Character First

I finished "The Marquis' Secret" yesterday. It was a good book for the philosophical Christian content, but was rather lacking in regard to its romances. For example, the main character was initially attracted to a girl because of her physical features and at that time she wasn't even a Christian. Handily, she became a Christian before the end of the book and they were wed. My idealistic opinion is that a man and woman should be attracted to each other primarily because of their character qualities. Physical attributes have their place, but for a book to promote attraction to a person based (at first) solely on looks is rather bad.
Another couple was wed at the end of the book, and the matching for that couple was even worse. The man was attracted to the girl again based on looks, perhaps, and possibly her personality. He was a fine Christian guy, I guess, but she was far from it. Her reasoning ability and character were extremely questionable up until the second to last chapter of the book, where she made a miraculous conversion to reason (I suppose the author assumes she also became a Christian) and was wed to the Christian guy. What an absurd and awful romance model for anyone to follow!

Christian commitment and character qualities should always come first in marriage partner decisions, followed by personality and interests, and finally by looks (yeah, as if I have any practical experience in the partner-choosing realm). I will not fail to comment that a pleasing countenance is often produced by a shining character - that aspect of looks could be included in the analysis of someone's character. When a couple has lived together for 10, 20, 60 years, the degree to which they love each other with TRUE love (not groundless infatuation), the extent to which they work together as one flesh in God's kingdom, will have very little to do with the looks they genetically inherited. They just are not that important.
Okay, off the soap box...