Companionship vs Partnership Marriages

According to Diana Garland in her Family Ministry: A Comprehensive Guide, InterVarsity Press, c1999, the definition of a companionship marriage is one where the marriage partners seek to emphasize achieving deep intimacy with each other through individual growth and self-actualization and excellent communication sharing so that their emotional needs and personal goals can be met. She defines a partnership marriage as one that pursues greater purposes as the couple defines them in the will of God and so does not focus on itself but seeks to transcend itself. “In the companionship model,” she says, “authority and responsibility are to be divided; in partnership, they may take many different shapes depending on the context and tasks of the couple.” The latter “proposes no particular way of doing things but instead focuses on a vision and a purpose that go beyond the marriage itself.” So companionship emphasizes structure and process, not the intention and content of the marriage as in the partnership model.

True partnership, however, can only grow from a base of equality between persons and a prerequisite establishment of companionship. How can there be heart-to-heart, open and free companionship if one is to submit with no choice in the matter? That road leads only to anger and depression. Studies have consistently shown that wives in traditional marriages are much more depressed than men, unmarried women and working married women (p. 200). Once this required base of egalitarian companionship is established, then the couple can go on to the greater shared mission and joint callings from God that is specific to that family.

Of those Christian families that truly reach both companionship and partnership, my guess is that many may not stay there forever, depending on what is going on between husband and wife, what the shared family goals and tensions are at any particular moment. But when both are reached, and both stick around, oh, sweet Charity.