The Cart and the Empty Seat: A Parable About Modern Approaches to Marriage

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Imagine you spend your life driving a cart around. The cart has two seats. Yours, and one to the left of you. Where the cart came from and why this is your life is neither here nor there. But this is how you live your life. Day in and day out, driving around in this two-seated cart.

The problem you’re immediately faced with as soon as you have grown heavy enough for your weight to matter to the cart’s function, is that without a counterweight in the left seat your cart is off kilter. It veers to one side needing constant steering correction, and wears the wheels on side. So you put some serious effort into finding someone who can ride with you and balance the weight so your cart rides smoothly again.

You find someone, and they ride with you for a long, long time. Because of how long your rider has been with you, the idea of riding with that seat empty again is almost unfathomable. And if something were to happen to where the rider was no longer in that seat, learning how to drive your cart with an empty seat would be more difficult than the first time you had to learn as a kid. It’s only natural, therefore, that if the rider vacated the seat for some reason, your first priority would be filling the seat again.

This describes the most common modern approach to marriage in the western world, and America in particular. Everyone has an empty left seat, and once they’ve become an adult, life is too dysfunctional to go alone, so filling the spouse seat is a major priority. Everyone has this seat, we believe, and everyone’s life will go awry without that seat filled. Everything is off-balance when going solo, so we get married to fill that seat, to balance the weight, to fill that void. So then when a person finds themselves single again, it’s only natural to seek to refill that empty seat because life is off-balance with the seat empty.

Other people reassuringly respond to our empty seats. “Don’t worry,” they say. “You’ll find someone again.” “God knows your seat is empty, He’ll send someone along soon.” “I think you should refill that seat, you weren’t meant to go alone.”

The reality, as you might have guessed, is that we don’t spend our lives driving some weird two-seated cart around. Not even metaphorically. You don’t have a side seat, and it’s not empty. But, if you think you do, and you think it is, your life will conform to that belief. You’ll seek for a riding partner, you’ll rely on them to keep your life going straight, and if something happens to your marriage, you’ll have to relearn how to live, and there’s a high likelihood you’ll feel empty, incomplete, and off-balance without someone in that seat. In that non-existent seat.

Marriage is Unification, Not Addition

The pattern of marriage presented in the Bible is one of singular plurality, two becoming one, separate but unified. Amazingly, although not surprisingly, the biblical pattern of this kind of relationship was incredibly ahead of its time. Psychologists and therapists have known for a long time now that one element of a healthy marriage is the presence of differentiation (the degree to which a person’s identity is his or her own apart from the other) while being unified. If a person is differentiated but not unified enough with their spouse, or if a person is too closely identified with their spouse and not differentiated enough, there will be problems. It is both. Singular and plural. Separate and together. This pattern, or rather this potential, is part of the divine nature that we inherited from our Creator. Our Creator is a single entity, comprised of three Persons. One, but three. Singular plurality.

Let’s look at the first problem presented by the cart and empty seat idea. The first problem is impracticality. This way of viewing marriage falls short of singular plurality because it conceptualizes the relationship as addition rather than unification. It requires a second person to complete the singular reality of the first, and vice-versa. That means you still have two people, in two carts, each using the other for their own life’s balance. This is a logically and practically impossible situation, because it requires both individuals to be in two carts at once. Singular plurality, according to God’s design, is very different. One cart, not two.

The second problem with the empty cart type of relationship is it is based on an entirely self-focused approach to marriage and relationships. The motivation is the biggest problem with this model. The reason for seeking a partner is entirely self-focused, to meet one’s own felt needs. Here is where we really begin to see the cracks in the foundation.

The first no-fault divorce law was signed in 1969 by California Governor Ronald Reagan. Just a few years later, 1973, marked a tipping point in a shift in divorce motives. Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, in her book The Divorce Culture (1996), pointed out that prior to 1973 the majority of those with troubled marriages stayed together because of the stakeholders in their marriage. Parents, friends, their children, and their community in general all would be affected by a potential divorce, so the majority remained together. In 1973 that became old-fashioned. That was the first year more of these couples divorced, despite the interests of those outside the couple, than stayed together. From this point on in American history, marriage and divorce became primarily vehicles for one’s own personal interests.

This “soulmate” model of marriage is a fairly recent trend in the United States, maybe 50-60 years old. The rise in the prevalence of soulmate marriage corresponds pretty well to the rise in divorce rate. If you chart them both they follow each other pretty well. That is not to say soulmate marriage causes divorce, but there is certainly a relevant correlation. For a closer look at more factors that led to the increasing divorce rate in America, I recommend the article The Evolution of Divorce by W. Bradford Cox.

One sociologist, Andrew Cherlin, author of The Marriage Go-Round, traces part of the problem to a contradiction in American values regarding relationships. Cherlin observes that we tend to hold on to two contradictory sets of values regarding marriage. The first set of values is what we would call traditional values, which look like this:

1. Marriage is the best way to live one’s family life
2. Marriage should be a permanent, loving relationship
3. Marriage should be a sexually exclusive partnership
4. Divorce should be a last resort.

The Marriage Go-Round, pg. 35.

As Americans we tend to adhere to those traditional values, generally speaking. However, we simultaneously also tend to hold an additional, competing set of values, what would be called individualistic self-expressive values (Expressive Individualism applied to relationships).

Here is how Cherlin describes the self-expressive values:

The cultural model of individualism, then, holds that self-development and personal satisfaction are the key rewards of an intimate partnership. Your partnership must provide you with an opportunity to develop your sense of who you are, and to express that sense through your relationship with your partner. If it does not, you should end it.

The Marriage Go-Round, pg. 39.

To take that analysis a step further, Cherlin explains how the interaction between the two competing sets of values impacts marriage in the United States. According to Cherlin’s research, the second set of values that must be held in concert with the first are the following:

1. One’s primary obligation is to oneself, rather than to one’s partner and children.
2. Individuals must make choices over the life course about the kinds of lives they wish to lead.
3. A variety of living arrangements are acceptable.
4. People who are personally dissatisfied with marriages and other intimate partnerships are justified in ending them.

The Marriage Go-Round, pg. 40.

What does it look like, then, for a society to attempt to hold both of these sets of traditional and individualistic self-expressive values simultaneously? Consider this. You would think that people who believe marriage is a life-long commitment would also agree that couples in an unhappy marriage (not abusive or adulterous, just unhappy) should stay together in the interest of raising their children. Strangely, this does not seem to be the case.

In one survey conducted by Cherlin, in which those questions were asked, 76% of all who took the survey agreed that marriage is for life and should only be ended in extreme circumstances. However, on the same survey only 25% agreed that when a marriage is unhappy the couple should stay together for their children.

Cherlin remarks, “How can it be that a few minutes after they all agreed that marriage is for life, only one-fourth agreed that unhappy people should stay in marriages for the sake of the children? These respondents, like many Americans, are drawing from two different cultural models simultaneously.” (pg. 41)

This, in part, explains the grip that the soulmate model of marriage has on us. We believe marriage is intended to meet our needs of self-development and self-expression, AND we also believe that marriage is for life, AND we believe that when the first doesn’t happen, the second can be disregarded. I think we are more than a little confused.

Obviously these are all very general statements taken from sociologists and demographers. They’re not nuanced enough to account for every kind of individual experience and approach. However, in general, this does a good job explaining our modern approach to relationships.

Why isn’t the Church any better?

Chris is a friend of mine. Chris got married for the first time at 49 years of age. His experience, as he relayed it to me, is representative of many like him I have met. He grew increasingly frustrated with individuals in the church who made him feel there was something wrong with him, or that he was not a “good enough Christian” for not being married. Singleness in the church becomes covered in shame, because shame is the emotional response to the realization that there is something wrong with you. Those who treat fellow believers like their singleness is a problem are heaping shame on them, no matter how well-meaning they are. Please read that last sentence again.

How many times has it been pointed out in church that when God said in Genesis 2:18, “It is not good for the man to be alone,” that means singleness is less than ideal? Interestingly, as Barry Danylack has pointed out in his book Redeeming Singleness, among the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Islam, Mormonism and Christianity, the first three require marriage while the New Testament is unique in upholding singleness as a perfectly legitimate lifestyle. Christians, on the other hand, with few exceptions, have not been good at communicating this.

Why is it we think this way about the soulmate, the empty left seat, etc? Because nearly universal societal beliefs are almost impossible to not adopt while growing up. I’m reminded of the introduction to David Foster Wallace’s now-famous commencement speech at Kenyon College. Wallace tells of two young fish swimming along who are greeted by an older fish. The older fish says, “How’s the water, boys?” but the two young fish swim along. Eventually one says to the other, “What the hell is water?” This is how our cultural values come to us. They aren’t plastered on billboards or enumerated in books. To use Wallace’s metaphor, “This is water.”

When the entire world tells and shows you from an early age that you have an empty left seat, you grow up looking to fill it. When we try to recall movies, fiction books or songs that are not centered on romantic love of some kind, the numbers are few. The societal message, including from the church, that surrounds us our whole life is clear: find your soulmate to fill your empty seat.

The real difficulty with singleness it turns out is not being single, but unlearning everything we’ve ever been told about it from a society, and a Church, that believes singleness to be a handicap or second-place.

But wait, not so fast. What about the Bible’s account of the first marriage? Why else would God have said it was not good for the man to be alone? In fact, that was the first thing in all of creation that was not called good. Everything previously formed in creation….the cosmos, the oceans, the land, the animals, the man…all were good. But now the man being alone? Not good. And then when the woman is formed and presented to the man, he lets out a poetic gasp, declaring, “This at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh!” Isn’t this the Bible’s own indication of an empty left seat?

No, for two primary reasons. First, “alone” does not imply “loneliness,” and second, the presentation of the woman marks the completion of Mankind in creation, not the completion of the man as an individual.

Loneliness Requires the Potential of Company

“Alone” does not mean “lonely.” It certainly can in some contexts, but not in this case. Without an experience, personally or observed, of male-female companionship it is doubtful Adam knew what he was missing. In the same way young children fail to see the point of that type of companionship, Adam would probably have been in a similar state of naiveté. Without the existence of other people, companionship does not exist as a concept. Except for with God, whom he was already in relationship with. What reason would he have to be lonely? You only feel lonely when you think you shouldn’t be alone.

Adam alone is not the same as you or I alone. This is not the same as someone who has lived his entire life with other people to then be stranded alone on an island someplace with only the monkeys, which is how we typically picture this scene. This is the first and only human to ever exist, figuring out his own existence. He did not know he shouldn’t be alone. He wouldn’t have even known he was alone because the concept of “alone” requires the potential of company.

Eve Completed Mankind’s Creation, Not Adam

The creation of Eve marks the completion of humanity’s creation, not the completion of Adam. One central component to the Christian version of the soulmate marriage model is that the woman was created to complete the man, and therefore husbands and wives complete each other. This is an extremely common teaching. Even Tim Keller, whose books I love, and who I quote all the time, teaches this. The better way to read the creation of Eve, however, is as a completion of Mankind, not completion of the man. I’ll explain why.

As God creates the animals, prior to Mankind, Genesis 1:22 pictures God blessing the animals and saying, “Be fruitful and multiply.” That means that male and female animals were created together. God gives the same blessing to humanity, but not until after the creation of Eve. So God creates male and female animals, blesses them to reproduce and fill the earth, and then does the same to humanity; He creates them and blesses them to reproduce and fill the earth.

As a side note, it might be helpful to mention here that in the OT a “blessing” is a good word spoken to or about someone that carries with it the power or ability to bring about what was said. But before the blessing, in the act of creating humans God says this:

“So God created humankind in his image,

In the likeness of God he created him,

Male and female he created them.” (Gen. 1:27)

There is something unique about genders within humanity that sets them apart from animal genders. That uniqueness with human genders as distinct from animal genders seems to be related to the divine image in which we were created. Part of the divine image I believe is the ability for two to become one flesh. Singular plurality.

The Pentateuch (Genesis through Deuteronomy, believed to be written by Moses) has an incomplete understanding of the nature of God. The doctrine of the Trinity was not formed until after the New Testament was completed since the NT contains clarity through the revelation of the Son of God regarding God’s nature. Genesis contains indications that God existed as a plurality, but the idea that God was made up of three distinct Persons of Father, Son and Holy Spirit was yet unknown prior to the New Testament age. As far as Israel was concerned, God was a singular entity, although there were scriptural indications that His nature was more complex than that. We know through the New Testament that from the eternity in which God has existed He has existed as three Persons. The Father, Son and Spirit are all three equally God and all three distinct from each other. This aspect of God’s nature, singular plurality, is partly what is reflected in Mankind made in the “image” of God.

When God decides to create mankind in His image, He speaks as a plural entity: “Let us make humankind in our image and according to our likeness.” (Gen. 1:26) And in the transition to the next verse, God is depicted as a singular entity: “So God created humankind in his image.” The very next verse is God’s blessing to mankind, like He gave to the animals, to “Be fruitful and multiply.”

The divine image is directly connected to singular plurality and reproduction. The picture suggested in the literary form is two becoming one. God as a plurality, yet singular, gives life to humans, who, when they have become a singular plurality, reproduce the life God gave to them. “He (singular) created them (plural),” (1:27) and “He named them (plural) man (singular) when they were created.” (5:2) The ability for two to become one is a divine characteristic. Even the depiction of the first human reproduction mirrors the same type as in the creation of mankind.

“And when Adam had lived one hundred and thirty years, he fathered a child in his likeness, according to his image.”

God said it was “not good for the man to be alone.” Why? Most immediately because mankind’s creation was incomplete. The female counterpart to the newly created human male had not yet been formed. It is possible this is partly why God paraded the animals before him? The parade of animals connects a few concepts we’ve already seen thus far. The animals were created male and female and had been blessed with the divine instinct to reproduce. The blessing on Mankind was for reproduction, but also rule of the animals. In the parade, Adam takes his divine position of earthly authority by naming the animals. But what of the other half of the blessing, to be fruitful and multiply? He could not reproduce as the animals could, because he was…alone. His own created order was incomplete.

To assume Adam was lonely because he was alone, to which God responded by providing a companion is to oversimplify the text and read modern sentiments about the empty left seat back into the Bible. It also fails to take into consideration the details of the text and how it reads. I am uncomfortable with the idea, and unwilling to say, based on the text, that the female was God’s provision to account for male loneliness. That idea has some negative consequences that space prohibits from exploring.

This whole narrative is about the formation of Mankind and the divine image in which it is was designed: divine life reproduced through divine singular plurality.

The Real Soulmate

Some push back against this theory and say that Adam was lonely and that marriage is provided to ease that, at least in part. I have to agree that this is partially true. It is true that we all have this innate drive toward relationships with the opposite sex. While that’s true, the most fundamental thing going on in the creation story at this point is that God, who Himself exists in a reciprocal relationship, creates the man who is alone, and as one made in the image of God he was literally created for connection, for relationships with other people and God.

This companion void we sense is primarily there to draw us to God. “Marriage is meant to point us to Christ. But it is also meant to disappoint us.” (McLaughlin, The Secular Creed, pg. 31). In the same way that the Law of Moses served as a teacher to lead people to understand their need for a Savior, so marriage also acts as a teacher that leads us to a greater kind of fulfillment than a spouse could ever provide. The soulmate-shaped hole in us, in turns out, does exist, but our real Soulmate is Christ. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, “Your husband is your Maker.”

Isaiah 54:4-6

4“Fear not, for you will not be put to shame;

And do not feel humiliated, for you will not be disgraced;

But you will forget the shame of your youth,

And the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more.

5“For your husband is your Maker,

Whose name is the Lord of hosts;

And your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel,

Who is called the God of all the earth.

6“For the Lord has called you,

Like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit,

Even like a wife of one’s youth when she is rejected,”

Says your God.

Cultural beliefs about marriage and singleness set both marriage and singleness up for failure, to be drastically harder than should be, by burdening spouses with a weight they were never meant to carry, thereby viewing singleness as a curse or disorder. This is why I always tell young people that the best preparation for godly marriage is godly singleness, and that nobody is ready to pursue a relationship until they know deep down, experientially, why one is not needed. Marriage is an incredible blessings, but it is not necessary to the individual. Relationships are necessary to the individual, however, and part of the pedestaling of marriage is done by the devaluing of friendship. So marriage is holy, but not holier.

Until a person is happy and content in what they have in Christ, and has learned that a spouse is not something they need to become who they were meant to be, they are not ready for a relationship.