But he drives us away from each other today with wedges of distrust and suspicion. He exaggerates the need for having space, getting out, and being left alone. Many people even wonder these days what marriage is. Some say these questions are not society's business, because marriage is a private contract. Even secular marriage was historically a three-party covenant among a man, a woman, and the state.
Society has a huge interest in the outcome and the offspring of every marriage.
So the public nature of marriage distinguishes it from all other relationships. When we observe the covenants we make at the altar of sacrifice, we discover hidden reservoirs of strength. One night Marie exhausted herself for hours encouraging that child to finish a school assignment to build his own diorama of a Native American village on a cookie sheet. It was a test no hireling would have endured. He started for his bed, then turned around, raced back across the room, and hugged his mother, grinning with his fourth-grade teeth.