Marriage: What are we going to replace it with?
Blogged by James Preece on 28th January 2013
I've got some questions...
Once upon a time Marriage was used as a social institution between couples and the society in which they live in order to ensure that children have the best possible shot at growing up in a stable loving home with a father and a mother.
So for example, couples were forbidden to have sex outside of a permanent, stable marriage for the benefit of any children who might be born but also for the benefit of the surrounding community who could do without gangs of parentless youths running around the place getting up to no good.
The rules have varied dramatically from one culture to the next (in some places men marry several woman and so on) and Marriage has taken on forms that have been unquestionably wrong (forced marriages, women being sold etc) but the basic goal has remained the same - an expectation that the 'act' which by produce children be handled responsibly.
In return, those people who did commit themselves for life and to work for free bringing up the next generation and securing the future of the community.. those people got a certain amount of respectability and even tax breaks (gasp).
Fast forward...
Over the last few decades years that's all changed and to many people Marriage no longer means any of those things. It started when the divorce laws said that Marriage no longer had to be permanent and continued when contraception and abortion said that sex Marriage outside of Marriage would no longer lead to babies.
For many people these days, Marriage has nothing to do with children. Marriage is a public expression of love between two people who want to show commitment until such time as they choose to get divorced.
When Marriage as an institution was built around heterosexual (e.g. potentially fertile) sex, it made sense to restrict it to heterosexuals - it makes no sense to forbid homosexuals from having sex until they are ready to support a child. Now that Marriage is seen simply an expression of commitment, many people see no reason to restrict things to heterosexual couples.
Which leads me to my question(s)...
Firstly, if Marriage no longer fulfils that role in society - why do we still have it? What is it for? Surely my love life is a private matter? If I want to tell my friends how much I love my other friend and how we are going to stay together for, oh, a while.. then I can put it on Facebook surely?
Secondly, if Marriage is no longer the institution that protects the rights of children - what is? Should we have one? Do we have one? What does it look like? What do we call it?
Perhaps your answer to the second question is that everybody should feel free to have sex with whoever they like so long as they use contraception? You might call it "responsible sex" or something? But consider this.. how are you going to encourage people to actually do it?
At the end of the day, whatever you do, whether you offer a carrot or a stick... how are you going to make it "equal"?
You're not homophobic are you?
Reader Comments
+6
Chrysostom said...
As usual, you make some sensible comments here, James.
Yesterday's letter from the Catholic Bishops was unusually good. We must all contact our MPs - especially Tory MPs with a small majority. Do not let this matter get through parliament because of our inertia.
Our Lady Help of Christians - pray for us.
St Athanasius - pray for us
All Ye English Martyrs - pray for us.
St. Charles Lwanga and Companion Martyrs of Uganda who were martyred because they resisted the advances of a homosexual paedophile – pray for us.
St Peter Nolasco - pray for us.
+
+1
New Friend said...
I am not sure whether these are serious questions or just another dig at the idea of extending the meaning of marriage. I will assume they are serious.
It is stated as a fact, and not just here, that the past purpose of marriage was to ensure that children grew up in a stable home with a loving mother and father. It's true for many, but not for all, nor was it always true that the basic aim was to ensure that the "act" which produces children is handled responsibly.
There were many other reasons for marriage. You identify some. Others were political, some to secure family fortunes, some just for companionship. Some to find a carer for elderly parents. Some to find a home maker. Marriage was always for a variety of reasons. It is NOT just a recent development. It is a particularly myopic religious viewpoint which attempts to suggest that in the past marriage was only to produce children in a "responsible" way.
It is quite true that, since divorce and contraception became more readily available, more couples have decided that they can manage their lives without marriage. Whether this is regrettable, or not, it is a fact which cannot now be changed. We have to deal with what is, and not what might have been.
So I reject the concept that we need to find a new institution to protect the rights of children now that marriage doesn't, because marriage never was such an institution. Good parents, married or not, will always care for their children because they love them.
Maybe you are the ones who need to introduce a new concept to describe precisely what you, in your own community, mean by marriage. Perhaps "sacramental marriage". I don't actually care too much what we call the commitment that a couple make to each other. For me we can call every such commitment, made outside of a church, as a "civil partnership" and those made in church a "marriage". Your problem will then be that some churches will be prepared to marry same sex couples. At least your argument shifts to them and away from the rest of us.
As to being "equal", they aren't, never were, never will be and were never intended to be. It is the equality of opportunity which matters. No two partnerships are equal, just like men and women aren't equal.
+
+7
Nicolas Bellord said...
New Friend: It seems to me that you are confusing the nature or purpose of marriage with the reasons people may have for getting married.
+
+5
shieldsheafson said...
In a lecture that Pope Benedict was to have given at La Sapienza University in Rome at the beginning of 2008, he addressed this challenge to the Faculty of Jurisprudence:
"How can juridical norms be found that guarantee freedom, human dignity and human rights?"
Anticipating the standard response referring to democratic processes of deliberation, he observed that public argumentation in contemporary democracies aims above all at attaining majorities, and that:
"...sensitivity to the truth is constantly overruled by sensitivity to interests ... special interests that do not truly serve everyone".
Faced now with Pilate’s question, the Pope replied to a person who pressed him to say more:
"There are only two options. Either one recognizes the priority of reason, of Creative Reason that is at the beginning of all things and is the principle of all things … or the priority of the irrational, which would mean accepting that everything on earth and in our lives, including reason itself, is only accidental. The great option of Christianity is the option for rationality and the priority of reason.
Now the metaphysics underlying natural law theory that marriage is, not by human definition, but as an objective metaphysical fact determined by its final cause, inherently procreative, and thus inherently heterosexual.
+
Mark Dobson said...
+