Plenty of people get married. And of that group of people a reasonable deal of them slowly trudge their way towards a bitter breakdown in relationship culminating in the tragic event of divorce. Plenty of books have looked at why this happens. But what about the ones who not only survive but thrive within their marriage relationships? How do they do it?
Gottman and Silver set themselves out to do the study and write up the answer – titling it “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work”. The book uses a scientific framework, particularly statistical analysis and psychological analysis of couples, to come up with the seven principles.
After having read the book I have greatly benefited from its insightful categorisation of issues and solutions.
But after reading it I had a question lingering in my my mind. Does the Christian need this book or is the Bible enough?
Well…the Christian doesn’t need this book. Don’t build your marriage on the foundations of the seven principles, rather build your marriage on the Bible. But, supplement it with the seven principles. In fact, if you build your life on God’s word there will hopefully be an overlap with the seven principles because they are taking worldly wisdom built into God’s creation and presenting them in some easy-to-understand categories.
So if we don’t need the seven principles but would rather benefit from them, I wanted to do some thinking about the book’s overlap with the Bible and its novelty aside from the Bible.
In this post we will consider the ways in which this book doesn’t overlap with the Bible and introduces some novel and helpful concepts to the reader. In the next blog post we will consider how it does overlap with the Bible.
Gottman and Silver’s book talks about marriage through the lens of the scientific framework with a certain kind of modern lingo. One concept that is flagged early on is the idea of “emotional intelligence”, understanding our own feelings and the feelings of others. The concept of “emotional intelligence” is a modern category for thinking. You won’t necessarily find this explicitly mentioned in the Bible. The Bible speaks in different terms, calling us to love one another and love our spouses, it calls us to service. There is a focus on doing and being rather than understanding each other. Not that they are antithetical or anything, I mean – in order for one to love and serve the other we need to know what they (personally and particularly) want and need.
Let’s consider this quote,
“At the heart of the Seven Principles approach is the simple truth that happy marriages are based on a deep friendship. By this I mean a mutual respect for and enjoyment of each other’s company. These couples tend to know each other intimately—they are well versed in each other’s likes, dislikes, personality quirks, hopes, and dreams. They have an abiding regard for each other and express this fondness not just in the big ways but through small gestures day in and day out.” (pg 21)
You won’t find this concept of deep friendship explicitly talked about in the Bible in relation to marriage. While in the Old Testament book Song of Songs there is a sense of deep friendship between the two characters, in the New Testament the emphasis isn’t necessarily on friendship. I think it would be fair to say that the Bible (generally speaking) doesn’t put an emphasis on “friendship” in the marriage relationship. Not to say that it is not there, only to say that is not where the emphasis is placed.
However, the idea behind this quote above is that having such a positive relationship with your spouse tends to put out the flames of adversity. The good is more readily remembered and cherished in comparison to the ill. In that sense Gottman and Silver’s concept can be seen as a means to the end of Phil 4:8, “…whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
Something else you won’t find in the Bible is Gottman and Silver’s very helpful observation regarding the pattern of marital conflict. It goes as such, first is a harsh start-up (start bad = end bad), then comes “The Four Horsemen” as they put it; criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling. The recognition of this pattern in marital conflict is indeed very helpful for the reader. Perhaps it’s one of the most enduring contributions of the book. It gives the reader a tool, the alarm. Now you’re watching out to see if these are occurring in your own marriage in order to curb their destructive effects. Who doesn’t want to do that?!
There are many more things to mention from Gottman and Silver’s book which don’t appear in the Bible such as: comments on communication skills, insights regarding perspective, the phenomenon of flooding, stuff about a baby’s effects on a marriage, a whole range of helpful questionaries, and etc., etc.
But if there is one principle I want to share about the seven principles, it’s don’t start with them. Start with the Bible. Cultivate a robust knowledge of the Bible and its principles. Furthermore, cultivate a steadfast application of those principles to your whole life. From this you will be in a much better position to read the book by Gottman and Silver and you will be in a better position to live them out, because you will have the Spirit of the Living God helping you and sanctifying you first and foremost through His word and secondly the wisdom of others.
Gottman, John Mordechai, and Nan Silver. The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, 2018.
Bigvai and Shiphrah 