I will not marry you

even though you are so beautiful

Today, during the Medical School Christian Union Sunday service, the speaker, unlike others we have had before, was a much older woman. After her profile was read, and she was invited to take the stage, her husband who had accompanied her, being faster, was the first to mount the dais. Or maybe that was just how they had agreed it would be before they left home that morning. The man, taking the microphone, introduced his wife. Of course that was done in that slow and hesitating manner that is typical of old people, and which has a way of making us younger ones, because of our impatience and natural impulsivity, a little uncomfortable. All that, however, really is besides the point. What got my attention is when he said, “…my beautiful wife.”

I risk sounding impertinent, but I believe that what I will presently put across is plain enough. I would like to imagine that I am among the many who wouldn’t say they have ever met a ‘beautiful old woman’. Beauty, it seems, doesn’t really co-exist with age, when we look at things objectively. I wouldn’t want to think that the man was being insincere, trying to rub his lady’s ego, because such pretension, as much as it is obviously a trait of youth, it wouldn’t normally be seen among older couples. When people are old enough, they don’t have to lie so much, do they? Our old man believed his wife was beautiful, and if he had asked me what I thought, I would have nodded my head, quite vigorously really, in agreement. I was being insincere, though that’s what is accepted conventionally. It’s courtesy. No man smiles when he is told the lady he chose isn’t beautiful. And it’s probably better to avoid the subject altogether.

Since no old woman is beautiful, why then is beauty such a big factor in most relationships, and consequently, most marriages? Do these men know that these angels will soon be all wrinkled and toothless five decades later, if not earlier? Maybe they don’t, or they do but don’t want to think about such unsightly and disturbing details. Personally, I would even argue that the most beautiful women in their youth are the ugliest in their age. Making beauty the foundation of a marriage, then, becomes the first of a series of mistakes that we make in matters matrimonial. And in this case it is a foundational mistake. But which building, ever came out right when the foundation was wrong? Neither do marriages.

Beauty is desirable in a woman, and no man should choose a plain woman if he can have a beautiful one. But beauty isn’t really the gum that holds marriages together, nor is it the thing that makes marriages tolerable. Sooner or later, you may actually end up hating the lady even while she still possess her smiles and her curves. These smiles and curves that made you sleepless when you were first in love, will still make you sleepless years later, only that now it wouldn’t be because you desire her, but because you despise her with equal ferocity, if not greater.

Ladies it turns out, are not just their faces or their curves, just like sheep are not just their clothing. Most ladies, it turns out, and most of them are dazzlingly beautiful, have empty minds. I don’t mean they are stupid, they have just proved that they think in the most despicable way. Their faces make you all itchy to speak to them, and five minutes into the conversation, you would give anything up just to run away and rage. Of course if you are a true gentleman you should do nothing unseemly and end up embarrassing the beautiful thing, but surely at some point you may have to prudently excuse yourself.

Many ladies think that because they are beautiful, they deserve all the attention in the world. Some even would want to be fought over. It is true that beauty sells, really sells, and wins. That, however, not with men wise enough, and who know better. Nor is beauty enough of a thing to make me fight with my brother over a woman. As it is, I have since learnt to distrust beautiful ladies. It’s the pretty ones that have to prove themselves. For one, are they virtuous enough to be worthy of their face? Or curves? Or else it’s all one more gold ring on a pig’s snout?

I would advise that, if you are thinking of getting into a relationship, spare yourself some disappointment, and hurt, and have something else you love about your lady that has nothing to do with her face, her breasts, or her hips. Love the way she thinks, how she treats other people, and how hard she works. Even these things may in the end cease, especially if they were a mere farce all along meant to woo you in. Beauty, however, will certainly fade. I know many beautiful ladies I will be glad if they walked by my side in the streets, or if we held our hands. But I will not dare make it anything more than that. Brothers, don’t make a gorgeous mistake. (Ladies, don’t make a tall, dark, handsome one)

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Francis Bacon, The Essays; Of Beauty:

Beauty is as summer fruits, which are easy to corrupt, and cannot last; and for the most part it makes a dissolute youth, and an age a little out of countenance; but yet certainly again, if it light well, it maketh virtue shine, and vices blush.

Proverbs 31:30 ESV Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

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