When the Honeymoon Is Over

"Enjoy the day—it'll be over quickly." Standing in the back room of a church building with a group of nervous-looking tuxedo-clad men just minutes before the wedding ceremony began, I listened as the best man murmured his advice to the groom.

He was right. The bride and groom had planned their ceremony for months. They'd spent a lot of money on clothes, flowers, decorations, and food. They'd looked forward to this moment for much of their lives. They needed to enjoy the day. Yet the ceremony—and the honeymoon—were over quickly, and the realities of married life soon began.

Do you realize that the term "honeymoon" arose from comparing the affections of newly married people to the rapidly changing phases of the moon? As soon as the moon is full, it begins to wane. But wait—is this really the way to picture the beginning of marriage? Is it wise to portray the honeymoon as the peak of married bliss and sexual pleasure, when in fact it's only a starting point in a couple's growth together? Of course there's a newness, a long-anticipated excitement, and an understandable desire for privacy during a couple's early days of marriage. The Law of Moses included this interesting provision: "If a man has recently married, he must not be sent to war or have any other duty laid on him. For one year he is to be free to stay at home and bring happiness to the wife he has married" (Deuteronomy 24:5).

But surely God never meant for us to consider the honeymoon the best a marriage has to offer, or to think that after the initial excitement of a couple's first year together, everything goes downhill. Love doesn't have to wane like the moon. A long-term marriage can lead to greater intimacy, trust, and adventure; to powerful shared memories, shared service, and even shared suffering.

In an article called "Banish the Honeymoon" (The American Enterprise, May/June 1996), Michael Medved writes, "I refuse to believe that the drastically lower divorce rate of 50 years ago can be explained by suggesting that husbands and wives magically got along better then than they do today. Human nature wasn't substantially different, but the social order most certainly was. Our grandparents understood that an entire community shared a stake in the survival of their marriages, and they benefited from support mechanisms that discouraged marital dissolution at the same time they helped couples survive the rough spots that all unions must endure."

As an alternative to honeymoons, Medved offers the Jewish tradition of "Seven Blessings," a week-long celebration that dates back to biblical times—a gradually unfolding celebration in which couples "extend the golden afterglow" of their wedding by joining family and friends for dinner each evening for a week. This custom, Medved argues, shows we're "welcoming a new couple into a community, rather than dispatching them to some remote resort."

One thing's for sure: in a society filled with broken homes and broken hearts, we all have a stake in helping marriages succeed. We must reach out with love and grace to the many among us who have experienced divorce, while doing everything we can to build marriages that will remain strong—even when the honeymoon is over.