Marriage
2
More thoughts on marriage
We are sexual
beings and we are distinctly male and female.
At the very moment of our birth we are recognised as girl or boy[1].
Marriage is a unique institution whose roots reach back into the mists of history. It is a public contract between a man and a woman who commit to live together as a unit, a family, excluding all others from the intimate centre of the entity. This is the biblical view of marriage and has been the position of the church from the beginning.
In recent years the dogma has evolved which says that love is all that matters. This thinking drove the Conservative party, in 2010, to embrace same sex marriage (SSM) saying, “if two people love each other they should be able to marry”. The Cameron government made SSM civil law in 2014.
There is no dispute that love is the central, vital and most important ingredient in marriage. But it is not the definition of marriage.
Although marriage is the mutual giving of one person to another to the exclusion of all others, the wedding ceremony is also a formal public statement to society that these two people are one unit - one flesh. The public element has been established to make it clear to all and sundry that these two people and any children are a family.
If marriage was only the recognition of a ‘living together’ or an acknowledgement of a sexual relationship it would not be necessary to formalise it. Marriage is the unique institution it has become and endures because of children. When a man and a woman come together sexually, children come[2]. With children comes long term serious responsibility. Many young people are dependent on their parents into their twenties and in their infant years require constant care. Both mother and father are vital for this care and often need the support of the wider family. But the care for infants falls most heavily on to mothers.
Our culture does not seem to recognise or value the central role of mothers.
Our materialistic society places a high value on achievement which can be measured in monetary terms. This means that unless an activity yields an impressive salary it has little real value. And parenting is an act of love which cannot be measured.
Our materialist culture focusing on achievement has bifurcated the roles of male and female. For countless centuries the father being the breadwinner, the home provider and maybe the protector warrior, is seen as the achiever. Mother, conceiving, bearing, nurturing, rearing and teaching the young is taken for granted; all this is done for love and carries little material value.
Over time the split roles have seriously degraded mothering and this under valuing of the female role has caused pain and resentment among women.
This divide has become engraved in our culture so much so that men don’t know how to look after women and women begrudge honouring men.
The feminist movement, naturally, strives to remedy this injustice. But it has chosen to downplay unique feminine qualities by emulating the male achiever model – making money. This has accentuated the war of the sexes. And in late 2022 we are at the place where women are, if anything, more dissatisfied than ever and men frustrated and isolated. This confusion is feeding into all facets of our society, not least our perception and definition of marriage.
There is much serious thinking needed and not a little hard effort required to work out how men and women can relate better and to determine what marriage really means. And the church has an important role to play.