The headlines over the past few weeks have been full of our politicians’ and celebrities’ affairs, broken marriages and divorces. This week’s tragic story of Steve McNair, sadly only adds to the list. It has to make us stop and ponder, “what is going on?”
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the need for children to be raised by a father and mother who are actually married to each other. Even my last post touched upon a related issue, that of women’s ordination in the new Anglican Church of North America. I say related, because I believe strongly that gender confusion in our society about the nature of masculinity and femininity, is one of the root issues impacting our families, churches and our whole culture. This is a generalized statement, but I am not the only one who thinks this way. In fact, a recent article from Time Magazine, of all places, has a lot of challenging things to say to our culture about marriage.
Before I go to the article, I want to say that I know personally the impact of broken marriages. My parents divorced when I was 3 and I was raised in a blended family by my father and stepmother (whom adopted me, loved me and raised me as her own child). My immediate siblings are a full-blooded sister, a half-sister, a stepsister and a stepbrother! On top of that, I have another half-sister, who I have never met, and half-brother, who I’ve met once, who live in another state. I’ve been married for 16 years! And by the grace of God, we are still together, committed to loving each other and working through the inherent hardships, difficulties and struggles that come with any long term relationship.
Having said that, the author of the Time article, Caitlin Flanagan, says this:
In the past 40 years, the face of the American family has changed profoundly. As sociologist Andrew J. Cherlin observes in a landmark new book called The Marriage-Go-Round: The State of Marriage and the Family in America Today, what is significant about contemporary American families, compared with those of other nations, is their combination of “frequent marriage, frequent divorce” and the high number of “short-term co-habiting relationships.” Taken together, these forces “create a great turbulence in American family life, a family flux, a coming and going of partners on a scale seen nowhere else. There are more partners in the personal lives of Americans than in the lives of people of any other Western country.”
An increasingly fragile construct depending less and less on notions of sacrifice and obligation than on the ephemera of romance and happiness as defined by and for its adult principals, the intact, two-parent family remains our cultural ideal, but it exists under constant assault.
She then states the obvious question, which I agree with.
How much does this matter? More than words can say. There is no other single force causing as much measurable hardship and human misery in this country as the collapse of marriage. It hurts children, it reduces mothers’ financial security, and it has landed with particular devastation on those who can bear it least: the nation’s underclass.
The underlying question, according Flanagan is:
The fundamental question we must ask ourselves at the beginning of the century is this: What is the purpose of marriage? Is it — given the game-changing realities of birth control, female equality and the fact that motherhood outside of marriage is no longer stigmatized — simply an institution that has the capacity to increase the pleasure of the adults who enter into it? If so, we might as well hold the wake now: there probably aren’t many people whose idea of 24-hour-a-day good times consists of being yoked to the same romantic partner, through bouts of stomach flu and depression, financial setbacks and emotional upsets, until after many a long decade, one or the other eventually dies in harness.
Or is marriage an institution that still hews to its old intention and function — to raise the next generation, to protect and teach it, to instill in it the habits of conduct and character that will ensure the generation’s own safe passage into adulthood? Think of it this way: the current generation of children, the one watching commitments between adults snap like dry twigs and observing parents who simply can’t be bothered to marry each other and who hence drift in and out of their children’s lives — that’s the generation who will be taking care of us when we are old.
I know the Church has not done a great job in this area as our divorce rates are as high as everyone else’s. But we do have the answer. We have to return to living out what we say we believe. We must come alongside, encourage and help each other in our marriages. We have to be gracious with those whose marriages have failed, but still hold the ideal as the standard. Right now, we have lost much of our voice to speak to our society.
In the words of Jesus, “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.” (Matt. 5:13 ESV).
Shane+
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1 John Boring // Jul 9, 2009 at 11:03 am
Shane, many thoughts on this subject, some beyond the scope of the article. I agree with you that marriage is a contract that requires work and sacrifice and compromise. Marriages don’t last fifty and sixty years or more by accident. No marriage survives that long without major bumps in the road along the way. And, perhaps it’s the lucky ones who survive not merely the wise. Sometimes financial considerations keep a family together when one or the other partner wants out, and maybe that more often than staying together for “the kids sake.” Too many factors at play in every marriage to lump them all in one pile. I believe people split easily because they can. As the article says, people who eventually marry do so after a string of partners who came and went before the marriage began. The pattern is that if this does not work out, even though both went into the marriage expecting it to be a life arrangement, they can just walk away from the commitment. Part of that thinking, in addition to past revolving door partners, has to do (I believe) with world conditions. Our world always seems on the verge of imploding or exploding over wars, power struggles, dictators, famine, disasters, etc. How can couples plan on a lasting marriage when they might feel nothing in this world is very permanent? Your blog opens so many doors and reveals so many paths to follow in discussing this subject that, for me, I simply have to stop. I agree, wholeheartedly, with your final two paragraphs. A sidebar: I attend Open Door Fellowship where I feel surrounded by successful marriages which have produced children who have already accepted Christ into their lives. Good and lasting marriages can be found and I wonder if they might even be in the majority. Blessings, my brother.
2 Stewart Black // Jul 9, 2009 at 5:20 pm
What Ms. Flanagan fails to see is that this is just another of the institutions, based upon absolute values, that have failed in modern society. Unfortunately, she doesn’t see the real basis for marriage — exemplified in Christ’s relationship with His church — and, therefore, misses the real reason for the wholesale failure of marriages across the nation. When one abandons the Maker, one much more easily abandons that which He made!
I also found it amusing that she talks about the generation being reared in such a faulty environment that will be charged with caring for their own parents when the time comes; but she fails to mention the effect of abortion on demand and the concomitant disregard for human life which it exemplifies to that generation. I fear that “we ain’t seen nothin’ yet!”
3 Shane Copeland // Jul 9, 2009 at 7:12 pm
John,
Thanks for your thoughts. I did open up a number of avenues here, somewhat intentionally!
Stew,
As always, I appreciate your insight. I would say this, Flanagan is right in her analysis that the brokenness of marriages in our society is not a good thing. As she states, it is the cause of so much “human hardship and misery” in our country.
What she doesn’t provide is a real solution. Which is what I think you’re speaking to.
I will draw upon the very famous words from the Book of Common Prayer as for the reasons for marriage.
“DEARLY beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation, to join together this Man and this Woman in holy Matrimony; which is an honourable estate, instituted of God in the time of man’s innocency, signifying unto us the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his Church; which holy estate Christ adorned and beautified with his presence, and first miracle that he wrought, in Cana of Galilee; and is commended of Saint Paul to be honourable among all men: and therefore is not by any to be enterprised, nor taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly, to satisfy men’s carnal lusts and appetites, like brute beasts that have no understanding; but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God; duly considering the causes for which Matrimony was ordained.
First, It was ordained for the procreation of children, to be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord, and to the praise of his holy Name.
Secondly, It was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication; that such persons as have not the gift of continency might marry, and keep themselves undefiled members of Christ’s body.
Thirdly, It was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity. Into which holy estate these two persons present come now to be joined. Therefore if any man can shew any just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace.”
As the it states, marriage is sign of the mystical union of Christ and His Church. In other words, the union of a man and a woman in Holy Matrimony is sign of the greater union of Christ and His Bride.
The 3 human reasons given for marriage are:
1. For the procreation of children. Our society has largely abandoned this belief.
2. For the expression of sexuality. Our society HAS abandoned this belief and promotes the opposite. Sex all the time with whomever you want.
3. For the mutual support of husband and wife. Our society has reduced marriage to this being the main reason. Hence, when mutual support is longer felt, then divorce can easily follow (I’m not saying this is the reason for divorce, but it plays into our mindset).
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