During my conversations with Bishop Eliphaz about my grandfather, Alan Galpin, I extracted some of his wisdom regarding marriage. He gave me two main bits of advice, the first, “To Marry Young”, which I discussed in my previous post. The second, to “Look at the Parents”, which we will discussed below.
Look at the Parents
The phrase reminds me of the comedy “Meet the Parents”, where the soon to be engaged couple arrive at the girlfriends house to introduce here boyfriend to her rather interesting and unique family (father in law is ex-CIA…) well worth a watch. Bishop Eliphaz talked about the importance of knowing the family your future bride or husband to be is from. He said “you wouldn’t want to marry someone and find out later the whole family are crooks!” I think this example might be more common in Uganda, than in the west, but it’s a very valid point. It’s always been important to be the family I am entering into.
I don’t think we see marriage as the joining of two families together anymore, we have turned it simply into the joining of two people (and we do loose something). I’m not just searching for a bride, I’m looking for a second set of parents! Kris Vallotton talks about in his book “Moral Revolution” how the way a man treats his mother, or the way a women treats her father can be a good indication of how they will treat their future husband/wife later in life. We learn how to interact with the opposite sex firstly through the example and our own interaction with our parents.
A common thought I hear is to look at the mother to see what kind of women your bride might become. If that’s true, then you might want to make sure you like your mother in law before tying the knot.
I remember a conversation with my brother Godfather, where he retold the story of meeting his wife. He met her mother first, who after sometime said to him “If I was thirty years younger . . , you would be the kind of man I want to marry! Sadly I’m not, but my daughter is!” She introduced them, and they have been together ever since.
