an unholy and rebellious people?

Classic stories—often, not always–ended in marriage, even if they’re weren’t primarily love stories, and even if it wasn’t the main character getting married.  It’s only in modern times that stories have come to be about marriage.  It’s easy to see why: two people striving for harmony, especially if they’re as different as male and female, is rich material for drama.  Novels about marriage can be insightful and rewarding—as fiction.  Making marriage your story in real life can be asking for trouble.

Making marriage your story in real life can be asking for trouble.

Because, remember, stories are all about fighting.  If it ends in defeat, it’s a tragedy.  If in victory (meaning reconciliation), it’s a comedy.   A classic Christian marriage is mutual surrender where each says to the other: I’m no longer just me.  I’m part of us.  I’ve fought my fight and made my peace; I’ve figured out how to be us while still being me.

Past generations understood that, which is why divorce was so rare even if the union wasn’t happy.

I’m not saying that marriage was not a challenge in the past, or that the two individuals within a marriage had no more growing up to do.  But moderns want to carry on the struggle.  Instead of settling into boring old happily-ever-after and pouring their energies into the next generation, they (we?) want to continue the quest for self-fulfillment and discovery and drama.  Marriage is part of our plot: Will Dan find happiness with Diana, or is his real future with Donald?  One thing for sure: he will never settle for fading into the woodwork.

Instead of settling into boring old happily-ever-after and pouring their energies into the next generation, we want to continue the quest for self-fulfillment and drama.

Marriage is not supposed to be the plot: it’s supposed to be the woodwork—or the floor, or the scaffolding that will launch the stories of our children.  That’s why fairy tales have to end with a wedding: the individual has found her place and joined hands with another to form a community.  That was a reflection of real life.  If we could examine all the monogamous marriages throughout history until today, we would find that some were heaven, some were hell, and the vast majority were good enough—all weaving together to build a platform for the next generation.

With ever more people acting out their conflicts within the marriage, or not bothering to marry at all, the platform is crumbling.  New generations may not even know there supposed to be one—just an ocean of individuals bobbling up and down in a never- ending quest for happiness.

The Bible still ends with a wedding, though.  The marriage will follow and will show us what marriage was supposed to be about, all along: all our struggles ended; finally me; finally us; fully Him.