day no. 16,204: the marriage bed as metanarrative and mircocosm

"Do you not know how it is with love? First comes delight: then pain: then fruit. And then there is joy of the fruit, but that is different again from the first delight. And mortal lovers must not try to remain at the first step: for lasting passion is the dream of a harlot and from it we wake in despair. You must not try to keep the raptures: they have done their work. Manna kept, is worms."  -- C.S Lewis, The Pilgrim's Regress

The marriage bed is a metanarrative. It captures the expansive abstract of what we call life in the specific particulars of how life is reproduced. Marriage is a microcosm and a pattern of all fruitful living. The marriage bed is a portent of the grander picture and an entire novel summarized in a single chapter.

Hebrews 13:4

Marriage is to be held in honor among all.

The marriage bed begins with delight. That delight leads to new life. That new life causes discomfort in the carrying and pain in the delivery. The newborn is then a new delight who sleeps in or near the marriage bed. Such is the way of fruit and fruitfulness. Delight gives way to pain that then produces fruit which is a new source of delight.  Delight gives way to new delight. The fruitful bed has more delight than the unfruitful one. Attempting to indulge the first delight without experiencing the pain of fruitfulness cuts one off from deeper delights and eventually even robs the possessor of the initial one.