The End of Marriage

Marriage is a duel to the death which no man of honor should decline.

~G.K. Chesterton

The controversy around the HHS Mandate is raging and as one result all the conservative social issues are being discussed about on the talk radio circuit. I was listening to the Dennis Miller show. Mr. Miller and I do not agree on several issues, particularly; abortion, contraception and "gay marriage". On this particular morning he was taking presidential candidate Rick Santorum to task for a comment he made comparing civil unions with bestiality. Then several minutes later a caller posited that presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, with his string of marriages, is the best argument for civil unions. It was these comments and the over all conversation of the show that lead me to a sort of epiphany, as a culture we have already redefined marriage. 

When the Catholic Church speaks of marriage she is speaking of a covenant that is Permanent, Exclusive and Open to Life. These are so essential that if one of the parties entering into the covenant of marriage discloses to the priest that they intend to be married either only temporarily, or with an open sexual life or with no intention of allowing for the possibility that children can be conceived, the priest may withhold the sacrament. 

Our culture has abandoned those three aspects of marriage and has replaced them with the privileges that are commonly associated with marriage; Personal happiness, sexual availability, and tax and legal benefits. This has given rise to many different practices such as prenuptial agreements and open marriages. The problem with this definition is that it has no End (goal). 

Let us consider what the traditional End of marriage in a country has been. It is simply to provide the next generation of healthy stable citizens in the least expensive manner. To aid in the accomplishment of that goal society has given various benefits to married couples to help them reach that goal, specifically tax and legal benefits. 

Our society, using laws and other legislation has undermined that very End of marriage. The permanent aspect of marriage was to protect the woman and children from being abandoned by the husband, but now divorce laws have destroyed any sort of idea of permanency. Indeed there are prenuptial agreements that anticipate that the marriage will not be the slightest bit permanent. 

Contraception undermines both openness to life and exclusivity. It's greatest damage is to exclusivity. It turns the sexual act from being exclusive with the other spouse to simply exclusive with oneself. Once the act is primarily focused on oneself what does it matter if it is with the spouse or with another woman or man. It has already ceased to be a sexual act of mutual life creating love and is relegated to mutual masturbation. 

Abortion is a direct or more complete assault on the Openness to Life. This is not a surprising result of introducing contraception, because if you have already transformed the sexual act into something that is not life creating mutual love, but rather self enjoyment, than those participating in that act are already turned against one another, whither it is the spouse or the child. Thus when the contraceptives fail, as they all will,  there must be  some other mechanism to destroy the result. 

When the three aspects of permanency, exclusivity and openness to life are lived out. The first result is children. The permanency teaches children that to disagree does not have to sever love and relationships, and that to build loving relationships, mutual self-giving is required (this leads to good future relationships). Exclusivity teaches children to live with and learn from life's chooses and to take personal responsibility for each action (this leads to true patriotism).

These are the reasons why marriage must be permanent, exclusive and open to life, and why marriage is the necessary bedrock for society. This is how Rick Santorum ought to have replied to the question about civil unions. This leads to an economic reason for upholding Marriage laws between one man and one woman. That topic specifically I will try to write about soon. 

Pax Tecum.

Manalive

“Man found alive with two legs” is a telegram sent from one Innocent Smith to an old college friend Arthur Inglewood in G.K. Chesterton’s fiction piece titled Manalive. Innocent Smith is a sane man who has discovered that the key to keeping existence new and exciting is to depart from all that he loves for some period of time inorder to return to it anew. The telegram itself is never specifically explained but might have been the result of having tied up his legs, and after hobbling about on his knees for a day and he is exhilarated at having rediscovered the ability to walk and run and kick once again.

This idea is prevalent in much of Chesterton’s writing from one of his earliest works, Orthodoxy when he speaks of the youthfulness of God, who, like a child playing a game cries, “do it again”, but to the sun to rise again and for the grass to grow again. He creates daisies like a child will draw flower after flower, simple because he enjoys creating them. It is by growing old in sin that we grow tired of these things.

Nearly a year ago I asked a man I was working with at the time if he were going to have any fun that weekend. He replied something along the lines of, with a wife and child he was no longer able to do fun things.  At the time I laughed it off with him, but later as I considered those words I was saddened by them. That is indeed a popular sentiment at least in the current media; television sitcoms especially hold those tenants.

I didn’t get married to no longer have fun. I got married because I wanted someone to share all the fun with (I know there is suffering in marriage, I am not addressing that right now). The tale of Manalive offers something greater. It claims that you can have all the fun. Innocent Smith will break into his own house and steal his own wine. He will elope with his wife, a thousand times and a thousand different ways. He does this because he remains in love with her enough to pursue her time and time again, and pursues her time and time again, in order to remain in love with her. In this way he can do things that look from an outward observer to be the sins of adultery and stealing, but these actions, because it is with his wife and his house, are perfectly innocent.

Deo Gratias