Marriage: the Eternal Principle
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Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Ruth Eyford, Marriage: the Eternal Principle, bahai-library.com.
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Marriage: the Eternal Principle

Ruth Eyford
Helgi Eyford

published in Bahá'í Studies Notebook3:1-2, pp. 35-48

Ottawa: Association for Bahá'í Studies North America, 1983

Marriage, 'Abdu'l-Bahá tells us, is an everlasting and unchanging
principle of social living.1 This paper will be concerned with the role marriage
plays in man's ultimate purpose, which is to know and to worship God. It will also begin an
exploration into the guidance found in the Bahá'í writings as to the practical
implications of marriage. A brief look at modern secular answers to marital problems will then
be examined to determine how much they are in accord with a Bahá'í procedure
for marriage conciliation and to what extent secular therapists' techniques may be relevant to
Bahá'í marriage.

Marriage and the Nature of Man

Marriage is necessary in any attempt to realize the purpose of man for at least
three reasons: 1) marriage joins together two separate entities and thus demonstrates the
creative, unifying principle of the universe, called God or the Absolute Beauty; 2) marriage, by
joining two people of the same purpose, provides a greater depth of resources and thereby a
greater ability to realize that purpose--a life in active contemplation of the Absolute Beauty or
God; and 3) marriage establishes a creative and healthy environment whereby mankind can
propagate and ensure its immortality and spiritual evolution.

1) Marriage demonstrates the principle of unity by joining two separate
individual entities. The two people become more than forces acting in sympathy, they merge into
a common force acting toward a single goal: that of life in contemplation of Absolute Beauty, life
dedicated to the knowledge and worship of God.

Marriage is at the very heart of man's social identity. It establishes the basis
for the other forms of social cohesiveness from the basic family unity, to the community, to the
nation state, to the world community. It is this demonstration of the principle of unity by
marriage that establishes the foundation for greater social endeavours as 'Abdu'l-Bahá
states:

_________

* RUTH Eyford, R.N., has had post graduate training in psychiatric nursing as well as
training in group therapy. She currently works as a counsellor in alcohol and drug abuse, and
family life education.

* HELGI Eyford, B.A., received his honours degree in political science from the
University of Alberta at Edmonton. He is currently a candidate for a master's degree in
international development from that university.

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From the pairing of even the smallest particles in the world of being are the grace
and bounty of God made manifest; and the higher the degree, the more momentous is the union ...
and above all other unions is that between human beings, .... Thus is the primal oneness made to
appear.2

The primal oneness, the realization of God's kingdom on earth (the unification of mankind), is
dependent upon the bonding together of individuals in a common social order. The basic (and
strongest) bond within a viable social organization would have to be that bond between men and
women, the two most different and complementary aspects of man.

A most interesting aspect of this principle of oneness in the universe is that of
the male/female principle which recurs throughout mythology. The mythologies of the great
civilizations all have symbolic representations of the uniting of the male and female aspects of
man, i.e. androgynous man. This unification of man and woman is, further, the occasion for
extraordinary powers and supernatural insights. Androgynous man is bestowed with powers
which transcend the limits imposed by the human form. The recurrent idea is that man's
potential is fulfilled when his basic duality is overcome.

The Great Original of the Chinese chronicles, the holy woman T'ai Yuan, is the
embodiment of both the masculine Yang and the female Yin.3 Eros and
Hermaphrodite in Greek mythology are also both androgynous.4 And Tiresias, the
blind seer, encountered in the Oedipus and other myths, is both male and female and has the
ability to foresee the future. The Hindu god Shiva appears "united in a single body with Shakti,
his spouse he the right side, she the left side--in the manifestation known as Ardhanarisha,
"The Half-Woman Lord."5

The biblical story of Adam and Eve portrays this reality of opposites in the
physical world. The first man was androgynous and "removal of the feminine form into another
form symbolized the beginning of the fall from perfection into duality."6 Since this
original duality, man has struggled in the world of multiplicity, aspiring toward an
understanding or realization of oneness to transcend the finite reality of paired opposites and
approach the infinity of Absolute Knowledge.

The Bahá'í expression of this concept is explained by Taherzadeh:

All created things, whether tangible or intangible, come into being as a result of the
intercourse between two elements which assume the functions of male and female. This pattern
is followed throughout the whole of creation....7

Marriage is a practical demonstration of this principle and is also the ideal situation through
which man can overcome his limiting particularity and thereby approach a knowledge of and
service to God. Seen in this light, then, marriage is of essential importance to man's attainment
of Absolute Knowledge (the knowledge of God).

2) Marriage, by joining two people of the same purpose, provides a greater
depth of resources and thereby a greater ability to realize that purpose a life in active
contemplation of the Absolute Beauty or God. Once the two entities are so intimately united in the
pursuit of this ideal of unity, the individual powers and talents of each are synergistically
combined to produce a power of perception that far

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exceeds the mere addition of the separately identified beings. Receiving mutual assistance and
complementary support, the married couple is now more capable than any other collection of
individuals can ever hope to be. While this is partly due to the synergistic nature of human
cognition, it is also due to another more mysterious factor.

Living according to the Creative Principle of the universe, man is party to and
the beneficiary of the positive and creative workings in the universe, even "though (he) may, at
first, remain unaware of its effect, yet the virtue of the grace vouchsafed unto him must needs
sooner or later exercise its influence upon his soul."8 Man, a creative or enthalpic
force (as opposed to an entropic or chaotic force), can receive assistance from the other
creative forces and entities because of their common nature and sympathetic agreement There is
an intrinsic accord between creative entities upon which man can rely as he pursues life in
contemplation of the Absolute Beauty. Intrinsic agreement between entropic forces is, on the
other hand, impossible since such an accord is contrary to their particularizing tendencies. So
when individuals demonstrate the Creative Principle of pairs by marrying, they are liable to
incur the often mysterious, unforeseen, but not random or coincidental, benefits of sympathetic
agreement with other creative forces.

One characteristic of this principle is the experience of joy--the joy that is
imparted through participating in the ideal of love, marriage, which defines man's purpose. It is
joy that heightens all man's abilities, "In times of joy our strength is more vital, our intellect
keener, and our understanding less clouded."9 And while joy is encountered outside
marriage, it is within this institution that joy--spiritual and lasting joy--is most accessible
to mortal men.

Joy is one measure of a successful marriage. If a marriage is successful in
enabling the partners to understand further the Absolute Beauty, the most basic desire in man-
-asting and uplifting joy--will be the effect on the partners. Further, the effects of the
attainment of this joy are not limited to the two participants; joy has a positive and creative
effect on the social environment as a whole.

Perhaps more important, is the effect of this joyous environment on the
progeny of the marriage. It is only in this environment of joy that man can effectively propagate
both his spiritual and physical being.

3) The third function of marriage is the promotion of immortality. Plato
states:

The object which they (men) have in view is birth in beauty, whether in body or
soul...this is procreation which must be in beauty and not deformity; and this procreation is the
union of man and woman, and is a divine thing; for conception and generation are an immortal
principle in the mortal creature.10

That is, while marriage is at one time the dramatization of man's love of Beauty or love of God, it
is also the only way for him to procreate himself spiritually. It is within marriage that the
requisite beauty can be demonstrated and the joy established to ensure spiritual procreation.

Implicit in this statement is the belief that procreation outside marriage
ensures only man's physical immortality and does not guarantee

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spiritual continuance. For without a healthy family environment, the child learns an
appreciation of creativity and unity (otherwise demonstrated by the mother and father) only by
chance observation in other social groupings which are necessarily more superficial than
marriage.

The family ensures an environment where otherwise neglected emotional and
spiritual faculties can be exercised. Without objects for and reflectors of love, the emotional
growth of the child will be hindered, even perverted. More importantly, without a concrete
demonstration of the principle of pairs (evidence of the primal oneness of the Absolute Beauty)
the child is not guaranteed to inherit the evolving spiritual awareness of civilized man.

Marriage serves a crucial function in translating or channeling the
characteristics and potentials of mankind into the concrete terms of the individual. Marriage is
the concrete link between the particular individual and the reality of social existence which
defines his identity and to which he owes his mental, spiritual and emotional abilities.

In the Bahá'í Faith marriage is seen as an institution. Marriage
is: a formal social organization which is essential for the advancement of civilization. Marriage
is prescribed for the same reasons as suggested in the Plato's Symposium: It allows the
new race of men to develop in an atmosphere infused with the inspiration of God; it allows
spiritual procreation.

In The Seven Valleys11 Bahá'u'lláh
describes the role of the individual in the spiritual continuum that is civilization. The father is
the summation of man's achievements that have preceded him from eternity to his instant (his
particular existence). The son is the point or instant which begins a reality which endures to
eternity. So any individual, being both a father and a son, sees his purpose in transferring or
translating the spiritual progress which has gone before him to those who will follow him. This
is the individual's responsibility to the advancement of civilization; he is the link between the
past and the future, the accomplished and the potential. It is the individual's duty to provide the
physical material for that linkage and to ensure his link is conducive to the advancement of
civilization.

Marriage, then, is the practical result of man's spiritual thirst for unity or
love of God--a love that is the cohesive force of the universe.12 Marriage
dramatizes the principle of unity, the prerequisite to attaining knowledge of the Absolute Beauty
or God. Marriage enables men to go beyond the limits of their particular individuality and
experience the realization of the principle of oneness. Marriage also enables the creation of the
environment that facilitates both the spiritual and physical procreation of man.

The Practice of Marriage

To view marriage as a vehicle for immortality, as an institution of such great
potential and occasion for joy would also be to view divorce as unthinkable. If marriage is a
means to overcome man's mortal bounds, it would seem paradoxical that it could be forsaken,
because of temporary mortal incongruencies. This is in essence what can be gleaned from the
Bahá'í writings about divorce.

In newly released documents discussed in a letter from the Universal

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House of Justice, the Bahá'í position on divorce is clearly stated:

Divorce should be avoided most strictly by the believers, and only in rare and
urgent circumstances be resorted to. Modern society is criminally lax as to the sacred nature of
marriage and the believers (Bahá'ís) must combat this trend
assiduously...13

The Bahá'í Teachings...consider (divorce) a reprehensible act which should be
resorted to only in exceptional circumstances and when grave issues are involved, transcending
such.. considerations as physical attraction and sexual compatibility and
harmony....14

As Bahá'u'lláh was so very much against divorce (even though He permitted it)
and considered marriage a most sacred responsibility, believers should do everything in their
power to preserve the marriage they have contracted, and to make of them exemplary unions,
governed by the noblest motives....15

The Bahá'ís must, through rigid adherence to the Bahá'í laws and
teachings, combat these corrosive forces which are so rapidly destroying home life and the
beauty of family relationships, and tearing down the moral structure of
society....16

Marriage in contemporary society often fails to fulfill fundamental goals and purposes and its
very validity is now being questioned. The current trend toward legal support of common law
marriage means that social legitimacy is no longer restricted to married couples but is extended
to encompass any two roommates. It is not our purpose to show that this is the case or even to
discuss the social ramifications of the degradation of marriage. What is now intended is an
examination of the solutions to troubled marriages put forward by secular social scientists.
Some predominant therapies will be examined both for practical instruction and, more
important, for insights into the underlying societal concepts or assumptions about marriage.

The social scientist is necessarily restricted by the modern notion of
empiricism. To be empirical, one must rely upon observable and measurable evidence, and this
reliance denies the empirical approach the scope to deal with the intangible and mystical
dimensions of reality. With such a limitation in mind the social scientist can serve to enlighten
us about the observable and tangible aspects of a relationship between individuals or groups of
individuals. The social scientist can study, rearrange and manipulate for optimal efficiency, the
interpersonal relationship through therapies which concentrate on communication or emotional
honesty or sexual fulfillment. These aspects of interpersonal relationships and, indeed, the
interpersonal relationship as a whole, are but the physical and mortal manifestations of
marriage. Such therapies can help a troubled marriage but only temporarily and in a temporal
way, for they, by definition, deal with the aspects of man's mortal essence which are transitory
and mutable.

The best that can be expected with communication or emotional

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awareness therapy is the improvement of a necessarily imperfect and transitory medium.
Speech, for example, can never fully encompass the complexities of a thought or a feeling; it can
do so only imperfectly and incompletely and with the hope that the received words will catalyze
or somehow inspire the original idea in the listener's mind. Speech, and likewise marriage,
work because of an innate, a priori sympathy or commonality between the partners or actors.
This commonality is human nature, it is the human spirit, undefinable and intangible yet real
and vital. It is this common spiritual identity of all men which provides the common ground
upon which marriage, like speech, is able to work or even to exist.

Marriage therapy, to be of real or permanent value, must go beyond the
imperfection of the physical relationship and instead develop a focus on a more permanent and
perfectible basis--the spiritual realities of the marriage relationship. How this is done is
logically simple but difficult in practice. Further elaboration of this principle will follow an
examination of the therapies of the social scientist.

If marriage is so very important and if divorce is to be avoided, how then do
people cope with the real problems encountered in the pursuit of the ideal of marriage?
Although prescribed solutions to marriage problems are almost as numerous and varied as the
social scientists who propose them, today's schools of therapy have a common theoretical basis.
The basis of most modern marriage counseling lies in the improvement of communication
between partners, that is, improvement in understanding the motives, needs and wants in a
marriage situation. D.D. Jackson, Jay Haley and Virginia Satir are three leading
marriage/family therapists who will be considered representative of the modern state of
marriage counseling; and comments and criticisms of one will often apply to the others.

Jackson has set the trend, approaching marriage counseling from what might be
called a holistic point of view. He looks at the problems of a marriage as originating from the
structure of the family unit and the operation of what he terms family
homeostasis.17 The family unit is seen as an information feedback cycle which
reacts to changes in its members in a way that maintains itself at its accustomed level of
functioning. In this sense one cannot accurately analyze or treat a patient outside of or separate
from his family because the problem is probably derived and maintained in his family
interactions. Furthermore, to treat an individual alone would evoke the homeostatic mechanism
which would either negatively compensate for any improvement in the patient or destroy the
balance and hence the existence of his family and marriage.

For Jackson, the family unit is all important because it determines the
character and behaviour of the individuals. Marriage therapy, he advocates, should include the
entire family, for to treat a marriage without consideration of the children is to deal with only
half the character of the marriage partners. Jackson approaches a psychological problem, both
of an individual and a couple, as "psychosis of association"18 and attempts to treat
the problem by strengthening or clearing the communications between family members. The
object is to allow the real person to emerge from an imperfect habitual interaction. But this
assumes that the real persons, once revealed, will be naturally compatible. This is not
necessarily an incorrect assumption, but Jackson's concentration on communication alone
means that there is no way to ensure that there is this natural compatibility, nor can Jackson
treat

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or deal with this more basic interaction, the interaction of souls. Without the focus on the basic
spiritual compatibility of a couple, marriage becomes a confusing myriad of interacting motives
since the consideration is then simply physical and self-centered, transient and ephemeral.

Jackson has placed himself in a position of being overwhelmed by the
complexity of the issue. It is in an excited pioneering tone that Jackson, somewhat reminiscent
of Bacon in The New Organon, defines the task of modern family/marriage therapists as
that of gathering data from observation and experimentation so as eventually to develop a method
or system out of the apparent madness of interpersonal relationships in the family unit. Jackson
confronts the question boldly and with integrity, but he has created this confusion himself by
omitting the spiritual perspective which allows a higher order to be superimposed upon the
affairs of men.

Haley emphasizes the social context of marriage, viewing the marriage as an
"interacting system" of interpersonal reflexes.19 Haley's position is an elaboration
of Jackson's concept of family homeostasis. Haley hints at the longer range social purpose of
marriage but then concludes that each marital situation is unique.20 While this
uniqueness may be true of the physical particulars of any marriage, it cannot be true of their
essential spiritual nature. Marriages are common in that they involve an important principle of
human nature, unity. To study marriage is to study human nature, and to look at marriage
without an agreed upon or consistent concept of human nature is to look at marriage
meaninglessly and randomly, without any real prospect for gaining knowledge about marriage.

Haley's conclusion that each marriage is unique can be seen as a logical
necessity of the inductive approach which he, as a "scientist," employs. Haley seems to have
adopted a positivist approach to analyzing marriage, that is, to view marriage as an entity which
is the sum of its parts. If marriage were defined solely by its composite elements, the marriage
partners, it would indeed have to be unique in each instance. This, though, is to make marriage a
mortal and temporary thing which must cease to be significant upon the demise of the two
composite parts. Marriage could hardly then be the institution that it is in the
Bahá'í dispensation, because it would be individual, specific and temporary.

Marriage can be described as synergistic in that it is more than the sum of its
constituent members. Marriage has characteristics and an existence unto itself. It is physically
realized by way of the two participant individuals who, in abiding by the principles of
marriage, partake of the bounties of marriage, and who certainly do not determine the essence
and principles of marriage by their physical characteristics. It is, rather, that physical
characteristics are determined, and enhanced, by marriage. And this is the reality behind the
institutionalization of marriage--marriage is a manifestation of man's true essence because it,
like other institutions, is a vehicle whereby men can coordinate themselves to achieve their
physical potential and spiritual purpose.

Satir, like Jackson and Haley, takes an approach to marriage therapy which
would immediately and superficially endear her to a Bahá'í. Her main point is
that problems within marriage must be solved by therapy directed towards the family as a
whole rather than the individuals therein, thus recognizing the importance of the social
relationship and

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social environment of marriage. Implicit in Satir's (as well as Jackson's) philosophy is an
acknowledgment of man's common spiritual identity. For every individual, the real wants and
needs, as opposed to what he perceives as his wants and interests are ultimately the same for all
individuals as they are all part of a common causality, that is, created by God. Difference of
opinion and conflicts of interest between individuals result, not from a difference in nature, but
from an inability to make known or to communicate adequately this information about interests.
If the language of human intercourse could be perfected, the individual would realize the
commonality of his real interests with others. For example, one can only imperfectly make
known to another one's emotional attitude. Unless by chance the recipient of the emotional
expression interprets it correctly, there is a potential; for misunderstanding which can be very
difficult to correct. The ideal would be to perfect the information cycle or, failing a perfection of
language, the goal would be to involve a number of "feedback loops" or responses which could
verify and confirm the accurate communication of the message. This is what Satir is attempting
in her therapy.

With this end in mind, Satir's therapy has, for example, involved the use of
group games where the members of a family or families can involve themselves in mock
situations that are close enough to reality that significant learning can occur. Yet these games
are at the same time abstract enough that the sublimated responses of participants can be
observed and not repressed by everyday, routinized behaviours. The idea is to create a situation
where the usual entropic tendencies in the information cycle are reduced by an awareness of
what kind of behaviour is having a deleterious effect on the information cycle involved in the
relationship.

Satir's primary three games are called: the simulated family, the family system
game and the communications game.21 While these games are well conceived and
useful on one level, it is not necessary to delve too far into the particulars of the games to
perceive their common weakness. The games all involve and concentrate on the individual's
responses to others. The communication game centres on the development of understanding
between family members. The simulation family game involves becoming acquainted with other
members' roles. The systems game, initially the most promising, ends up measuring success by
the amount of honest self-expression. These games, and Satir's theory, in general, concentrate
on the individual to individual relationship for data while ignoring the individual's identification
with the group, in this case the family and the institution of marriage. The identification with a
common identity, i.e. the family or marriage, is the common ground which unifies two entities
that may otherwise (without a common predicament) have many differences and no reason to
remain unified.

It is important that communication and understanding between individuals be
facilitated and, in this respect, such therapies as Satir's have value. But it is the identification
of the individual with the institution of marriage that subordinates all the individual's
physically based relationships into a position where harmony is possible. That is, if the
individual remains aware of the purpose of marriage and its potential, not only for himself but
for all mankind present and future, and recognizes what participation in marriage signifies (the
principle of unity, the principle of pairs), then any problem incurred in the physical realm
will be more easily solved, giving way to the

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overriding deeper harmony of souls.

This concept of identifying with the institution means that the marriage
relationship is a triangular or trilateral one, one which can only partially be analyzed or
described by studying the participants themselves. The third factor in the relationship is God
and the character of the institution of marriage which exists separate from the participating
individuals. Two people joining together in marriage are synergistically endowed with insight
and capacity--this synergistic endowment being bestowed by the character of the institution of
marriage and the sympathetic agreement with other ordered and constructive things.

Conceiving of and practicing marriage with a view to its transcendent reality
allows the individuals in a marriage relationship to deal with problems which would otherwise
be insurmountable. In other words, the problems incurred in the particular and finite world
will themselves be particular and finite. A problem of communication or any other physical
disharmony will persist only as long as man perceives himself as a physical reality. It is in
light of the spiritual harmony between men, as demonstrated by the social institution, that the
harmony of particulars between individuals can occur. And it is this universal condition of
marriage which Jackson, Haley and Satir have not identified. Consequently they see marriage as
a temporary thing whose purpose is to provide happiness for the individual.

All of the therapists mentioned have stated, either explicitly or implicitly, that
marriage in itself is not permanent. This is in contrast to what 'Abdu'l-Bahá states:
"know that the command of marriage is eternal. It will never be changed or
altered."22 The difference is due to the importance placed on the physical and
impermanent aspects of marriage by secular therapists. Communication skills, intellectual
prowess, sexual passion and emotional fervour are all ephemeral things; and to base a marriage
on them would result in a temporary relationship. 'Abdu'l-Bahá places marriage in the
realm of the eternal, because the principle upon which Bahá'í marriage is based,
i.e. spiritual unity, is a principle that transcends the physical world. In fact the spiritual
oneness striven for in a Bahá'í marriage often involves concepts that are
contradictory and paradoxical to the physical world; the androgynous man and Absolute Beauty,
for example, are absurd from a solely physical perspective. It is impossible, therefore, to
achieve the unity dictated by the Absolute Beauty by searching for physical similarities (that
is, emotional, intellectual and sexual similarities) among men--men and snowflakes share the
distinction of each being unique. Any unity between men must be approached by first identifying
the common spiritual reality and then, working back, to put the myriad of physical variables
into a complementary order.

The physical reality of man is not meaningful in itself but must be seen as a tool
in a greater pursuit, a pursuit that goes beyond the limits of the tangible universe. Corporeal
existence must be ultimately inferior to that aspect of man which can perceive order and unities
in disparate things. This is not to say, however, that man is to be ascetic. Without the use and
substance of the physical body, man would be without that all-important tool with which he can
create and experience order and continuity. Man would be unable to prove the existence of that
which he strives toward (God) or even to develop any appreciation of this Absolute Beauty if he
were without the experimental feedback system of an experiential, and hence finite, entity.

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Plato defines this principle in the Symposium when he describes Socrates.
Socrates represents for Plato the ideal human struggling is life in contemplation of Beauty.
Socrates is utterly indifferent to pleasure, hardship and danger.

We are not to suppose that he is not tempted, but that sets aside a seducer's charm
as being of less value than the moral and intellectual beauty after which he is striving and in
this he shows himself the noblest kind of lover, has passed beyond the law of physical beauty
though he still aware of its attractions.23

This is the ideal of love where love is ultimately spiritual It also takes into
account man's physical reality. This is stressed repeatedly in the Bahá'í
writings: the physical desires of man are not be suppressed or denied, nor, are they to be
allowed to interfere with man's spiritual progress.

The practical remedy for a troubled marriage proposed by the
Bahá'í Faith may appear radical to the modern practitioners of marriage
counseling but is obvious from Socrates' viewpoint. Bahá'ís are advised to do
exactly what Socrates did to overcome his problems pertaining the physical aspect of man. When
problems arise in a marriage, the couple is to look toward their common aspiration, the noble
life contemplation of the Absolute Beauty, and in doing so to realize the common mortal reality.
And it is from this similarity, the sameness view of the ideal and their ultimate harmony of
purpose, that the couple can work back and repair any of the temporal differences that have
arisen due to the finiteness of their physical perceptions and abilities.

The love which exists between the hearts of believers prompted by the ideal of the
unity of spirits. This love attained through the knowledge of God, so that men see the Divine love
reflected in the heart.24

Further the command is to:

Love the creatures for the sake of God not themselves. You will never become angry
or impatient if you love them for the sake of God. Humanity is not perfect. There a imperfections
in every human being and you will always become unhappy if you look toward people
themselves.25

Awareness that all people have a common station in relation to God Facilitates
first the deepest spiritual bonding and second, the harmonization of the physical realities of the
couple which will resume in effective and honest communication, complementary intellectual
endeavours and a balanced and productive sexual relationship. Such result is beyond the ken of
the social scientist who would call the relationship impossibly idealistic. It is beyond him only
because he attacking the problems from the wrong perspective -- trying to arrange the infinity
of finite particulars of a relationship into a harmonium coexistence instead of starting from the
point of harmony and unity.

The laws of Bahá'í marriage serve to enable this physical
harmony the everyday physical world. Foremost and basic to the rest of the laws

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or guidelines, is consultation. The Bahá'í version of consultation involves a
process which best resolves the aberrations of the particular self or ego. Consultation can be
described as a forging of a balance between man's varying abilities of intellect, emotion and
intuition by instilling an awareness of the all important search for truth or knowledge of the
absolute. Realizing the limitations of these three faculties towards this goal, a consulter is
encouraged to abandon any attachment he might have to a particular idea, since it is of the self
and hence limited. The abandoning of attachment is an acknowledgment of the individual's
incompleteness or imperfection. It is a more complete and perfectible expression of ideal man
that is created when individuals lend their individual strengths to a common cause or pursuit,
because their collective nature is more universal.

Consultation is the all-pervasive law governing Bahá'í social
relationships. As a tool for overcoming the barriers contracted with human temporality,
Bahá'í consultation in effect does what the marriage counsellors attempt and
partially succeed in doing. Consultation encompasses Satir's therapy, for example, and more,
because it involves the acknowledgment of the group entity of man, or, in other words, the
commonness of all men as beings created by and subordinate to a Creative Principle or God.

The use of consultation in a Bahá'í marriage is evident in the
year of waiting in Bahá'í divorce proceedings. The year of waiting is required so
that any barriers to consultation that may have developed can be discovered and put into
perspective. It is a time of "cooling off" where perhaps strong emotions or intellectual pride is
given a chance to resume its subordinate role and once again harmonize with the overriding
essential unity of spiritual purpose.

During this time the partners are urged to consult with the Local Spiritual
Assembly in attempting reconciliation. These consultations serve further to objectify the
problem in light of the greater purpose of social unity. In general, all efforts to reconcile the
estranged partners involve the concept of consultation--the means by which the temporal
aspects of the marriage can be put back into place and realigned to sympathize with that more
basic and essential unity of spiritual aspirations.

It is a subtle point that the administrative procedures of marriage counselling
in the Bahá'í Faith are not ends in themselves. Like other Bahá'í
institutions, the administrative proceedings of marriage (including all aspects of the procedure:
consent of parents, Local Spiritual Assembly approval as well as counselling procedures) are
only the means that allow a realization of the ideal of marriage. Marriage is an end in itself,
existing apart from the administrative procedures which serve to facilitate the physical
viability of marriage. The administrative procedure would ideally instill an awareness or
appreciation of the station and purpose of marriage as described and implied in the
Bahá'í writings.

This then is the Bahá'í approach to a troubled marriage: to
recognize the common reality of all men and their common aspiration towards the noble life and
to see how that ideal, God, is reflected in each aspirant so that the easily discernible differences
become unimportant, even invisible.

The trouble modern society has with marriage is due to the general lack of
awareness of the spiritual and metaphysical possibilities of

-46-

marriage. The idea of participating in a unifying principle of oneness--a principle of pairs--
or even the idea that there is more than mere physical propagation in marriage seems
incomprehensible to a society which relics primarily upon countable, measurable information
to interpret the universe. This approach is doomed to wallow in a confused infinity of
particulars and to attack the problem from the wrong perspective. Concentrating solely on the
particular and mortal aspects of human existence furthers the process of particularization and
duality, and man is denied the comprehensive outlook required to perceive the basic unity in
existence.

Marriage is a means whereby mankind can gain the inspiration to fashion a life
in contemplation of Absolute Beauty. Marriage partakes of that Beauty, the oneness of the
universe, by demonstrating the principle of pairs and by enabling the mortal creature to
become immortal through spiritual and physical propagation. Marriage, then, is an immortal
principle in a society of mortals.

-47-

References

1. See 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Tablets of 'Abdu'l-Bahá 'Abbas, vol. II (New York:
Bahá'í Publishing Committee, 1930-1940), p. 474.

2. 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Selections from the Writings of 'Abdu'l-Bahá (Chatham:
W. J. MacKay, 1978), p. 119.

3. Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1968), p. 152.

4. Ibid., p. 153.

5. Ibid., p. 154.

6. Ibid., p. 153.

7. A. Taherzadeh, The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, vol. I (Oxford: George
Ronald, 1974), p. 3.

8. Bahá'u'lláh, the Bab and 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Bahá'í
Prayers (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1970), p. 3.

9. 'Abdu'l-Bahá, The Reality of Man (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing
Trust, 1972), p. 15.

10. Plato, Symposium in Hofstadter and Kuhns, eds., Philosophies of Art and Beauty
(New York: Random House, 1964), p. 72.

11. Bahá'u'lláh, The Seven Valleys and The Four Valleys (Wilmette:
Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1975), pp. 25-29.

12. "Love is the most great Law that ruleth this mighty and heavenly cycle, the unique power
that bindeth together the divers elements of this material world, the supreme magnetic force
that directs the movements of the spheres in the celestial realms." Abdu'l-Bahá, in
"Excerpts from Bahá'í Sacred Writings," p. 50, quoted from A Fortress for
Well-being, p. 13.

13. From a letter written on behalf of the Guardian in a letter from the Universal House of
Justice to the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of Canada. January 5,
1948, to an individual Bahá'í.

14. Ibid., May 8, 1939.

15. Ibid., October 19, 1947.

16. Ibid., October 25, 1947.

17. Jay Haley and Lyn Hoffman, Techniques in Family Therapy (New York: Basic Books,
1967), pp. 1-2.

-48-

18. Ibid., p. 5.

19. Jay Haley, Problem-Solving Therapy: New Strategies for
Effective Family Therapy (San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 1977), pp. 152-54.

20. Ibid., p. 154.

21. Virginia Satir, Conjoint Family Therapy (Palo Alto, California: Science and
Behavior Books, 1967), p. 2.

22. 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Tablets of 'Abdu'l-Bahá' Abbas, vol. I, p. 474.

23. Walter Hamilton, Introduction to Symposium, p. 28.

24. 'Abdu'l-Bahá, quoted from Divine Art of Living, ed. M.H. Paine, (Wilmette:
Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1970), p. 98.

25. Ibid., p. 115.

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-- Marriage: the Eternal Principle (Used by permission of the curator)