There are considerable scholars who link relationship adjustment to individual functioning such as personal character and also link virtues to family and church institutions’ functioning and stability. Within this group of scholars, they argue that relationship adjustment is linked to general and marital virtues namely other-centeredness (Cloutier 134). In theorizing the process through which spouses create healthy relationships, scholars must move from the technical concept of functional marriage and look to the successful use of other essential components such as communication skills that largely depend on the virtues and personal character. Virtues are the personal qualities and the character strengths of a person. The purpose of this paper is examining if virtues and personal character have a direct link to relationship adjustment. It also examines if growth and development of married love as related to the moral virtue and character of a person, why character and virtues are important components of a marriage, how Christian Marriage is different from other types of marriage such as secular marriages based on Christian character and what it means to say that a Christian family is a domestic church. In addition, this paper analyzes Cloutier’s views of church and family role in the development of moral character and virtue.
In marriage, virtues go beyond the relatively simple perspective of conflict and dissatisfaction to more complex facets like relational health. These include motivations for partners, personal meaning, and character strengths. To different groups of people, marriage means different things depending on the participants’ culture, time and people involved. No single culture is capable of imposing its ideas of marriage on another culture and religion. The Christian marriage, in particular, is different from other marriages such as secular marriages and other types of religious marriages due to its commitment to character and personal character of the couples involved in the union. Christian marriages, besides love between man and wife, have a commitment to virtues such as compassion, forgiveness, respect, mercy and selflessness. It is character and personality in a marriage that is necessary to create and sustain a useful marriage and relationships as they play a significant role in directing the affairs of the family. It also has a clear description of husband, wife, and children roles so that the home is not run in patronizing, condescending and dictatorial ways but in accordance with the true character and personality of Christ that Christians emulate as the head of the church (Cloutier 148). Respect and humility as marital virtues are imperative components in wives submitting to the authority of the husband and children obeying the authority structure in the family. Christian families are similar to churches with the authority structure that is based on the Biblical principles of Christ being the head just as the husband is the head of his household and runs his family on the concepts of respect, submission, and mutual love. The church is most often supported because people generally care about the family and were they not to care about the family, good churches would not exist (Hauerwas 277).
The family plays a significant role in the development and enhancement of the character that is necessary for a marriage to succeed. However, it is only important in the primary development of marriage development to the extent that such a role does not turn the family into an idolatrous institution where it becomes the only source of wisdom, knowledge, and dogma in the society. Families and the Church awaken as well as reinforce the personality and character that people have learned from the outside world. This would make the family and the church dangerous institutions in their roles in the moral stability of the society which is likened to the character by Hauerwas (273).
The examination of the interrelationships between character and virtues and marriage provides critical information that broadens relationships adjustment to the positive so that professionals can create effective interventions among couples that are experiencing marital distress or those planning to get married and have a more effective relationship in marriage. It also helps professionals to help couples to communicate well as individual selves as well as partners. It helps in providing meaningful and contextually-sensitive clues on the contribution of virtues and character on the interpersonal well-being in a family.
Work cited
Cloutier, David. Love, Reason, and God's Story: An Introduction to Catholic Sexual Ethics. Saint Mary's Press, 2008.
Hauerwas, Stanley. "The family as a school for character." Religious Education 80.2 (1985): 272-285.
