Book Quotes: One Flesh

From The Forever Feast by Paul Brand (page 116). [I haven't reviewed this book, but I like the quote.)

In marriage, two people become one flesh, which means that there are no barriers, and each becomes vulnerable to the other. In that sweet intimacy there can be true sharing. An atmosphere is created that promotes trust and friendship as the family widens with the arrival of children.

The very words "they shall be one flesh" are descriptive of the merging of two lives, almost to the extent that they share the same skin. Such oneness is the very basis of future happiness for themselves and for the children whose security is bound up also in that same identity of shared life.

Intimacy and vulnerability go together. A husband and a wife each know the other so well that they are in a position to cause more intense pain than anybody else can cause. It is a refined cruelty because it happens from within shared confidences and lowered barriers. The result inevitably is a hardening...and the development of defenses that isolate one from the other.