No Right to Happiness

In, “Have no Right to Happiness” C. S. Lewis brings into light a very real and troubling situation.  In essence, Lewis tells us a story of a man who leaves his wife for another man’s wife.  This newly formed couple had left their spouses in order to seek happiness; something that was obviously not present in the previous relationships.  The man’s ex-wife was just too hung up in her children and had lost much of her good looks.  The woman’s ex-husband got all smashed up in the war, and in the process lost all of his liveliness.  So, two lonely people were left with unhappiness.  It was only fair then, right?  God sympathizes…?

This is where Lewis exploits the problems.  The whole aspect of God ‘wanting us to be happy’ is completely skewed.  Of course, God wants the best for us, but molding the scriptures into things that they are not does not gain God’s sympathy.  Even on that note, God doesn’t have sympathy, he has mercy.  Had the man who left his wife for another woman repented of his decision, had he seen his ways as wrong, he may receive mercy.  We dumb creatures do not know what happiness is, anyway.  As Lewis says, “In words that are cherished by all civil­ized men, but especially by Americans, it has been laid down that one of the rights of man is a right to 'the pursuit of happiness’”.

Lewis goes on in the essay to speak of the ‘privilege of sex,’ and how it should exist only with the intent of a lifelong commitment of two partners.  The happiness that is gained from destroying this lifelong commitment does indeed exist, but it is only illusionary.  Happiness in the sexual realm must not be seen as the man in the example saw it.