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The Marriage Book: How to Build a Lasting Relationship

Till death us do part...

THE MARRIAGE BOOK: HOW TO BUILD A LASTING RELATIONSHIP
By Nicky and Sila Lee
HTB Publications. 328 pages. £5.99
ISBN 1 902750 26 8

The Marriage Book is a good written-out version of a marriage-building course. Individual churches, and many courses and retreats, such as Mission to Marriage, Marriage Encounter and Rapport, provide structured resources.

The best of these are very helpful: they give time and space to be together, perspective on issues in one's marriage, biblical teaching, practical application of the gospel in the relationship, and a set of principles or aspects of marriage which can be kept permanently under review.

Obviously nothing fully substitutes for the experience of going through a course with one's spouse and in a group with others, but The Marriage Book is a very successful book form version. It is well-written, with a very natural style, like a personal chat. What is more, the content is of one of the better of such courses.

The book gives seven elements of the marital relationship which put together form a strong marriage, or strengthen a marriage. Commitment; communication; expressing love; resolving conflict; forgiveness; right relationships with parents; sex. This is a good choice of features.

They summarise the lessons of these sections in seven neat injunctions:

1. Be sure to make time for each other and have fun together
2. Keep talking and keep listening to each other
3. Study the ways your partner feels loved
4. Discuss your differences and pray together
5. Practise forgiveness
6. Honour your parents but do not be controlled by them
7. Do not neglect sexual intimacy.

I am impressed that the Lees avoid a current cultural trend and do not set unrealistic goals for a marriage, though in their anecdotes and buttressing illustrations they do give an abundance of testimony as to successful marriage. Nor do they set unrealistically high expectations as to what has to be done in order to achieve or to feel that one has a successful marriage.

The book is attractive to non-Christians who are at least open to Christianity, and the course is presumably designed that way. While not being bashful about their Christian perspective, and introducing Christian themes, they do not begin there. It is the perhaps natural result of this very successful attempt to be accessible to non-Christians as well, that some themes receive little attention. There is a God-given structure and role-relationships within marriage. Marriage rather than promiscuity, permanence not 'fault-free' divorce, and fidelity not adultery, are commanded not recommended by God. Specific application of the gospel transforms relationships including family relationships.

For Christians, with supplemental material incorporating such ideas, and for non-Christians as part of an introduction of God's principles into their lives, this is a fine work.

Michael Peat, Woking