One of the least sentimental claims in this chapter is that people marry in order to love the world. Marriage is not merely permission for intimacy or companionship. It is formation.
Moon argues that a husband should see his wife as representing all women and a wife should see her husband as representing all men. That does not erase the uniqueness of the spouse; it prevents the marriage from collapsing into private consumption. The spouse becomes the concrete person through whom one learns public love.
The practical test of marriage, then, is not just whether the couple feels close, but whether their love makes them more capable of serving a wider human reality. If marriage closes a couple in on themselves, it has missed one of its central purposes.