The Importance of Giving in Marriage

Marriage cannot last when it's about what you GET out of it. Because you will get into it to get and it's not meant for two people to get, it's meant for two people to give. Song of Solomon opens that reality to us in every chapter. The Woman must give her body to her husband. The man must give his love to his wife in physical ways (verbal or otherwise). There has to be this foundation or the house cannot stand. 

Coming to the end of chapter seven we see how the woman responds when the man gives her compliments and verbally praises her. 

Song of Solomon 7:11–12 (ESV) Come, my beloved, let us go out into the fields and lodge in the villages; 12 let us go out early to the vineyards and see whether the vines have budded, whether the grape blossoms have opened and the pomegranates are in bloom. There I will give you my love.

What is her response when he gives her the verbal affirmation she needs? She gives him sex. 

It's amazing to see this play out in chapter-by-chapter detail. The giving of ourselves to each other in marriage is the most important foundation on which we build. Why? Because the marriage relationship is a picture of God in Christ Jesus relating to us. Christ gave His life for us. We give our lives to Him. The mystery of the Gospel is that marriage is the picture of our relationship with God. Therefore it is not an economic relationship where both parties seek to get OUT of it what they want. No. What they want is to pour themselves INTO it, even losing themselves in the process. 

The result is more intimate longing for each other. Consider how chapter 8 opens. 

Song of Solomon 8:1–2 (ESV) Oh that you were like a brother to me who nursed at my mother’s breasts! If I found you outside, I would kiss you, and none would despise me. 2 I would lead you and bring you into the house of my mother— she who used to teach me. I would give you spiced wine to drink, the juice of my pomegranate.

Does she desire some weird sort of incest in this passage above? No. The standard rules of society called for no public displays of affection for anyone other than your immediate family. The exclusion applied to husbands and wives. So what she seeks here is the ability to express her love freely. She wants to show the world how much she loves him.

Then the familiar warning:

Song of Solomon 8:4 (ESV) I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases.

Do not awaken love must now be understood in sexual terms for that is the context of this passage. And what an appropriate warning to young women. If he hasn't given up his life to marry you, he does not truly desire you. You are just a commodity to him until you cost everything else in him. And this kind of sacrifice is worth waiting for. 

Thus, in the next verse of the section, the bridal procession introduction happens but this time with the husband and wife together. 

Song of Solomon 8:5 (ESV) Who is that coming up from the wilderness, leaning on her beloved? Under the apple tree I awakened you. There your mother was in labor with you; there she who bore you was in labor.

The same words were used earlier in Song of Solomon 3:6. The point could be further taken here that as man and wife give themselves to each other, it brings the joy of the wedding to their hearts more and more each day. 

The bottom line, a marriage about "me" is toxic, empty, and deadly. But when it's about what I can give to "you", it blossoms, grows, and rejoices in love.