That Hideous Strength the third installment in
C. S. Lewis' Space Trilogy is classified as science fiction and fantasy, but
it is also a compelling treatise on God and man--and marriage. One of the protagonists, Jane begins
thinking...what if the spiritual world is NOT a neutral, democratic, vacuum
where differences disappear and sex and sense taken away? How if instead the
differences and contrasts we see now become richer, sharper, fiercer, more
real, more themselves all the way up? What if marriage is not some relic of
animal life and patriarchal society, but a first low form, a shadow of a deeper
reality that will be repeated again and again on higher levels?
…..
Indeed. What if in
more ways than we ever imagined, marriage is a taste of what it is to love
God? In a sense, we are made to be
possessed, united one with Another, though remaining distinct, not absorbed
into that other Being. In marriage, in love, you leave all else behind for that
one Other. You give Them everything,
every part of you, permanently. For true commitment, real love, requires this
total, life-long gift. Marriage is exclusive, because to act otherwise would be a pantheism, an
idolatry. In it, your Lover penetrates you, He takes all of you, and yet you
could not be more happy, more free, more yourself that you are here, for this
is what you were made for. Submission and obedience is the greatest possible
joy. It overloads every sense of your body, every corner of your mind, every
inch of your soul--your being is full to capacity. There is no room to think of
anything but your Lover. And it must be life giving. You must allow Him to
infuse His life into your very being. To say," I love you and am yours,
but I will refuse the greatest manifestation of Your love, I will refuse the
gift of Yourself poured into me," is utter nonsense. It has no meaning.
Therefore love must be open to life, to the creation of new being, a share of
His being, within oneself. Thus, Love unites fully without destroying the
individual. It satisfies and fills every aspect of self, every desire man ever
had. And it is free and not coerced.
In the sense that
God is Husband and Lover, we are all feminine. We are all made to be possessed,
taken, owned. We are all made to surrender.
It is not a case of equality. It is not even a free companionship--it is
a blessed slavery, a desired enthrallment from which you can wish no
escape. You don't think of God so much
as a friend or companion, you think of Him as a GOD! What a joy to be
obliterated and reshaped by this Power!
One who could truly shatter your being if he so desired, but wouldn't.
Could unmake you, but doesn't. We desire this. To love and be love by One far
greater than self, yet who treats you as far better than you are.
It is the privilege
of woman to have a unique insight into God, in that everything she innately desires in a man, in
her husband, she is also designed to receive from God. It is the privilege of
man to be a god of sorts to his wife, and to be, perhaps more than he ever
dreams, an imago Dei, a living icon of God for her; it is his privilege to
share in the fullest way possible in the creative action of God, for each new
human life comes through the action of man.
….
Again, another main
character in the book, Ransom, speaks to
Jane about her surprise and uneasiness upon finding that gender and marriage
are so integral to what it means to be human. In reaction to her shock, he says,
"If this were a virginal rejection of the male, [God] would allow it. Such souls can bypass
the male and go on to meet something far more masculine, higher up, to which
they must make a yet deeper surrender. But your
trouble ...[is] pride. You are offended by the masculine itself: the loud,
irruptive, possessive thing--the gold lion, the bearded bull!"
...
And yet, this is
exactly what we desire. The
ostentatious, beautiful, strong, loud, male being. This is exactly what is so
beautifully, intriguingly OTHER than self,
occasionally incomprehensible and always delightful, and such a cause of
joy and laughter, such an irresistible attraction! It is for this other that we
were made.
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