Civil Marriage means....What?

[EasterJoy]

I know we’re talking about civil marriage, but it is still marriage. There was a time, before birth control I suppose, and before the “public safety net” when everyone realized that marriage was about family. They recognized that the sexual faculty was about family. They realized that a man who wanted a sex life needed to be a man who was at least willing to accept a family life, or else he was some kind of a thief. Even people who didn’t have a Catholic understanding of marriage got this concept. They saw the vulnerability of women who had babies without marriage, the vulnerability of children without fathers, and even, come to think of it, the vulnerability of old people who had never had children. Now marriage has been redefined in an individualistic way; it is a way for two people to be individualistic together, a way to force others to recognize their single life, but also a way to defend themselves against the individualism of their sexual partner. The whole mindset is the antithesis of defining yourself within relationships like family and community and church. Relationships are like “things” that you acquire or trade off, not a way in which you are an integral part of a living organism that is much greater than yourself.

Marriage is so twisted around, I don’t know what people want out of it any more or what they think it means any more. Come to think of it, marriage is in a crisis much like personal identity, and for many of the same reasons.

 

[Contra_Mundum_1]

If marriage had no legal advantages, nothing that couldn’t be accomplished by any two adults in a single conveniently-made contract, why do you think people would marry? What if there were no white dresses or flowers or little girl fairy tale romance involved? Who do you think would still marry? Why?

I asked my secular fiends the same thing and the answer was always that it was a nice traditional thing to do, that it is romantic, that it is a reminder that they will work things out, etc. Basically, the answers again had nothing to do with the actual meaning of marriage but still showed some need that the relationship is recognised as special and more meaningful than their other relationships. I guess the need to live in a certain way is deep down inside all of us, despite the secular brainwashing about sex being meaningless and children being a lifestyle choice, and that things mean what we want them to mean.

I find this topic very interesting and love to discuss it in real life. But people get a bit upset when their inconsistencies and contradictions are revealed in conversation, and I have yet to hear a satisfactory explanation about the meaning of marriage from a secularist that is placed within some kind of intellectual framework and is coherent.

 

[gardenswithkids]

…Being married is different in the legal sense, as in, once I’m married I can stop running to a lawyer every time I need to put something into his name or give him rights to my property, medical decisions, etc. …

This part Blue Eyed Lady wrote about not needing a lawyer to create power of attorney and make medical decisions is largely what society seems to see as marriage. Plus there are some possible tax breaks and social security survivors benefits, depending on the laws, which change. And employers include spouses in some parts of the benefits package. Then there’s the excuse for a big party and the accompanying gifts from the wish list or wedding registry. Every once in a while, they hold another big party to celebrate the initial big party and they get more gifts.

That’s pretty much how many people seem to view civil marriage. If that’s how I saw marriage and people expected me to attend weddings year after year, giving them fancy gifts in exchange for a chicken dinner, I’d be upset if no one ever let me have a party to celebrate my love for getting free stuff. Even God often gives couples gifts that relates to weddings and marriage: children. Children are wedding gifts from God.

Since we no longer recognize that marriage, sex and children are all interconnected, we fail to recognize the reasons that society originally established all those other gifts and benefits to marriage. Those gifts and laws relate directly to helping the couple set up a home to raise any children that may result from their union.

 

[EasterJoy]

I asked my secular fiends the same thing and the answer was always that it was a nice traditional thing to do, that it is romantic, that it is a reminder that they will work things out, etc. Basically, the answers again had nothing to do with the actual meaning of marriage but still showed some need that the relationship is recognised as special and more meaningful than their other relationships. I guess the need to live in a certain way is deep down inside all of us, despite the secular brainwashing about sex being meaningless and children being a lifestyle choice, and that things mean what we want them to mean.

I find this topic very interesting and love to discuss it in real life. But people get a bit upset when their inconsistencies and contradictions are revealed in conversation, and I have yet to hear a satisfactory explanation about the meaning of marriage from a secularist that is placed within some kind of intellectual framework and is coherent.

My fear is that if the growing unmarried population, a population that increasing includes a lot of struggling parents, comes to realize that marriage means essentially nothing when it comes to the welfare of children, they are going to rightly argue before the courts that many of the benefits of civil marriage are discriminatory towards those who do not choose to marry. When the laws and practices surrounding marriage are divorced from the reason it exists, then the real reason the state has to have an interest in marriage is likely to be abandoned. We’re already seeing this in the arguments that homosexuals are making for “marriage equality”. Then those benefits won’t be extended to the traditional family, nor will the traditional family be anything but a sentimental choice among a host of choices, all equally valued whether or not they are actually equally valuable.

 

[VeritasLuxMea]

Marriage is so twisted around, I don’t know what people want out of it any more or what they think it means any more. Come to think of it, marriage is in a crisis much like personal identity, and for many of the same reasons.

Let’s step back for some perspective.

-Incest
-Polygamy
-Anti-miscegenation laws
-Involuntary vows/Wives treated as property
-Marriage in the early teens

These things have been with man since the beginning of time, many of them were even practiced regularly by “God’s people” under his watch. In the West, today, there is good reason to believe that there are less occurrences of each of these practices than ever before.

Marriage is gonna make it.

 

[EasterJoy]

Let’s step back for some perspective.

-Incest
-Polygamy
-Anti-miscegenation laws
-Involuntary vows/Wives treated as property
-Marriage in the early teens

These things have been with man since the beginning of time, many of them were even practiced regularly by “God’s people” under his watch. In the West, today, there is good reason to believe that there are less occurrences of each of these practices than ever before.

Marriage is gonna make it.

Yes, it is worth saying that difficulties surrounding marriage and family life have been the norm throughout human history. Obviously, I think personal identity is going to make it, too. I wasn’t saying this was the worst time in the history of marriage. Rather, I meant to say that these times are putting pressures on marriage very much analogous to the pressures put on the individual soul. The swing of the pendulum for both is in the same direction.

As for polygamy, among Mormons and Muslims, it is quietly on the rise in the US. (“Sister Wives”, anyone?). Teens are getting pregnant and either having babies out of wedlock or having abortions instead of marrying, or simply getting on the Pill at 14 until they want to have babies, which isn’t exactly a huge improvement on widespread early marriage, and there is every reason to believe that today’s teens are far less prepared for parenthood than ever before. In place of anti-miscegenation laws, we have cries for marriage equality for gays, with the argument that opposition to gay marriage is the same as opposition to marriage between ethnic groups. As for incest, it is more common in homes in which the father and siblings are not blood relatives, so I’d not rush to the conclusion that it is less common now than in the past. Maybe it is, but maybe it isn’t. So wherever our time and place sits on the scale of soil quality for the growth and bloom of the Christian family, I don’t think it is on the high-quality end.

Marriage is going to make it. I don’t know that civil laws that encourage healthy marriages defined towards the ends for which marriage exists will. The only thing that really makes me think it will is that, like “In God We Trust” on the money, people have a sentimental attachment to having it there, even if the meaning is more sentiment than anything else.

 

[Phemie]

I’ve had this conversation about the meaning of civil marriage with several friends. They seemed a bit confused about its meaning. All of them lived with their boyfriends beforehand and saw the wedding as a public proclamation of their love. The marriage was a continuation of the relationship before the wedding, plus children somewhere down the line. They at the same time claimed that living together was the same as being married, but that being married made things somehow different and was a better setup in terms of children. All of these friends claimed to take marriage seriously, but also agreed that divorce is fine and that sometimes we just need to move on when things don’t work out.

So sad. I dislike going to civil weddings because I see no purpose to them, and especially because the couple in question sees no real purpose either.

In my experience, many who go through a Church wedding are no different. They “jump through the necessary hoops” so they can get pretty pictures.

There are few marriages in my community and the next nearest one. Most of the children we baptize are born to unwed mothers, many in long-term relationships.

I know many couples who have lived together for years and have raised families without benefit of marriage. Then one day they decide to “make it legal.” Frequently, that results in a divorce, sooner rather than later, because the decision to marry is usually a last-ditch effort to save a crumbling relationship.

Then again, I know couples who married civilly who are as committed to their family as any devout, well-catechized Catholic who marries in the Church.

 

[Contra_Mundum_1]

When the laws and practices surrounding marriage are divorced from the reason it exists, then the real reason the state has to have an interest in marriage is likely to be abandoned. We’re already seeing this in the arguments that homosexuals are making for “marriage equality”. Then those benefits won’t be extended to the traditional family, nor will the traditional family be anything but a sentimental choice among a host of choices, all equally valued whether or not they are actually equally valuable.

When God is kicked out of the picture things naturally lead to a utilitarian mind-set. Attitudes towards marriage and family are no different.

 

[Eleanor61]

We were married by a justice of the peace 30 years ago, and had the marriage “blessed” or sacramentalized by a priest two years later when our first two children were baptized.
We had wanted to get married in the church, but they would have expected at least a small donation and we were dirt poor college students. We asked my father for $500 to have a very small party and church wedding and he referred to the fact that my sisters both had big church weddings and ended up divorced so why bother. " Run away and get married" was the advice we got, and took. We had been engaged for 18 months and were living together because my husband’s mother threw him out, and i had my own apartment. Both our parents were divorced so we didn’t have a lot of faith in marriage, just in each other.

We got married on Christmas eve since I wanted a special date since it was such a sad little affair with just the witnesses. I had not thought about the fact that everything closes early on Christmas eve and we couldn’t find a restaurant and ended up at a pizza place. Sometimes a civil marriage is what you get. We didn’t feel “more married” after the priest consecrated our vows. We just felt back in the church, in a state of grace, which is a good thing.

 

[EasterJoy]

We were married by a justice of the peace 30 years ago, and had the marriage “blessed” or sacramentalized by a priest two years later when our first two children were baptized.
We had wanted to get married in the church, but they would have expected at least a small donation and we were dirt poor college students. We asked my father for $500 to have a very small party and church wedding and he referred to the fact that my sisters both had big church weddings and ended up divorced so why bother. " Run away and get married" was the advice we got, and took. We had been engaged for 18 months and were living together because my husband’s mother threw him out, and i had my own apartment. Both our parents were divorced so we didn’t have a lot of faith in marriage, just in each other.

We got married on Christmas eve since I wanted a special date since it was such a sad little affair with just the witnesses. I had not thought about the fact that everything closes early on Christmas eve and we couldn’t find a restaurant and ended up at a pizza place. Sometimes a civil marriage is what you get. We didn’t feel “more married” after the priest consecrated our vows. We just felt back in the church, in a state of grace, which is a good thing.

Wow, did your parents do you wrong! That was very unfair. If his finances had changed abruptly in the time since your sisters married, and he simply did not have the means to give you the wedding he wanted to give you, he ought to have said so. Otherwise, he certainly ought to have confined your sisters to small enough weddings so he would have something left over to help you out without bankrupting your parents’ retirement. (It’s a good thing your sisters didn’t throw away their chance at an education, too.)

As far as the church goes, if someone at the church told you that you couldn’t marry if you had no money, they told you wrong:
**Can. 848 **The minister is to seek nothing for the administration of the sacraments beyond the offerings defined by competent authority, always taking care that the needy are not deprived of the assistance of the sacraments because of poverty.

 

[Eleanor61]

I am sure that if we had tried we could have found a priest who would have married us. We were ashamed of living together, it was not our original plan, and a little too shy to ask, especially with no money.
I believe in both my sisters’ cases the groom’s family paid for most of the wedding.
My father could have afforded the request, not easily, but he later gave us $1200 for furniture, but our family dynamics were weird. I was 13 years younger than my next sister and not really my Dad’s child since my mother was an adulteress, although I didn’t know then, or at least i didn’t know her husband wasn’t my biological father. You would have gotten a very poor view of marriage growing up in that house but that is decidedly off topic!

My real father could have given me a storybook wedding easily, he was very wealthy, but although he was around he never gave me anything, and allowed my Mother’s husbnd to provide support even after they were divorced. He never acknowledged paternity, but passed down a painful, degenerative neuromuscular condition to me and now to my eldest son.

 

[EasterJoy]

I am sure that if we had tried we could have found a priest who would have married us. We were ashamed of living together, it was not our original plan, and a little too shy to ask, especially with no money.
I believe in both my sisters’ cases the groom’s family paid for most of the wedding.
My father could have afforded the request, not easily, but he later gave us $1200 for furniture, but our family dynamics were weird. I was 13 years younger than my next sister and not really my Dad’s child since my mother was an adulteress, although I didn’t know then, or at least i didn’t know her husband wasn’t my biological father. You would have gotten a very poor view of marriage growing up in that house but that is decidedly off topic!

My real father could have given me a storybook wedding easily, he was very wealthy, but although he was around he never gave me anything, and allowed my Mother’s husbnd to provide support even after they were divorced. He never acknowledged paternity, but passed down a painful, degenerative neuromuscular condition to me and now to my eldest son.

I only mention it so that no one has to go through what you did, because they didn’t know that the sacraments may not be withheld for lack of funds. You did the best you could at the time, and I don’t know who would hold your decisions against you. Besides, its all good now!

 

[skigirl1689]

I find it fascinating that even if the couple is not particularly religious, 99% of those I know have had a traditional church wedding. I think there is something still present in society where it is expected, or the couple desires, that tradition of including God (or the idea of God, so to speak) in their ceremony.

Though, the strangest ceremony I attended was a universalist unitarian ceremony which was where the officiant acknowledged God is all and is nothing at the same time.