Marriage, money, and social duty

David Brooks, a conservative New York Times columnist who I like, had an article a couple days ago about the increased use of seperate checking accounts among married couples. Brooks thinks this is basically a bad idea, as it threatens the "communal ethos of the home" with the "individualistic ethos of the market."

That seems fair enough. But what I found most interesting were Brooks's assumptions about public life in general:

Public life is individualistic. It's oriented around goals like self-development, self-advancement and personal happiness. ... The goal of family life, on the other hand, does not revolve around individual choices but around the unconditional union of souls. When we get married, and then when we have kids, we learn, sometimes traumatically, to say farewell to the world of me, me, me.

The assumption here is that public life IS about "me, me, me." Our society is a market, and all of us must scrap for what we have. In a market, others are not primarily "neighbors," as Jesus might might say. They're competitors.

In one sense, Brooks is right. Our society does operate like a cutthroat market. It would be hypocritical of me to say that I'm always looking out for others in my public life. Of course I'm not -- I'm trying to figure out how to get by. But I'm also a sinner.

As Christians in such a society, we should ask how we are called to be witnesses to it. It's not only Jesus and the New Testamtent writers who call for an ethic of sacrificial love of neighbor (think of the Good Samaritan, for example). The prophets -- and here Amos is particularly strong -- condemn market practices that allows individuals to become ludicrously wealthy while neglecting the poor. A quick note from Amos 8:

Hear this, you who trample upon the
needy,
and bring the poor of the land to an end,
saying, "When will the new moon be over,
that we may sell grain?
And the Sabbath,
That we may offer wheat for sale,
that we may make the ephah small,
and the shekel great,
and deal deceitfully with false balances,
that we may buy the poor for silverand the needy for a pair of sandals,
and sell the refuse of the wheat.
The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
"Surely I will never forget any of
their deeds...."

In other words, the Bible doesn't present public life as a place of a merely "individualistic ethos." The public sphere is where we act out sacrificial love, remember the common good, and remember that our competitors are human, too.

I feel Amos prophesying to me, as well as to our society. May we listen.