Friendship in Marriage  by Rev. Lawson M. Smith

   "You are My friends if you do whatever I command you" (John 15:14).

   Friendship is one of the most delightful parts of human life. It is
especially precious between a husband and wife. But like every other
human affection, friendship must be infilled and directed by love to
the Lord and love toward the neighbor. First of all, we must try to be
friends of the Lord by doing His commandments. Then the Lord can teach
us to love others in the way that He loves us, and so to be true
friends.

   The Writings draw a sharp distinction between mere friendship and
true charity. For example, they describe societies that exist merely
for the sake of the pleasures of friendship. In the world, the people
of these societies appeared good, delightful, witty, and talented,
since they knew how to act with proper style and insinuate themselves
into friendships. They love the people they converse with, not caring
whether they are good or not as long as they are entertaining. Such
people enjoy friendship for lascivious reasons, for the delight of
idleness, or from contempt of others outside their circle (see SDm
4810).

   These people dull the affection for what is good and true in others,
the affections that might otherwise lead them to exercise some
discrimination. They also absorb and take away others' delights. Then
as soon as they cease to be delighted by a friendship, they drop it.
The Writings say, "There are more societies of such spirits today than
anyone could believe" (AC 4054, 4804).

   "Many say, 'I love so-and-so because he loves me and does good to
me.' But to love him for that reason only is not to love him
interiorly." "It is one thing to love the neighbor from the good or use
that is in him toward oneself, and another to love the neighbor from
the good or use in oneself toward him."

   "The man who is in charity examines and discovers by means of truth
what ought to be loved, and in loving and conferring benefits he has
regard to the nature of the other's use" (Faith 21). An illustration is
the saying commonly used today, that a real friend does not let his
friend drive after drinking. But those in mere friendship have no idea
what it means to be a friend to good.

   "Genuine love toward the neighbor is to love the good in another
from the good in oneself [as to love the honesty of another person from
one's own determination to be honest] for then these goods kiss and
mutually conjoin themselves." "He who loves what is good because it is
good, and what is true because it is true, in a special sense loves the
neighbor. For then he loves the Lord, who is good itself and truth
itself" (TCR 418, 419).

   These teachings apply to marriage just as much as to any other
friendship. With the doctrine about friendship in general, plus the
specific teachings on conjugial friendship, the Lord gives us guidance
as to how we may be His friends first of all, and thus true friends
with our married partners.

   The Word advises us in choosing a married partner, someone we hope
will be our best friend forever. We ought to look for someone not
merely on the basis of personality, looks, and other external
characteristics. We should choose a person who has the same religious
and moral principles as we have, someone who brings out our best
qualities, who helps us become the kind of person we want to be.

   In heaven, we are taught, a man is loved for his moral wisdom, and
for his love of growing wise (see CL 44:2). A man in heaven loves his
wife for her spiritual beauty, that is, her affection for the truth and
the life according to it, which inspires him to want to grow wise (see
CL 56). We can continue to look to and honor these qualities in our
partners throughout our marriage, and even forever.

   The Writings point out that almost any two people can be conjoined
by external affections, and that in the world today, internal
affections rarely show through (see CL 272-4). Most marriages are based
on quite external affections for the partner, and therefore many are
dissolved after death.

   But in the New Church we have the opportunity to share internal
affections with our friends. Internal things all have to do with
religion and the way religion is expressed in life. The Word teaches us
plainly that we should explore the similarities and differences of
religion between ourselves and someone we might marry. Since we have
such clear, specific religious teachings provided for us in the
Writings, it is easier for us to discuss and apply the Word to life
than for other sincerely religious people.

   We have, therefore, a good hope of entering into a marriage that
will last forever. The Writings say that a marriage with a spiritually,
eternally compatible partner is provided by the Lord on earth with
those who have loved, chosen and asked of the Lord a legitimate and
lovely companionship with one, and have spurned wandering lusts as an
offense to their nostrils (see CL 49).

   One of the main purposes of the period of engagement or betrothal is
to provide an opportunity for a couple to explore more deeply their
interior affections in the freedom and security that consent brings.
They can apply themselves to conjoining their affections in the inward
joyousness of love.

   Conjugial love, from its first heat, ascends progressively upward
toward their souls with an effort to conjunction there by continually
more interior openings of the mind. No love labors more intensely to
open the mind to the Lord and to the neighbor than conjugial love. No
love opens the mind more powerfully and easily, since the soul of each
is striving for this opening. They separate themselves from the
unlimited or general love of the opposite sex and direct their love to
one. Their spirits enter into marriage, and they look to an eternal
union with one. In this way, conjugial love progresses in proper order,
from its first heat to the nuptial flame (see CL 301-304).

   The Word tells us that the first, romantic love which leads two
people to get married does not really conjoin them. This teaching seems
to apply even to those who look for a common religion in choosing a
partner. Since we are not yet regenerated, our first love is based on
external things--"a love belonging to the body and thence to the
spirit." What is in the spirit from the body does not last long, while
love which is in the body from the spirit, from conscience, does last
(see CL 162). The instability of merely romantic love is well known.

   The Lord makes use of such external affections, though, to lead
people into marriage, and then if they are willing to shun evils as
sins, He gradually purifies and cleanses their love from day to day
(see CL 64). We do not need to feel discouraged if we find motives that
seem less than perfect involved in our love for someone else. If we are
trying to look to the Lord to guide us, and if we shun evils against
our partner as sins against the Lord, then the Lord will be able to
replace our mediate affections with genuine ones in time.

   In the meantime, being friends with our married partner gives
stability to our love. Friendship is very important to the conjunction
of minds. Love which belongs to the spirit, and from the spirit to the
body, is insinuated into the souls and minds of married partners
together with friendship and confidence. Partners grow to have
confidence in each other, and so to have a special kind of friendship,
from religion in life, as when a wife trusts the spiritual-moral
conscience of her husband. When friendship and confidence join
themselves to the first love of marriage, that romantic love becomes a
true marriage love, "and this opens the breasts and breathes into them
the sweetness of love, doing this more and more deeply as friendship
and confidence attach themselves to the first love, and the love enters
into them and they into it" (CL 162).

   With those who are in love truly conjugial, conjunction of minds,
and with it friendship and confidence, increases. They become more and
more one flesh, spiritually. This conjunction increases as friendship
conjoins itself to love. The first love, before there is friendship, is
similar to the general love of the opposite sex, and after the vows, it
tends to grow feeble. But when the love is joined to friendship, the
love remains and friendship makes it stable. The two partners can still
be best friends even when they are not feeling ardently in love.

   The Writings say that friendship is like the garment of love,
protecting it and providing good external forms of behavior, the mutual
courtesies and favors of friends. But friendship can also be the face
of conjugial love, as one of the most important expressions of love.
The two partners share the same ends, and each perceives delight in
doing what pleases the other (see AC 4145:3). They want to do each
other every good--every kindness, every service, every sign of
friendship (see CL 180). With such friendship, love enters more deeply
into the heart. Friendship introduces it and makes the love truly a
marriage love, not just a sexual love; and then the love makes this its
friendship also a conjugial friendship, which differs greatly from the
friendship of every other love. The Writings call it "the friendship of
friendships" (CL 334, 214).

   During the course of a marriage, every couple has warmer and colder
states. The Writings say that all states of coldness in marriage stem
from internal dissimilarities, and all internal dissimilarities relate
to religion: either to the lack of religion or to difference of
religion. This is encouraging, because it means that in marriages where
both partners are sincerely trying to follow the Lord, there need not
be prolonged, serious states of cold.

   However, even those who are being regenerated come into states that
are relatively irreligious, times when the evil spirits attack them and
they do or say things they later regret. From internal cold, cold
creeps down into external, conscious states, due to such things as a
wide difference in manners and habits; the notion that marriage love is
no different from adulterous love; a rivalry for dominion; a lack of
determination to any useful pursuit, which leaves a man's mind open to
wandering lusts; and a significant difference in age, social station or
wealth. The Writings also speak of accessory causes of cold, causes
which need not create a problem at all, but which may add to our
troubles in unregenerate states. These relate to a man's sense of
freedom and initiative within marriage, especially in relation to the
ultimate expression of love (see CL chap. on "colds").

   When cold states arise, either with ourselves or apparently with our
partner, the Writings advise us to carry on the appearances of love,
friendship and favor in marriage. Such appearances are praiseworthy,
not hypocritical, because they are useful and necessary. A person who
looks to the Lord does them from conscience. He acts seriously and
looks to amendment as his goal and hope. If this does not follow, he
still looks to accommodation for the sake of order in the home, for the
sake of mutual help, for the care of little children, and for peace and
tranquility. In this way, there can be a return of friendship, within
which lies conjugial love, on one side if not on the other (see CL 271,
279-280, 282).

   It is important for a man to continue to court his wife after they
are married--to tell her that he loves her, to show her kindness,
friendship and favor. He should regularly make time, free from business
and household concerns, for talking with his wife. A man needs to do
this for his own sake as well as for hers, because if he does such
things from conscience, he is providing a form into which love truly
conjugial can inflow from the Lord. The Writings say, "Act precedes;
man's willingness follows" (AC 4353).

   The Writings speak of another state of friendship in marriage, the
friendship of a couple in old age. We read, "When the partners grow
old, if favor does not cease with the wife when ability ceases with the
man, there may arise a friendship that emulates conjugial friendship."
With the ultimate foundation removed, love may grow cold on the man's
part, and then the wife may cease to favor her husband. But if the man
then tacitly imputes the cause to himself, and the wife still
perseveres in chaste favor toward him, there may result a friendship
which seems like love, emulating conjugial love. It seems that this
love is said to "emulate" conjugial love, because of the lack of the
ultimate, which will be restored in heaven. This passage concludes,
"That between aged partners, on the ground of their dwelling together,
their dealings and their comradeship, there is a friendship as though
of conjugial love--tranquil, secure, lovely, and full of courtesy, is
attested by experience" (CL 290).

   So the Writings guide us in the way to be a friend to the Lord by
doing whatever He commands, and to be a true friend to our married
partner. We can cultivate true friendship, first of all, by looking to
the Lord and performing actual repentance. Our main responsibility will
always be to shun evils as sins, for these are what make us an enemy
rather than a friend to others, and block our reception of true mutual
love from the Lord. Second, we can carry on our daily responsibilities
justly and faithfully. Third, we can read the Word. If we are married,
we can read and pray together. The Word is the medium of conjunction
with the Lord, and so it is also the means by which husband and wife
can be conjoined. Finally, in the light of the Word, a husband and wife
can talk to each other and work together on the responsibilities and
uses they share. If we do these things, the Lord will certainly bless
us, in the other world if not in this, with all the states of conjugial
love: "innocence, peace, tranquillity, inmost friendship, full
confidence, and a mutual desire of mind and heart to do the other every
good; and from all these, blessedness, happiness, delight, pleasure;
and from the eternal fruition of these, heavenly joy" (CL 180). Amen.

   Lessons: John 15:9-17; CL 214 Preached in Mitchellville, Maryland on
July 13, 1986