Spiritual Journeys February 9, 2026 Issue

Marriage: A commitment that blesses and purifies

Learning about our true, spiritual selfhood as God’s image supports our desire for a stable and faithful marriage..

June Sullivan

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science, writes of marriage, “To be normal, it must be a union of the affections that tends to lift mortals higher” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 52). In her seminal book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, she devotes a whole chapter to the subject, explaining how a God-centered marriage can lift us higher spiritually. She writes, “Experience should be the school of virtue, and human happiness should proceed from man’s highest nature” (p. 65) and “Spiritual, not corporeal, consciousness is needed” (p. 67).

My experience of this kind of marriage has been that it encouraged in my husband and me an expanded sense of grace that has nurtured our spiritual growth.

Before we were married, neither my husband nor I was living the kind of life anyone would be proud of. We had both been single a long time before we met, and neither of us would say we were living the purest of lives. But I had been reading Science and Health for a little while and longed for a loving union. I even prayed as best I knew how for just such an opportunity. I was delighted when my boyfriend at the time showed an interest in Christian Science.

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