Over the next couple of months, I will be working through Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt’s 2013 book Making Marriage Simple. In it, they take the main concepts from their best-selling book Getting the Love You Want, “and add the most important relationship wisdom we’ve discovered since,” putting it all into a simpler format. Their goal is to help you make your relationship better by learning “how to create a new kind of marriage. You are being invited into the forefront of what we (the authors) believe is a Relationship Revolution.” (p.1)
Relationship Revolution
To help situate this belief about a Relationship Revolution, they look at the evolution of the concept of marriage. Then, they divide the very complex history of intimate relationships into three distinct sections. See if you agree.
- In pre-history “our hunter-gatherer ancestors formed “pair-bonds” to share food and shelter,” (p.2) basically to reduce the risk of extinction.
- “Around eleven thousand years ago, hunter-gatherers settled down, becoming farmers. … Marriage became an arrangement created to protect the stuff one already had, while hopefully better positioning one to acquire even more. This often meant that marriages were arranged.”(p.2)
- In the eighteenth century, love enters the picture. “The romantic marriage may not have come with a manual, but it did come with a relic of the arranged marriage: gender inequality. This perpetuated the uneven balance of power that was typical of the old kind of marriage.” (p.3)
Marriage Evolution
What they are suggesting, and I would totally agree, is that we are in the midst of the next evolution of marriage, what they call the Partnership Marriage. Marriage here would include everyone in an intimate relationship. “Both partners are free and equal. They consciously promote each other’s psychological and spiritual growth. In so doing, they experience the ultimate communion possible between humans.” (p.4)
In the next few weeks, using their book, I will explore how any couple can create this new kind of relationship – the Partnership Marriage. As I claim on my business card: “The tools are available in today’s world to have the relationship of your dreams.” Next week, Chapter 1 Romantic Love is a Trick.
