Marriage is not what you think it is, marriage is what you get when you raise children. Donald Sensing gives us something to think about. I'll begin with this insight:
Elements of marriage such as property rights and the like do not centrally define what marriage is. Indeed, the historical and present record shows that such matters have varied widely across human cultures and experience. The wife as an equal partner is a modern development, but its lack in other times and places does not obviate the essential character of marriage, the procreation of the next generation. The various legal and social rights and recognitions that pertain to married couples are the result, not the cause, of marriage, intended to buttress its central purpose. Therefore, they are added or discarded inasmuch as they do so, though not without other influences as well. Thus, the legal rights and social claims of married partners are incidental, not essential, to defining what marriage is.
Sensings conclusions only seem reactionary when taken out of the context of his thinking, which I find not only logical but compelling. Someone somewhere said I sounded like this guy, but I had not much read his blog. I'm finding quite a bit to like, especially this about Jesus.
Back to Marriage. I had started somewhere down the road about Marriage gaining its specialness inherent in the notion of the committment required of couples in full anticipation of rearing children, but stopped short of prohibitions against same sex couple raising kids. (emphasis added)
The central proposition to the institution of marriage which makes it more than just a relationship is its aspect of permanent commitment the basis of which is central to family. This is the essence of what is sacred and critical of Marriage, without which it is nothing more than a formal acknowledge of a relationship between people. So it is not religion that makes marriage sacred though we refer to it as Holy Matrimony, rather it is the transcendent aspect of love embodied in the ideals of Marriage that gives religion appropriates as a sacrament. That is why Marriage is universal and religious rites center on its transcendant aspects the most important of which are permanence and fidelity.
When I say 'central to family' I mean it in the context of the understanding that the Wedding Vow althought it denotes the love between two, connotes the role of parents. DINKs are Marriage Lite. Voluntarily sterile DINKs are life partners for sure, but that's not what we mean by marriage. If it were nothing more than a blessing on a 'significant relationship' then we'd respect the host of the Dating Game (or any of its variants) as much as ministers who marry.
Sensing, dispatches with love rather quickly, and I think he does so to his credit. When reviewing my writing, I see that I'm trying to accomodate the loving aspect of both Matrimony and Civil Unions, and that is what puts them on a more or less equivalent basis. But I know that it's true that it is the commitment to raising children that makes Marriage special even though it's not explicitly emphasized in the Rite of Holy Matrimony.
I've also accomodated the need for the state to have an interest in social stability, but does that really matter when it comes to domestic partnerships that don't involve children? Not much relatively speaking.
So on the whole, in light of Sensing's clarity, I think I've put a bit too much emphasis on the romantic aspects of Marriage, which I think makes me rather typical. I stand corrected.
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