‘I say ‘yes’ to marriage, but ‘no’ to being smug about it’

‘Stop with the superglue – spend as much time as you can apart! Just think how much more you’ll have to talk to each other about if you unstick yourselves at parties! The journey home is your date night; the party is a celebration of our lives in community,’ says Rachel Allcock as she gives advice to married couples this Marriage Week, 7-14 February.

I’m all for marriage, but some couples lack wisdom when presenting themselves. I cringe at ‘smug married’ people or couples blocking the pavement. I have been known to eye-roll my church neighbour when I’m behind the pair who are too keen on the insides of each other’s back pockets. And nothing turns me off an itinerant preacher quicker than the protracted introduction and slide show to his message when it is given over to a detailed description of his super-hot wife and their twelve kids. (I warm to him again if he reveals that Simeon, Levi, Asher and Issachar are probably ripping little Joseph’s coat off and throwing him in a pit at that very moment.) Perhaps I’m not the right person to write a piece promoting Marriage Week, but then again, maybe I am!