Marry You
Listen to Marry You by Bruno Mars
Bruno Mars released this simple but very catchy song on his first studio album in 2010. In an interview, Bruno Mars talking about the song, said he was trying to capture the feeling “when you’re in Vegas, and you’ve had way too many drinks, and you love everybody, and you want to do something that you probably shouldn’t do and you’ll regret in the morning.” In the song that ‘something’ is to spontaneously marry someone. Pop songs have power. The lyrics and the ideas behind them get into the fabric of society and effect how people live. If you type this song into YouTube what you will see so many proposal videos featuring this song and if you read the comments section you will read of dozens of people who have used this song to propose to their girlfriends.
What’s the problem? Look at what the song is portraying! Marriage is presented as something that can be entered into on a whim. A guy and a girl have had too much to drink and they are “looking for something dumb to do”- That dumb thing is to marry.
And their marriage can be ended on a similar whim. “If we wake up and you want to break up that’s cool. No I won’t blame you. It was fun girl”
It does baffle me that this is used as a proposal song. Love is not mentioned. It’s not there. The decision to marry is based on impulsive feelings and there is no commitment to each other in the marriage. The marriage can be ended on a similar impulse as it began. Every state in the US now allows the acquisition of a no-fault divorce and in June in the UK parliament a bill introducing no fault divorce in England and Wales was backed by MPs. Our culture seems to be moving in the direction of this song.
But our thoughts about marriage are not to be grounded in the culture of our day. Marriage is not man’s idea. God established marriage from creation itself therefore we should look to God’s word to tell us what marriage should be. When Jesus spoke of marriage he went back to the very beginning. “At the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate (Mark 10 v 6-9).” Marriage is two people becoming one flesh. Two becoming one. It is God who joins together. It is not to be an experiment but a life-long commitment of love.
God knows us and he has designed marriage for us. The physical and emotional intimacy of marriage is based on a life-long commitment built on love and loyalty. It is not for short-term experiments based on fleeting feelings. Many in our culture today would say these views are restrictive and repressive, but that is a lie of the devil. He still says as he did in the Garden of Eden “Did God really say?” and he downplays the harm God warns us about in his word. The breaching of the union of marriage has devastating and far-reaching effects - Out of adultery springs jealousy, hatred, resentment, depression and misery (not to mention the effects on children). God’s way is best. It is not restrictive but protective.
Marriage is amazing because it is a picture for us of a greater reality. It points to the ultimate marriage between Christ and his church. Marriage should mirror God’s love for his people. In Ephesians Paul says: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” and “as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.”
Marriage is to be characterised by faithful self-sacrificial love and devotion between husband and wife. And what a powerful witness this type of love is to the world in which we are living! Whether we are married or single we can reflect the self-sacrificial love of Jesus to those around us. Jesus says to his people “Love one another as I have loved you (John 15 v 12).” This is the kind of love God wants us to show in our marriages and in all our relationships!
