There is a huge difference.
Let’s not put the cart before the horse. You are arguing against the idea of the relationship with the child being a sacrament. First we have to be sure that the Sacrament of Matrimony is a “relationship” between the two spouses. I’m not so sure that a Sacrament is technically a relationship. If it is, then I’m not sure it’s accurate to claim that the children are not a part of that sacramental relationship. When I look at the CCC on the Sacrament of Marriage, I only see the term relationship used to refer to evil and lust - vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s2c3a7.htm. But every time it talks about the order of marriage, children are mentioned as being a part of it…not just a part but the supreme glory.
When I talk about my spouse being objectively more important to me, I’m talking about our relationship. That’s what relationship means, how I relate to that person.
Everyone, including you in various posts, have written responses neglecting the word relationship. We all know that in the context of the post, we are talking about our relationship. The OP doesn’t ask, “which relationship comes first” but rather who comes first. Most of the responses have replied as such yet the only objection has come here.
Yup, exactly this.
You said that the marriage is more important than the child. What is marriage?
I have never said that is “only” giving the required importance to marriage, and I don’t think anyone else mean only focusing on the marriage. The basic premise of this is that one unhappy frustatred parent cannot parent properly. Kids are a reflection of the adults in their life, if the adult is not functioning properly that kid is not going to function properly either. As others stated the sacrament of marriage makes two people under one flesh. If those two people are dysfunctional the kids are going to end up heavily traumatized by the two parents. If all that the kid sees at home is the parents screaming and yelling at each other, disrespecting each other, treating each other with hate…how is that kid going to learn anything good? If the parents themselves are not in a healthy happy relationship the kids are the ones who will pay the consequences.
Sorry I forgot to include the quote from the Catechism. Here it is.
The sacrament is the covenant between the husband and wife. The sacrament is ordered towards the begetting and raising of children, but the sacrament itself is the covenant between the spouses.
Even then, saying a person comes first doesn’t mean that are intrinsically of more worth. The reason I objected to what you said here was because it sounded as though you thought I was claiming that one person objectively held more worth than another and I wanted to correct your misunderstanding of my opinion. I’m sorry if it came across as me picking on you, that was not at all my intention.
Marriage is the covenant between one man and one woman by which they are indissolubly bound together, which covenant is itself ordered towards the begetting and raising of children.
The spousal relationship is clearly more important.
Bingooo! I think bringing down the discussion to the real world is better than a thousand words. Couple gets married and has children. Mother starts focusing all her attention on the child. Mother distrusts instinctively the father with the child and doesn’t let go control on the child i.e. she does everything for the child and house. Also mother works outside the home. The mother starts getting overwhelmed because babies are overwhelming specially when you are doing everything by yourself. The mother focuses so much attentiom on the child that she starts neglecting herself and husband. Mother starts feeling the weight and starts getting frustrated. Husband starts getting resentful because wife doesn’t pay attention to him. The kid starts getting so much attention so he realizes he can manipulate the mother and starts pushing the mother’s boundaries which makes her more frustrated Husband starts resenting the kid now and starts being a bad father. Marriage starts having problems. Mother starts feeling more frustrated between an unhappy marriage and the kid pushing boundaries so she starts subconsciously to take it on the child. Parents start arguing more and more which causes the kid to behave worst. Mother becomes more tired more frustrated and is constantly unhappy however she still focuses all her attention on the child. All the child sees in his environment is fight, frustration, yelling, bad personal relationships and starts feeling guilty over being the reason for the parent’ s problem. End of the story: divorce and kid being used like a weapon in a war between the parents. How in the world that benefits the kid?
I agree that no one intended to say that. I did not imply that anyone did.
Is it really true that children are not a fundamental aspect though? From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
Inherent, yes but I don’t see how this means that the relationship is fundamentally more important. You can also have children without any marriage at all. Marriage also isn’t inherent to children. This shows that one’s child is inherent to a parent in a way that spouses aren’t.
I don’t know about that “relationship” aspect, as I mentioned in another response. There is an order but I don’t know that such order is an “order of importance”. If the OP is literally asking “which comes first” as in a literal order of events. Then for many of us, that will be spouse then child but some couples have a child first and then marry so for them, child would be first in a literal order or events. When the CCC mentions order in regard to the sacrament of marriage, I see children listed along side, not in a different list of importance:
I disagree. The fact that a marriage can exist without children doesn’t make the spousal relationship more important. Protestants, Atheists, etc use this as an excuse for supporting same-sex marriage and other things that go against the Church. Also, as someone who regularly spends time with Catholic infertility groups, and as someone who has struggled greatly with infertility, Catholic marriages suffer an enormous amount as a result of being unable to conceive children. And that’s putting it mildly. Yes the marriage is still valid but likewise, a child born out of wedlock is still a valid child. A person may only have one spouse, at a time. But they may go on to have another spouse, sometimes more then one additional spouse. Just because it is one at a time, doesn’t imply that it’s relationship is more important. Also, spouses may separate from each other as well. This does not make their marriage invalid. It happens all the time. And even when a child leaves his mother and father, they are still parent and son/daughter. That never changes.
In all my years in family law I can’t recall one case where the cause of the divorce was lack of focus on the children, hence I disagree on that. I did see divorces because one parent was being abusive to the children, that yes but lack of focus not one.
Yes, I agree that the sacrament is a covenant, not a relationship. Therefore, our discussions about relationships can not be assumed to be the same as our discussions about the actual sacrament.
I think bias plays a big role here. Not just bias as the person handling a divorce case but also the bias of the person pursuing the divorce. People love to blame it all on the kids. But in the case of a person who says they are divorcing b/c the wife puts the child first, we can turn that around and say the person is pursuing divorce because he failed to put his spouse and children in their proper order. He failed to give them the dignity and care that they deserved. See how that works? I completely disagree with this idea that parents put too much care and attention towards their kids. That is not happening. It’s the complete opposite. Parents are waaaay too selfish and THAT’S the reason divorce happens almost every single time. The idea that parents are too child centered is total myth. But I do realize that many people view it that way and therefore, present such a bias. Please provide any references from the Church that suggest there is danger in putting a child first. That idea comes from “the world”, the culture.
Yes, I’ve seen the same and you hear it all the time. So many of my classmates’ parents got divorced either when we were in our latter years of grade school or right after we graduated from high school. The typical story is usually this: A couple gets divorced after 25 or so years. One of the reasons is that the mother, father or both have put everything into their children and neglected each other and their marriage. Once the kids grow up and move out of the house either for college or after college, they realize that they don’t even know each other any more. They are forced to stare straight into a dysfunctional relationship, one in which the neglect of one spouse, caused further neglect of the other.
I’m not asking this to be offensive, but how old are you? Your perspective seems as though it’s coming from someone younger, who identifies more with being a child in the family than an adult who is responsible for preserving and strengthening a marriage while nurturing and guiding children.
