Marriage ... Is it a dying institution?

[doubtThomas]

Recently, I attended a Christening with my wife and children (daughter 21, son 14). At the luncheon following the mass, my oldest sister (who is Catholic) mentioned that her 27 year old son was living with his girlfriend. When she was asked whether or not her son and girlfriend had “any plans for marrying,” she replied, “Michael says marriage is a dying institution.” I was left speechless. “Is marriage a dying institution?” How do I explain to my children my nephew’s statements? Please comment and give your opinions on this topic.

 

[Miserys_Fence]

Recently, I attended a Christening with my wife and children (daughter 21, son 14). At the luncheon following the mass, my oldest sister (who is Catholic) mentioned that her 27 year old son was living with his girlfriend. When she was asked whether or not her son and girlfriend had “any plans for marrying,” she replied, “Michael says marriage is a dying institution.” I was left speechless. “Is marriage a dying institution?” How do I explain to my children my nephew’s statements? Please comment and give your opinions on this topic.

I belonged to a non-Protestant Christian church that was a local favorite for weddings, and in fact this was a large portion of the church’s income. The pastor said that after 9/11, people stopped getting married. He didn’t have any explanation–and maybe it was just a coincidence–but the wedding business seemed to really drop off after that.

Miz

 

[Joe_5859]

The institution of marriage is the oldest institution in the world. It predates every government, every nation, every religion. It is the foundational building block of every healthy society. It is not going anywhere.

Has it, in a sense, fallen on hard times? Absolutely. You’re nephew’s attitude is evidence of that and is far from unique. And he’s 100% wrong.

Of course, there are many socio-historical reasons that many people at present have such a warped view of marriage, but it really comes down to a loss of the sense of human dignity and who we are as human beings (and who we are created to be).

I would let your children know that your nephew is wrong and that his life choices are not consistent with Catholic teaching or human dignity (though you, of course, still love him and pray for him). Find a book (such as Christopher West’s The Good News About Sex & Marriage) that clearly paints the beautiful picture about what Marriage is supposed to look like and what it is in its reality. Discuss these issues with your kids and field their honest questions. It’s okay to have questions, but, as Catholics, we should seek to find the answers the Church provides.

 

[PatrickSebast]

Holy Matrimony, the sacrament, will never die because it is of God. Marriage the legal institution in the United States however isn’t doing so well.

 

[EasterJoy]

The moral fiber to accomplish a marriage of life-long fidelity waxes and wanes, the societal taboos that enforce that end at the expense of compassion go up and down in strength, but the healthy desires that lead to good life-long marriages aren’t going to go away, even in those outside religion.

 

[joandarc2008]

I just finished writing and posting an article on this very subject - it compares and contrasts the Humanae Vitae prophecies of Pope Paul VI and the break down of marriage and views of women - here it is:

The Mystical Third Date

Please enjoy -

If you don’t have a facebook account you can read it here after midnight by going to the Catholic Times tab on this site:

The Mystical Third Date

 

[mjs1987]

Marriage is a male institution. Every society run by males has had marriage. Even when those marriages were known to be sham marriages for wealth, politics and a male heir.

We live in a society that is in a transition to a female society. Women run more and more things. A marriage doesnt work most of the time as a business partnership or an exchange of goods. In business, mergers dont work well unless one company that is united emerges or where one is so damaged or so small that it cannot fight the bigger company. Marriage these days is not seen as one where the male has authority and women are to obey men. Those are honestly empty words to 99% of most Catholic marriages.

For marriage to survive, men need to take control. Women need to take control as well. Men need to step up and not let women run everything and run all over men. Women need to step up and not let men use them. The bad men do well in this world since they can take advantage of women with no real consequences to men. The good men are left in the cold since they come with some strings attached. Both sides are left out in the cold in the end. The good men are left lonely while the good women are left wondering why they didnt make a sacrifice when they were younger.

Marriage cannot survive if it is a merger of complete equals. The unfortunately reality is that marriage requires both to sacrifice in some way. Often, it requires one to do so more than the other. This is anathema today. Everyone wants things as close to perfect as possible. This is unrealistic. So, marriage suffers. Sometimes, equality works in a marriage. Most of the time, humans naturally fight for authority. As long as there is no clear authority, marriage is difficult. The lack of a single authority in marriage is why marriage is dying. Living together without marriage means one can leave whenever without many consequences as long as there are no children. It means that sacrifice is not required since it is easy to leave. It also makes people less secure and more dependent on a single person instead of having a whole family for support. It is no wonder that so many people have bi-polar disorder and depression.

 

[takers]

I don’t think marriage is a dying institute, but I do think that the concept of when marriage occurs has changed. It seems like it used to be that men and women married straight out of high school. Then it was that men went off to college to earn a degree and women went off to college to find a husband. Next was the free love era and marriage was something their parents did so they rebelled against it until they grew up a bit and married later in life. Later came marrying but only after living together to first determine if you were compatible. Marriage has been there all along it’s just that people are getting married later in life these days, not necessarily to their first sexual partner, and not necessarily in a church.

 

[lutherlic]

Having children outside of marriage is not only sinful but very selfish. This happens when people focus exclusively on their own needs, not the will of God or the needs of others. Very sad.

 

[Corinne3]

NO. For faithful people is it NOT or never will be a dying institution.

Good question~! Thank you.

 

[joandarc2008]

Marriage is meant to be a partnership it was not meant to be submissive. Nor was it meant to be a covenant between the man, woman, and the Lord.

Check this site:

USCCB Explanation of Domestic Violence

It speaks a lot to the idea of men that go in to marriage using solely the idea that women are to be scipturally submissive.

 

[Norseman82]

I don’t know, but when I see comments like these on this CATHOLIC forum, it makes me wonder:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=6944028&postcount=26

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=6947763&postcount=34

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=6951159&postcount=43

 

[joandarc2008]

Just like Holy Orders or Consecrated Religious Life we often forget that marriage is a vocation that we need to be called to. You can’t fit a square peg in a round hole. If you aren’t called to marriage and are marrying because society wants you to or your family wants you to or sex is cool then that is what is known as an impediment to marry.

 

[joandarc2008]

And I noticed you posted a comment of mine above- please don’t take one of my comments out of context - it was taken from a thread where there was a lot of joking going on and honestly I know for me it was therapeutic because I am going through a particularly nasty divorce from an abusive man who is a child molester. Thank you.

 

[Norseman82]

Just like Holy Orders or Consecrated Religious Life we often forget that marriage is a vocation that we need to be called to. You can’t fit a square peg in a round hole. If you aren’t called to marriage and are marrying because society wants you to or your family wants you to or sex is cool then that is what is known as an impediment to marry.

You need to read up on OFFICIAL Catholic teaching.

According to OFFICIAL Catholic teaching (CCC 1603), the vocation to marriage is written into our very nature by the hand of the Creator, so until we discern that we have a vocation to something OTHER THAN MARRIAGE, we can safely assume that we have a vocation to marriage. This is a fact that seems to be lost in today’s vocational discussions.

 

[joandarc2008]

You need to read up on OFFICIAL Catholic teaching.

According to OFFICIAL Catholic teaching (CCC 1603), the vocation to marriage is written into our very nature by the hand of the Creator, so until we discern that we have a vocation to something OTHER THAN MARRIAGE, we can safely assume that we have a vocation to marriage. This is a fact that seems to be lost in today’s vocational discussions.

I have done a lot of reading up on a lot of OFFICIAL teaching which I think much is lost on you dear Sir:

Yes 1603 is a good start:

However take you also need to take a look at CCC 1625-1629 which cover the validity of consent.

1625
The parties to a marriage covenant are a baptized man and woman, free to contract marriage, who freely express their consent; “to be free” means:

not being under constraint;

not impeded by any natural or ecclesiastical law.

1626
The Church holds the exchange of consent between the spouses to be the indispensable element that "makes the marriage."127 If consent is lacking there is no marriage.

1627
The consent consists in a “human act by which the partners mutually give themselves to each other”: “I take you to be my wife”—"I take you to be my husband."128 This consent that binds the spouses to each other finds its fulfillment in the two "becoming one flesh."129

1628
The consent must be an act of the will of each of the contracting parties, free of coercion or grave external fear.130 No human power can substitute for this consent.131 If this freedom is lacking the marriage is invalid.

1629
For this reason (or for other reasons that render the marriage null and void) the Church, after an examination of the situation by the competent ecclesiastical tribunal, can declare the nullity of a marriage, i.e., that the marriage never existed.132 In this case the contracting parties are free to marry, provided the natural obligations of a previous union are discharged.133

 

[joandarc2008]

(cont)

We could go on and look at each of the Canonical footnotes but in each one of these we are basically looking at the types of impediments for the Sacraments. I hate to tell you some of these impediments are also going tobe impedments to Holy Orders or cosecrated religious life. So what do we do - we pray for God’s will for these people. I know in my husband’s case he was diagnosed with a personality disorder at five years old. Do I wish to God someone had told me prior to the wedding? Yes it would have saved me two years of the most horrendous abuse I could have known. Am I glad I found his paperwork when he left - Thank God because I know in my heart the Tribunal will do the right thing. And after counseling I will be able to have a valid Sacrament someday to a good man.

Is this man that after three failed marriages should marry again or be a priest? You tell me - because I have already been told that most likely the tribunal will answer no because of the extreme extent of what that medical paperwork said.

I am sorry if I am being harsh but I am asking you to put down the stones. I am not saying marriage is bad. I am saying that we need to look at how we prepare people for marriage and how we investigate people’s validity for the Sacrament before the sweep through other people’s lives like a tornado.

 

[Norseman82]

(cont)

We could go on and look at each of the Canonical footnotes but in each one of these we are basically looking at the types of impediments for the Sacraments. I hate to tell you some of these impediments are also going tobe impedments to Holy Orders or cosecrated religious life. So what do we do - we pray for God’s will for these people. I know in my husband’s case he was diagnosed with a personality disorder at five years old. Do I wish to God someone had told me prior to the wedding? Yes it would have saved me two years of the most horrendous abuse I could have known. Am I glad I found his paperwork when he left - Thank God because I know in my heart the Tribunal will do the right thing. And after counseling I will be able to have a valid Sacrament someday to a good man.

Is this man that after three failed marriages should marry again or be a priest? You tell me - because I have already been told that most likely the tribunal will answer no because of the extreme extent of what that medical paperwork said.

I am sorry if I am being harsh but I am asking you to put down the stones. I am not saying marriage is bad. I am saying that we need to look at how we prepare people for marriage and how we investigate people’s validity for the Sacrament before the sweep through other people’s lives like a tornado.

Not every person has canonical impediments (depending on the personality disorder he was diagnosed with) like the man you married. He is the exception to the rule (I hope; otherwise we are in big trouble), not the norm.

 

[EasterJoy]

You need to read up on OFFICIAL Catholic teaching.

According to OFFICIAL Catholic teaching (CCC 1603), the vocation to marriage is written into our very nature by the hand of the Creator, so until we discern that we have a vocation to something OTHER THAN MARRIAGE, we can safely assume that we have a vocation to marriage. This is a fact that seems to be lost in today’s vocational discussions.

The part about “we can safely assume that we have a vocation to marriage” is not Church teaching. Maybe that’s why it is lost in vocational discussions. The Church expects us to live chastely according to our state in life:

**CCC 2349 **“People should cultivate [chastity] in the way that is suited to their state of life. Some profess virginity or consecrated celibacy which enables them to give themselves to God alone with an undivided heart in a remarkable manner. Others live in the way prescribed for all by the moral law, whether they are married or single.”[135] Married people are called to live conjugal chastity; others practice chastity in continence: There are three forms of the virtue of chastity: the first is that of spouses, the second that of widows, and the third that of virgins. We do not praise any one of them to the exclusion of the others… This is what makes for the richness of the discipline of the Church.[136]

Paul says this: “Indeed, I wish everyone to be as I am, but each has a particular gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. Now to the unmarried and to widows, I say: it is a good thing for them to remain as they are, as I do, but if they cannot exercise self-control they should marry, for it is better to marry than to be on fire.” **1 Cor. 7:7-9 ** So if you don’t “hear” a strong desire to marry in your discernment, certainly it is fine to remain unmarried and to devote yourself entirely to serving God!

Therefore, if anything, a Catholic should assume this: that their entire life belongs to God, and look for how to live that. That is where vocational discussions should aim.

Having said that marriage is not an artificial institution, but one that is written in the human heart by the Creator. It isn’t going anywhere/

 

[Norseman82]

The part about “we can safely assume that we have a vocation to marriage” is not Church teaching. Maybe that’s why it is lost in vocational discussions.

It’s logical reasoning. If 2+2=4, then it necessarily follows that 4-2=2.