Marriage

My little sister got married last week. That's the happy newlyweds in the picture--ready to start their new life. But this post isn't really about their wedding.

I spent two hours this morning "walking the precinct" as a volunteer for ProtectMarriage.com, a coalition that supports California's Proposition 8. The proposition is very straightforward; it would put the following phrase in the California Constitution: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid and recognized in California."

The fact that such a proposition is necessary sheds a revealing light on our society. It shows a great deal of confusion about what marriage is. Here is a current definition from Wikipedia (as good a source as any) "Marriage is an institution in which interpersonal relationships (usually intimate and sexual) are acknowledged by the state or by religious authority." What is interesting to me is how very far this definition is from my concept of what marriage is! Marriage is an acknowledgement of a relationship? I can't help thinking that here lies an expression of the dangerous path we are treading.

Marriage is the most fundamental institution of any society. As part of my anthropology degree I spent many hours learning about the different ways societies organize themselves. And in every society, marriages were at the core of social organization. This is because marriage is NOT an acknowledgement of a relationship between individuals. Marriage is the bond that organizes families, and it is families that build societies. This is why we have rules governing marriage--who may mary whom, what the obligations of the various parties involved are, under what circumstances and with what consequences the marriage bond may be dissolved. The entire future of a society depends upon its families.

There are so many thoughts in my heart, and I am not sure how to put them into words. The words of Malachi, fourth chapter and sixth verse, have been on my mind all day: "And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse." I am concerned to look out a society that is choosing to ignore, in so many ways, both the wisdom of our fathers and the desperate needs of our children. We need to build up, support, and encourage the families of our nation--the mothers and fathers who are bringing into the world a new generation. We cannot do this if we turn the fundamental institution of marriage into nothing more than an acknowledgment of a relationship between adults. That definition is the premise upon which many base their support for a broader definition of marriage--after all, if a relationship exists between two men, two women, or any number or combination of people, to acknowledge it is only to acknowledge the truth! But to call such a thing by the name of "marriage" is to make the name itself meaningless, for these relationships are not and can not be the foundation of any society that is to last beyond a single generation.

We need to see marriage for what it is, should be and can be--the joining of two lives, two families, two futures, into a new family unit, a place where children can be born, reared, and prepared to move forward and begin the cycle again. A place where a man and a woman bring their unique and complementary strengths and ability, becoming one in the way God intended when he created the first man and the first woman and told them to "be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth" (Genesis 1:28). Let us remember that marriage is about bearing fruit--the fruit of new lives, the fruit of a stable and orderly society--not about acknowledging what someone wants acknowledged!