“You Shoulda Put a Ring on It”: Witnessing to Cohabiting Couples | CRI

I found a very interesting article written by Joe Dallas. He wrote about how to witness to couple who choose to live together and not marry one another.  He stared out retelling a conversation he had in 1987 with co-workers who chose to live with their significant others despite he and his fiance deciding to wait for marriage.

“Aren’t you engaged, Joe?” someone then asked, and all eyes turned to me, wondering how I was going to defend my jumping into an institution they’d just essentially trashed.
“Sure am,” I smiled, “and looking forward to being a husband.”
“That’s nice,” a waiter responded, regarding me the way one considers a quaint little relic. “But is it really necessary? Don’t you love each other with or without a ring?”
“Yeah,” I nodded, “but we’re both looking for commitment, too.”
“We’re just as committed as you!” another waitress retorted, as though I’d just criticized her arrangement with her live-in boyfriend. “A ceremony and a license don’t make a commitment.”
“No,” I conceded, “they don’t. But they put teeth into it. And I guess it’s the teeth we’re looking for.”

How would you respond?  Joe Dallas relates in the article how he responded. The article is really important because it points out a very important point: Denying the important of marriage has lead us to the mess we have today where people are confused about what marriage is. People think that they can make marriage mean whatever they want marriage to mean - that is if it is "only a ring".


“You Shoulda Put a Ring on It”: Witnessing to Cohabiting Couples | CRI