‘Your unhappiness is sinful’: using a happiness-via-marriage script to regulate gender and sexuality in Australian evangelical faith communities

Within evangelicalism, a happy heterosexual marriage can become a key marker of faith, whereas unhappiness in marriage, singleness and non-heteronormative intimacies can call a person’s faith into question. Drawing on the work of Sara Ahmed, we consider how a promise of married happiness operates as a disciplinary device within Australian evangelicalism, simultaneously constructing orthodoxy and regulating gender and sexuality. We argue that the use of Scripture to promote gender ‘complementary’ models of marriage as necessary for lived Christianity and human flourishing, maintains the dominance of this heteronormative script within evangelical communities. We offer a feminist, sociological and theological analysis to show how the alignment of a happy complementarian marriage with Christian identity can become a source of harm for single women, women in abusive marriages and queer Christians. Recognising that Scripture can be both a source of harm and healing, we return to the biblical books of Song of Songs and Psalms, in order to recover and reclaim alternate and unhappy, gendered and sexual scripts.