That’ll take a lot of effort, understanding and patience on both parties to make that marriage work. That’s a tough situation and prone to feelings of inadequacy, inferiority, jealousy and discontentment, to name a few
I wouldn't of thought it was a recipe for a successful marriage. I'm sure all know of couples who are not on the same wavelengt, and you wonder what on earth they talk about...:-)
It all depends on those involved, studies seem to indicate if at least both parties are **truly committed** to the relationship there ain’t no stopping the relationship.
Not just me saying.
I have no marriage experience to draw from so I must draw from those who do and from marriage professionals active in the field.
Sometimes an awkward relationship is held together by only one partner who remains committed to the relationship. The other foot dragging uncommitted wavering hold-out fool either gets his act together sooner than later or simply runs away.
Interestingly, one of the most egregious signs of a truly uncommitted relationship, regardless of intellectual disparity, are those who partner up by living together outside of marriage.
I think the personalities and attitudes of the people involved will have a lot more to do with success than intelligence.
What do you call average intelligence?
Don't confuse education with intelligence, in fact an indoctrinated person is often more likely to lack critical thinking skills and be therefore less intelligent. Parroting the official narratives that you memorize and use to pass exams does not make you intelligent.
Hence why Jesus said you need to become like children to enter heaven. A child is not indoctrinated and acts on what they see.
@Marcouse: Using Gotfriedsons definition intelligence is a 'very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smarts. Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings—"catching on," "making sense" of things, or "figuring out" what to do.'
In that sense parroting isn't helpful, but it isn't hurtful either. I believe, that God gifted intelligence and we are very limited in our options to do anything about it.
Intelligence is a concept different from both education and wisdom. I will not comment on the later ones, since nobody asked about that.
@CountryIvy: Back to the original question: It's not really clear to me what 'below or above average intelligence' or a 'working marriage' means.
I thank CountryIvy for her question, I'll answer another: "Would you engage when there is a huge disparity in intelligence?"
My personal answer to that is "no". For me a huge part of a relationship consists of sharing thoughts and emotions with each other.
I fail to comprehend a situation where anyone would despise the wonderful gift of intelligence enough to stop using it.
That inevitably leads to thoughts, that can't be shared with the spouse. Not being able to communicate is very hurtful. Even if that doesn't hurt enough in itself, it prevents the couple to act as one. At least unless you turn to the sort slavery described in John 15:15. And either way seems unfitting of a marriage to me.
People who feel the need to claim that education opportunity and intelligence are the same usually doubt their own noggin.
I am absolutely useless at learning foreign languages, but have an MA in applied linguistics. This was because the course was running part-time at my local university back when that particular set of hours allowed me to attend while claiming unemployment benefit at the time. It was about money and political circumstance.
I know a Bengali chef in Beijing, where I worked, who has a gift for languages. But he doesn't have any college certificates, even though he is much more intellectually gifted than I am with regards to language-learning. He was born poor and in a political system that did not favour him.
Intelligence is an over-rated word. It is best kept for Alsatian dogs, dolphins and chimps.
Jon Lee Junior obviously doesn't have as much of it as he wished - or he still wouldn't still be looking for a wife, decades on; but would already have a quiver full of arrows.
