Marriage is natural--a defense of marriage article

[Della]

I have another article on marriage that I’d like my fellow CAF member critique, if you would:

People are always saying we should keep things natural, cooperating with nature instead of fighting against it be it in the foods we eat or the environment in which we live or the ties that bind us together. Nothing could be more natural than marriage between a man and a woman since that is how nature forms new human life—through families in which children are born and brought up by parents. Children need mothers and fathers. Societies need stable families in which children are safe and secure. The most stable relationship and the most natural is marriage between a man and a woman. Diversions from this model have been tried and failed. We tried “free love” and are living with the consequences in broken homes and fatherless children. It wasn’t natural or right for human beings. We deluded ourselves that mature people will always make the right decisions concerning their own sexuality. Clearly, we were wrong. The more we tinker with nature the more we come to regret it. Once again we have a decision to make. Should we make another mistake regarding marriage, renaming marriage to suit the dispositions of some while destroying natural families? No we shouldn’t.

 

[Fan_of_Francis]

Della, I have a sad commentary.
A couple of weeks ago I was visiting with my next door neighbour and her 18 year old sweet/shy daughter. In brief, we are divorced and she is against marriage.
When the conversation turned to this subject I stated to the daughter " some marriages are good" with the hope of staring a conversation about what is marriage is really about. Before I could continue the mother stated “no there isn’t”. I was so unprepared for this I could not think, my mind was trying to counter-act this belief, then the subject changed.
I am now prepared so that I can speak when necessary and my actions do match.
-My penance at last confession was to pray for families.
-My young cousin died in an accident, her parents do not have the faith and she is having a “memorial” service. My older cousins, ( the deceased grandparents) had memorial services as well. So I pray for them to come back.
-I do not have a family, my former husband ( term used for clarity) found family a burden in life.
What I am saying is people turn away for many reasons. Some, so hurt and wounded they harden their hearts and take their “destiny” in their own hands. Some raise to be indifferent as their families are indifferent. We don’t know until we know.
So pray, pray constantly, pray with me and be grateful our Father is asking this from us.

 

[spencelo]

I have another article on marriage that I’d like my fellow CAF member critique, if you would:

People are always saying we should keep things natural, cooperating with nature instead of fighting against it be it in the foods we eat or the environment in which we live or the ties that bind us together. Nothing could be more natural than marriage between a man and a woman since that is how nature forms new human life—through families in which children are born and brought up by parents. Children need mothers and fathers. Societies need stable families in which children are safe and secure. The most stable relationship and the most natural is marriage between a man and a woman. Diversions from this model have been tried and failed. We tried “free love” and are living with the consequences in broken homes and fatherless children. It wasn’t natural or right for human beings. We deluded ourselves that mature people will always make the right decisions concerning their own sexuality. Clearly, we were wrong. The more we tinker with nature the more we come to regret it. Once again we have a decision to make. Should we make another mistake regarding marriage, renaming marriage to suit the dispositions of some while destroying natural families? No we shouldn’t.

1. I don’t see what’s “natural” about civil marriage – which is a humanly constructed, government recognized social institution. “New human life” forms as a result of procreation, not as a result of “marriage.” Please define the term “natural.”
2. Marriages between one man and one woman aren’t inherently stable – after all, at least 50% of all marriages end in divorce. Moreover, “stability,” “procreation,” or “child-rearing” have never been requirements for a marriage license, so why do you seek to impose those **non-existence requirements **on same-sex couples? It seems you want to impose barriers to marriage on same-sex couples that have never ever been imposed on opposite-sex couples, which is utterly arbitrary.

 

[livingwordunity]

spencelo,

What would be your best definition of perfect love?

 

[spencelo]

spencelo,

What would be your best definition of perfect love?

I don’t have one. Why do you ask?

 

[JimG]

Della, your post makes a great deal of sense. Actually the things you say seem to me to be self evident. Marriage and family are the ways in which civilization has continued to survive throughout thousands of years.

As Fan of Francis’ post makes clear though, at this point in the history of civilization, when it comes to family and marriage, things have gotten so out of whack that nothing is self evident any more.

As a result of the contraceptive mentality and the sexual revolution, some family structures have become even toxic to many, because the virtues of permanence, fidelity, and constancy have so often been lost.

This month marks the anniversary of my wife’s death, and when I think about my life with her, it seems that everything is divided into “before” her and “after” her. In Catholic weddings, there used to be a little exhortation given by the priest just before the vows were pronounced. Part of it went like this:

“No greater blessing can come to your married life than pure conjugal love, loyal and true to the end. May then, this love with which you join your hands and hearts today, never fail, but grow deeper and stronger as the years go on. And if true love and the unselfish spirit of perfect sacrifice guide your every action, you can expect the greatest measure of earthly happiness that may be allotted to man in this vale of tears.”

(The exhortation can be found here: commonwealmagazine.org/blog/ )

That little exhortation is no longer used, partly maybe, because no one believes it anymore. Couples no longer truly believe, even as they stand at the altar, in the possibility of true, loyal, sacrificial, permanent love, capable of persevering to the end, despite sickness or health, wealth or poverty, good times or bad. But we believed it. We lived it. We loved it.

It’s not that such marriage is impossible. It is more, I think, that no one has bothered to teach the young that permanent and unselfish love is not only possible but expected, and their rightful heritage in marriage. The sexual revolution has handed them a counterfeit, and maybe they think that’s all there is or can be. That is sad.

 

[JimG]

Edit: I have to correct the link I gave above, which is wrong. The “Exhortation Before Marriage” can be found here, about a third of the way down the page:

sanctamissa.org/en/resources/books-1962/rituale-romanum/66-matrimony-instruction.html

 

[Della]

1. I don’t see what’s “natural” about civil marriage – which is a humanly constructed, government recognized social institution. “New human life” forms as a result of procreation, not as a result of “marriage.” Please define the term “natural.”

Human marriage is not a human invention in the sense that it can be exchanged for something else that would accomplish the same thing. It is unique and the means by which humans have joined the sexes in every society and culture in the world. Since man naturally does this and does not need government support or approval, it is natural to humankind. Procreation happens with or without marriage but marriage has always been the way humans have used to build families in which children are procreated and more, in which they are brought up, nurtured and in which they remain their whole lives, not just as minors. Families are natural because humans form families.

1. Marriages between one man and one woman aren’t inherently stable – after all, at least 50% of all marriages end in divorce. Moreover, “stability,” “procreation,” or “child-rearing” have never been requirements for a marriage license, so why do you seek to impose those **non-existence requirements **on same-sex couples? It seems you want to impose barriers to marriage on same-sex couples that have never ever been imposed on opposite-sex couples, which is utterly arbitrary.

That statistic about marriage can and has been disputed, but even if it were correct, it says nothing at all about the natural state of marriage nor that marriage is the state in which the sexes enter to remain together, commited to each other. No one is imposing licenses on anyone. Indeed, it is the same sex lobby that is trying to impose licenses for that which is not able to be licensed–a union that cannot take place. There is nothing arbitray about marriage. It is freely chosen by those able to enter into such a relationship, it is not imposed by anyone. Those who would force the non-entity of same sex unions are the ones doing the imposing. The barrier to same sex unions is a natural one. They cannot reproduce (there’s no chance of it while even an older heterosexual couple may be capable of bearing offspring). Same sex unions are artificial and unnatural. That is simply how it is.

 

[spencelo]

Human marriage is not a human invention in the sense that it can be exchanged for something else that would accomplish the same thing. It is unique and the means by which humans have joined the sexes in every society and culture in the world. Since man naturally does this and does not need government support or approval, it is natural to humankind. Procreation happens with or without marriage but marriage has always been the way humans have used to build families in which children are procreated and more, in which they are brought up, nurtured and in which they remain their whole lives, not just as minors. Families are natural because humans form families.

You keep throwing around the term “natural” without defining it. Civil marriage IS a human invention because it is a state created institution (at least in the U.S.), and the issue of same-sex marriage is about “civil [State sanctioned] marriage” – not some other fluffy, vague universal conception. If you want to defend “civil marriage” you must STICK TO the subject of “civil marriage.”

That statistic about marriage can and has been disputed, but even if it were correct, it says nothing at all about the natural state of marriage nor that marriage is the state in which the sexes enter to remain together, commited to each other. No one is imposing licenses on anyone. Indeed, it is the same sex lobby that is trying to impose licenses for that which is not able to be licensed–a union that cannot take place. There is nothing arbitray about marriage. It is freely chosen by those able to enter into such a relationship, it is not imposed by anyone. Those who would force the non-entity of same sex unions are the ones doing the imposing. The barrier to same sex unions is a natural one. They cannot reproduce (there’s no chance of it while even an older heterosexual couple may be capable of bearing offspring). Same sex unions are artificial and unnatural. That is simply how it is.

Currently, opposite-sex couples can procure marriage licenses without meeting the so-called “procreation requirement,” which doesn’t exist – it is, in fact, a NON-requirement. Yet, you would prohibit same-sex couples from obtaining marriage licenses because they are unable to meet your NON-requirement. How is that not utterly arbitrary?

 

[Della]

You keep throwing around the term “natural” without defining it. Civil marriage IS a human invention because it is a state created institution (at least in the U.S.), and the issue of same-sex marriage is about “civil [State sanctioned] marriage” – not some other fluffy, vague universal conception. If you want to defend “civil marriage” you must STICK TO the subject of “civil marriage.”

I did define it. I think you don’t like the definition. I won’t argue defiinitions over an institution that predates our own civil laws. Our civil laws cannot define marriage because it has its definition in the way mankind has always defined it and always practiced it.

Currently, opposite-sex couples can procure marriage licenses without meeting the so-called “procreation requirement,” which doesn’t exist – it is, in fact, a NON-requirement. Yet, you would prohibit same-sex couples from obtaining marriage licenses because they are unable to meet your NON-requirement. How is that not utterly arbitrary?

This is not about licenses, as I already stated. A state can issue all the licenses it wishes but it cannot redefine marriage to suit licenses. That’s ridiculous and impossible. Sooner or later, when society once again gains its sanity, those laws will be changed, but marriage cannot be redefined to suit anyone’s desires no matter what conditions any society might impose on it. It is and remains the joining of a man and a woman in a commited relationship of love. That is the definition of marriage.

 

[spencelo]

I did define it. I think you don’t like the definition.

It’s not that I didn’t like your definition, it’s that you didn’t give one at all. You wrote: " Since man naturally does this and does not need government support or approval, it is natural to humankind." That isn’t a definition of “natural.”

Our civil laws cannot define marriage

But our civil laws do just that – they define who can and cannot enter into civil marriages.

This is not about licenses, as I already stated.

Since we’re talking about civil marriage (not religious marriage), this IS about licenses. It’s about why marriage licenses can be granted to opposite-sex couples and not to same-sex couples.

 

[Della]

It’s not that I didn’t like your definition, it’s that you didn’t give one at all. You wrote: " Since man naturally does this and does not need government support or approval, it is natural to humankind." That isn’t a definition of “natural.”

What is natural for humans to do is natural. I won’t argue this point again.

But our civil laws do just that – they define who can and cannot enter into civil marriages.

Marriage is not merely a civil arrangement, therefore government has no right to define it or issue licenses. I wish government would stay out of it because governments tend to want to control rather than let their citizens do what is beyond its control.

Since we’re talking about civil marriage (not religious marriage), this IS about licenses. It’s about why marriage licenses can be granted to opposite-sex couples and not to same-sex couples.

I didn’t say we were talking about civil marriage, which is a misnomer since civil marriage is an invention and not what marriage is. It grants licenses but it cannot ipso facto define marriage merely because it grants licenses. Same sex persons cannot fulfill the function of marriage therefore they cannot marry, no matter what governments decide to do. Besides, we are the government, not any particular administration, so if we vote to keep marriage, civil or otherwise, as it is–between a man and a woman, it will not be issuing licenses to same sex partners.