“Likewise, you should know that you will be so close to your husband that wherever he goes he will carry the memory, recollection, and reminder of you. You notice it in all married couples, for as soon as we see the husband, we ask him, ‘How is your wife?’ and as soon as we see the wife, we ask her, ‘How is your husband?’ for that’s how closely the wife is connected to the husband.”
The Good Wife’s Guide (A medieval book on marriage)
There is a beautiful phenomenon especially noticeable in some couples. Upon seeing one spouse you immediately think of the other. Somehow, where there is one there is also the other. This calls for a closer consideration.
There is an objective spousal bond constituted by the marriage vows. Once formed, this bond transcends how the spouses happen to feel or act at any given time. This is a ‘metaphysical’ reality that is at once obvious and mysterious.
But this is distinguishable from a kind of mutual indwelling referenced in the quotation. This latter is something that must be forged and cannot be taken for granted. Rooted in yet distinct from the marriage bond itself, this indwelling is a natural expression and fruition of that bond.
I love the observation that upon seeing a husband we are inclined to ask, “How is your wife?” And the same upon seeing the wife. Our author refers to this as something we do for ‘all married couples.’ I take this to mean that asking this question is a matter of good manners; that is, it is an outward practice reflecting an important truth about marriage–and what it can and should be. Upon seeing one spouse we immediately inquire after or offer good wishes regarding the other spouse, precisely because of the nature of marriage.
Yet the author’s prior statement refers to something that may or may not be actual in a marriage. He points to what a good husband should do, namely, that “wherever he goes he will carry the memory, recollection, and reminder of you.” When spouses do this, their bond is enacted and made manifest in a powerful, sometimes arresting fashion.
Here is something about which a husband (and wife) can be intentional. I can act to make my spouse all the more truly present with me. This is to do marriage more fully.
Wherever I am, my very ‘being’ and ‘doing’ right now is in some way part of a greater whole. For we are trying to be other selves as only spouses can be, as complementary in making one life together. Right now my wife might be remote in place; she is never remote in reality.
Yes, at times I can be distracted from who I really am and lose sight of the full implications of what I have promised to her. But I can keep choosing to be united to her in heart and mind, and especially in intention, and prayer.
Our author focuses on the key role of memory. Memory is always most about bringing greater richness into the present. In this case, memory unites and holds together what is separate in body. To remember my wife regularly and indeed habitually is to grow the unity of our marriage. Memory thus forges the present, and the future.
And such memory never just happens. It is chosen and cultivated. Again and again every day.
So please, when you see me, ask me how my wife is doing. In this you can help me to do better what I so badly want to do. To be her husband, always.
The Good Wife’s Guide (Le Menagier de Paris) is an anonymous book from medieval France (1393) offering advice to a young wife. It is an important historical text, and it raises challenging issues regarding the relationship of husband and wife in marriage.
Related reading:
- Cherishing My Spouse in Our Children
- Choosing to Be Present: The Power of Goodwill
- The Stress of Relating to Our Spouse, or Anyone Else of the Opposite Sex
- Marital Conversation
- The Secret of the Marriage Bed
Husband, father, and professor of Philosophy. LifeCraft springs from one conviction: there is an ancient wisdom about how to live the good life in our homes, with our families; and it is worth our time to hearken to it. Let’s rediscover it together. Learn more.
Beautiful article! But first, how is your wife doing? ????
How much this applies too, to our love for Our Savior, the Spouse of our soul.
I will be pondering these truths very often over the next few days. . . .months. . . .years. . .
God bless you
I’m happy to say she is doing well, thanks! 🙂 So true, about the Spouse of our soul. Thank you for your kind words.
I appreciate what you touch upon which at once is plainly obvious to those lucky enough to experience and yet at the same time just about impossible to describe. Using the word metaphysical hints at this and for that you are most definitely accurate. Sometimes all we can use are metaphors, which even they fall short by their very nature. One that often comes to mind when I try and describe what my wife meant to me and what it meant to lose her was the idea of a Venn diagram of two simple circles. The circles are complete entities in themselves but in this marriage of souls that takes place, there is a place where each circle begins to share a space with the other. You don’t lose any part of yourself but rather become different than who you were prior to coming together. That shared space becomes literally part of each circle, which if one circle is destroyed the other circle is no longer complete onto itself. Marriage of that sort is nothing short of extraordinary. That it is the heart of the Creation story suggests how extraordinary it is.
In response to Bob Geraci permit me to disagree where he says, “you don’t lose any part of yourself but rather become different than who you were prior to coming together.” That I think applies to a non manipulative nor deceitful spouse. I have seen it first hand with one of my children, where the result was tragedy . Moreover, I have experienced it myself until I broke the bond. One does not really know the other until after married life begins.
Dina, I thank you. You raise a difficult and profoundly painful issue. Sometimes one finds that the person one married is not at all what one expected. I think here we need to make a distinction: in some cases it is discovered that a true marriage bond was never contracted; in other cases, there is a true marriage, even while the relationship might still fall far short of what one would have hoped. In both cases there is great suffering, and perhaps trauma. As experience makes clear, these are recurring realities in human life. I would not dare purport to understand these experiences; my heart goes out to you and others who have suffered such things. My hope and my prayer would be that even here something of what Bob Geraci says can be true: that even in the tragedy a person might endure and even grow such that we could say the person has not ultimately “lost part of himself” but has rather somehow been able to find himself. That is my sincere prayer.
Great insight! The world’s prospect of reality is exactly opposite to that one of the Church. Instead of seeing the Catholic Church as included in the Venn-Euler diagram, today’s John Gospel considers the world to be included in the Church, in the heavenly city of God. The city of God is more significant than it looks, Bigger on the inside than on the outer. Phenomenologically it is smaller than the world; spiritually it is much more significant and bigger. “We know about as much of the next world as we know about this one when we were in our mother’s womb” (P. Kreeft). And so also my wife in this present world, threatened by death, is a clue, a hint, a sign of something far better and truer, and more beautiful in the next world, alleluia! Grateful for intercession prayer, God bless!
And thank you Paolo. Grateful too for prayer.