Marital Therapy Caught Between Person and Public: Christian Traditions on Marriage

This article addresses a crisis in marital therapy caught between concern for individual well-being and marriage as a social institution. Marital therapy would be enriched by conversation with three models of marriage: Roman Catholic subsidiarity theory, Protestant covenant view, and liberation theology and corresponding languages of social goods, covenant, and mutual responsibility. The authors urge therapists to see marriage as private and social at the same time and to help couples explore the meaning of marital commitment, the connection between personal well-being and marriage's wider social goods, and the dynamics of shared power and radical mutuality in marriage.