How many truly happy married couples do you know?—and are you even sure of these? Is yourmarriage happy? Are you enjoying the life you anticipated? Statistics suggest the answer is probably “No.”

Most married people are unhappy—with many a virtual study in misery. They have no idea what to do about it or where to turn for answers. Millions stumble along, bouncing off one marital problem into another, never knowing how to address them—let alone SOLVE them!

Married life has been the brunt of endless jokes, where traditional conduct and the roles of husbands and wives are ridiculed—and depicted as a bondage that only foolish people enter. Many equate marriage to surrendering their “freedom” to a lesser, unhappy state of existence.

Others choose to marry, sincerely believing they will find perfect bliss—they will “live on love”—only to discover that true happiness is far from automatic. Some even conclude, often within days, that marriage was the worst decision of their life.

Sadly, so many enter marriage with no understanding, no preparation, no training and no idea of how to achieve a lifetime of happiness with their chosen partner. Many couples spend far more time planning for a one-day wedding than for the lifelong marriage that should follow it. As a result, over half of all marriages fail, ending in divorce, often with former partners becoming mortal enemies! Other couples are just as unhappy, but perhaps cannot afford a divorce, or stay together only because of the children or other social or business reasons.

How tragic! And how completely unnecessary!

Programmed to Fail

Why have so few been able to find even a measure of the enjoyment they originally believed marriage would bring? Why have so many others decided to simply live together, avoiding commitment, thus artificially reducing the already skyrocketing number of divorces? Why do so many openly admit that they do not trust their mate? Why do over 80 percent of marriages experience adultery? Why such rampant confusion about marriage and its purpose?

What has brought the once sacred institution of marriage to such a deplorable state of affairs?

This is no accident. The fact that marriage has been the subject of endless jokes is only the beginning of the story.

Consider how marriage is routinely portrayed in the media. Reflect on the many television programs that countless millions of people have been watching for decades. Gone are Ozzie and Harriet (the Nelsons), Leave it to Beaver (the Cleavers), The Waltons, Little House on the Prairie and similar more wholesome pictures of families from the 50s, 60s and early 70s. In their place came All in the Family (Archie Bunker), Roseanne, The Simpsons, The Osbournes, Friends, Will and Grace, Everybody Loves Raymond, Married With Children, That 70s Show and others too numerous to mention.

Books and movies have also extended and worsened this decline in every way. Fornication, cohabitation, adultery, homosexuality and every other conceivable “alternative lifestyle,” now including same-sex “marriage,” have been depicted thousands and thousands of times in the media. Invariably, such programs, movies and books have described rampant immorality as exciting, fascinating, mysterious—and the virtual “norm” for what is now the great majority.

Their impact on marriage has been stunning. Marriage has become a laughingstock. Wholesome images of marriages, families and role models of the past have almost disappeared. Sadly, many millions have copied the new, modern role models, discarding traditional marriages and families as obsolete relics that history has properly scrapped.

Recent generations have been conditioned to believe marriage is better “the second time around.” By this logic, the third marriage would be even better!

Accompanying these trends has been a corresponding decline in traditional values and the importance of character—all over the world. Under constant attack, standards of right and wrong—good and bad—old-fashioned “righteousness” and “unrighteousness”—have been blurring and crumbling. How many people any longer even speak of character, once called virtue?

With the steep decline in basic character has come an unwillingness to remain committed to vows exchanged on the wedding day. With the near disappearance of ethics, standards, fundamental reality and basic knowledge of right and wrong, has come the assumption that when marriage difficulties arise, as they inevitably do with imperfect human beings, couples should simply take the easy way out—divorce!

The Author of Marriage

Why do so few understand that there are great principles—SPIRITUAL LAWS!—governing what most think is merely a civil agreement? How many recognize that men and women have separate, different, God-ordained ROLES that must be understood for marriage to succeed? How many couples have been taught the real PURPOSE of marriage? Most no longer even know the ORIGIN of marriage, let alone the vital answers to these and other important related questions!

The answers to these questions are revealed knowledge—knowledge that men cannot themselves discern. God must REVEAL it.

In place of revealed truth, modern education has taught the great evolutionary lie—that life is continually evolving to a higher state. Scoffers, preferring to believe that human beings are a product of blind, dumb luck, dismiss the biblical account that God supernaturally created two literal people, Adam and Eve, and then identified them as history’s first married couple.

Of course, those who believe the unproven fiction of evolution must also believe that, at some point, men devised the marriage institution. Believing otherwise is incompatible with evolution. One cannot have it both ways. Either God created marriage or men did.

But human beings did not create marriage! Therefore, apart from God, they cannot know its true purpose—or the KEYS to decades of happiness with the same person. It is not our purpose here to prove that God exists or that the Bible is His inspired Word. We have numerous other booklets that address these subjects. Therefore, we start with the fact that the Almighty God, who made the heavens and the earth, also designed and created marriage. (To learn more about these topics, read our booklets Does God Exist?, Bible Authority...Can It Be Proven?, and The Purpose of Marriage – Ever Obsolete? as well as our book Dating and Courtship – God’s Way.)

Though marriage appears to be merely a physical union, starting with a wedding ceremony performed by a man, it is actually a DIVINE INSTITUTION, created by God. As the true Author of marriage, God understands what makes it succeed, bringing supreme happiness and joy—or fail, ending in divorce and broken lives. This same God clearly reveals this knowledge in His Word.

For every effect, there is a cause. When a marriage experiences all the right effects, yielding happiness, it is because RIGHT CAUSES have been understood and practiced. When a marriage is filled with problems of every sort, causing great unhappiness, right causes have been either unknown or ignored.

The Creator God designed marriage to be a source of great happiness, something every couple yearns for. You can have an exciting, happy, successful marriage, but only if you follow God’s prescribed formula. This booklet reveals the formula—the CAUSES—behind a happy marriage. It reveals the plain truth of how to build a wonderful, joyful marriage. We will examine basic principles, unknown to all but a very few who are willing to truly study and believe God’s Word to see what He instructs.