MARRIAGE VERSUS WEDDING: The Misplaced Priority. By Michael Celestine.

I will first start by explaining the two terms. Longman Dictionary defines Marriage as “the relationship between two people who are married(having a wife or a husband)."  Same dictionary defines Wedding as "a Marriage (as defined above) ceremony (a formal or traditional set of actions used at an important social or religious event), especially one with a religious service." It is closely tangled that one can easily interchangeably use the two words.
However, in my own definition and understanding, backed by the Biblical stand on Holy Matrimony, marriage is the long run relationship between wedded couples after the wedding. It is imperial to note that this relationship entails both their spiritual, physical, emotional, financial and social relationship. This is the backbone upon which a home; a place where you came from or where you live, ‘ESPECIALLY’ when this is a place where you feel happy and comfortable (1) is built. It is the proper understanding of the essentiality and relevance of marriage as against wedding that yields a better home, and in the long run provide a better individuals, good citizens and a good nation at large. We cannot with the real understanding of wedding create a home. Wedding, which is the mere ceremony, the gathering, the celebration of marriage which last but few hours should not be placed of high substance above the main deal which is the marriage itself. The two can be likened to the process of buying something (wedding) and the item actually bought (marriage). It is disheartening that humans of this cohort pinpoint more worth on the process than the item. This absurd and over-hyped attention channelled to the process is the cause of the numerous damages we witness in our items today. It’s no more jolting that a wedding which was done with the budget of almost half a million naira could collapse within six months of marriage. Why? The individuals involved were more concerned on the process of buying than the item to buy. It is a simple logic, if you enter a car dealers shop to buy a car and spend most of your time revering the outside of the cars, going around the show room taking selfies, you will end up buying the wrong car that will disappoint you soon. Because you were not detailed to understand or learn about the particular car you bought. Same logic also applies to marriage, spend your time fantasizing about how big and classy your wedding will be and you will end up meeting the wrong person and by the quest of seeking liberation from the self indulged bondage, divorce, unhappy home and other marital issues crawl in peacefully. I am not phobic to classy weddings, of course we all like good things, what am saying is that we should spend more time learning about our partner than planning the wedding.
Gone are those days when intense courtship was a trend. Now a man and a woman can meet and hang out for some months and the next thing you see is a wedding card. Thanks to our social networks which have made things very badly easy for us. In most cases, it is even possible for the two parties not to physically meet. The man lives in UK, and his family approaches you in the village and tells you that their son wants to marry you. Fine, it is a nice thing that you agrees, after all which lady doesn’t want a husband that lives abroad (Even when they don’t know what the person does to survive). Then the dating started, on social network. You spend hours chatting, trying with delusional excitement to know each other. And at the end, the wedding which was big; your dream wedding. Then you move in and what you saw on social network was far different from what you are seeing in real life. Half a year into the marriage and you are already looking for a way out. Is that the motive with which God established the sacrament of Holy Matrimony? It is said in the Bible "...for this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and unite with his wife and the two will become one...No human being must separate then what God has joined together".(2) In the other part it says, "a married woman for example is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives;...if she lives with other man while her husband is alive, she will be called an adulteress..."(3).  This is God's purpose for establishing this sacrament, it is meant to bind forever the two partners, till death do them apart. But now, we jump in and out of marriage like passengers do in the popular "molue" bus in Lagos, because we have failed to heed to the call of the essence of marriage and diminish our attention to that of wedding, because we have refused to also have a dream marriage just as we have a dream wedding. And as long as we failed to emend these, marital issues will never stop to excruciate us. Everybody wants to get wedded but nobody wants to be married in the real sense of marriage. The last part of our Bible verse says "no human being must separate then what God has joined together." Today, the reversibility of this assertion makes me wish that portion of the Bible be rewritten, maybe into something applicable more to our present predicament. Something like "The married should not separate the union in which God has united them."(But I know what is written is written.) One may wonder why I wished for such impossibility, the truth is, 95% of the divorce we now know are caused by the couples themselves. No outside party. They break up their homes themselves and subject the innocent children to an unhappy and unfocused life, because of either the arrogant attitudes of the wife to solemnly submit to his husband or the "I am the king" behaviour of the husband which makes him to forget his sole duty is to love and take care of his wife. Just as the Bible rightly subscribes, "wives submit yourself to your husbands as to the Lord, for a husband has authority over his wife just as Christ has authority over the church...husband love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave his life for it...but it also applies to you, every husband must respect his wife as himself and every wife must respect her husband."(4) What more can be said than the word of God written in our daily manual; the Holy Bible.
The problems of marriage and divorce will disappear if only we listen to the words of God and take them into practice. Dear ladies, it does you no harm to respect that man who you call your husband. It will not dent your beautiful face or soil your floral long flowing gown if you does what he asks you to do, neither will your long black hair cut or change colour if you calmly express your thoughts on issues. Claiming equal with him will never help or lead you anywhere. That was not how it was made right from the beginning, a woman was made to be a helper, a companion to the man who God placed above every created thing,(5) and this sure cannot change because of you. The charm to good marriage is your capability to accord your husband the desired and deserved respect and also acknowledge the fact that he is the head of the family and not your equal. Respect begets respect. Respect him and he will be mandated to respect you. Believe me, if you don't respect him and treat him like the king he is, other women will gladly do it and we both know what that entails.
To us super men, what is the hard thing in loving a woman who you took out of her family and made her deny everything that has to do with her first family? Loving and cherishing her just as do yourself will not make you less a man, it will not endanger your position as the head of the family. Neither will appreciating her little efforts to help shrink your biceps or flatten your chest. Conceding the quota of respect suitable for her will not extinguish your six-packed tummy. It will rather make your position stronger while uniting your children and creating a home(as earlier defined) for you. Trust me, nothing is more gratifying than knowing that your spouse delights in your company. Like I said to the women, if you don't love her like your princess, other men will gladly treat her like a queen, and I bet you know how much they love attention.
With these facts, I believe that if we go into practice of what the bible tutors us about marriage, cotton on the importance of placing more accentuation on marriage instead of wedding, and most importantly pray to God, the issue of divorce and marital conundrums will be remedied. May the good Lord be with us and bless us all, Amen.