Marriage is not romanticized in the creation account. Its ideal purpose is not one of sweet feeling, tender words, poetical affections or physical satisfactions not "love" as the world defines love in all its nasal songs and its popular shallow stories. Marriage is meant to be flatly practical. One human alone is help-LESS, unable. But "Two are better than one," says Ecclesiastes, "Because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift the other."

Marriage makes the job of survival possible. And the fact that a spouse is termed a "helper" declares marriage was never an end in itself, but a preparation. We've accomplished no great thing, yet, in getting married. We have completed a relationship (though many a fool assumes that the hard work's done with the wedding and turns attention to other interests). Rather, we've established the terms by which we now will go to work.