Concerning Marriage: Part #1 – Is Marriage a Broken Institution?
|Is marriage a broken institution? A lot of people say so. They see the staggering divorce rates and the heartbreak of divided families and, quite understandably, wonder if it is all worth it. In response, they declare the whole thing to be outdated or corrupted.
Sort of. The truth is, they go on to pursue long term relationships that resemble marriage in every way. They call each other “partners” and say that they don’t like marriage, but they live together and pledge (in some ceremony) that they will remain exclusively devoted to one another forever. (By the way, I’m talking about heterosexuals, here. Gay couples are not the only ones using the term “partner” to refer to their life partners.) They will put off having children until this ceremony is done and, and will take up the role of dual-guardians of their kids. These sorts of people are one marriage document away from actually being married, but they insist that they do not like marriage. The truth is, they just want to re-name it.
I propose that an institution is only as broken as the people that make it. I’ve seen a lot of marriages struggle and fall apart, but that does not affect the strength of my own marriage. The relationship I have with my wife is as as strong as we choose to make it, and it is not broken as long as we are not broken.
Getting married can be tough. People have certainly had their lives ruined by marriages gone bad, but outside of marriage people still tell lies and hurt each other – running away from “marriage” will not prevent this. Putting on a wedding band and making promises in front of a minister is not what causes people to neglect their children and cheat on their spouses, and plenty of “partnerships” have gone bad for the same reasons as our marriages. This is human nature, and we can’t fix it by attacking institutions like marriage.
But, we can take part in the process of redemption. We can make sure that marriage is no longer a laughing stock by modeling for future generations what a proper relationship can be. I was raised by a great family, but most of my friends grew up with parents who fought and often got divorced, so many of them assumed that romance could only led to arguments and separation. That’s depressing. This cycle can end when we decide that we will not give that image of love and marriage to the next generation.
Marriage might seem broken, but that’s just because we are not doing it well. Let’s fix it.
(This is a big topic, so I’ll be discussing it more later in the week.)
Something curious is the fact that there are more bankruptcies every year than marriages, which I haven’t seen the numbers but seems to be a significant cause of divorce as I understand it. That also doesn’t include informal bankruptcies. People simply don’t have to confess to bankruptcies, whereas marriage is a more public affair. I wonder what would happen if people advocated Biblical financial wisdom, which is one of the largest topics even if you exclude the more general topic of “wealth”.
Keep goin’, Adam. Fine start! What do you think of the traditional idea that Christ and the church being “headed for” a marriage supper (Rev 19:9) gives every relationship within the church a kind of an “event”-like feel. Our Christian brothers and sisters around us are kind of like people who just flew in for the same wedding we’re going to, and it’s .. comin’ up! A little bit of wedding-week excitement could filter down to us, and by inclusion, married folks especially, because married folks mirror it!
@ Joshua:
Bankruptcy is a lot more complex than marriage, so I don’t think it’s fair to compare the two.
It depends on how I’m comparing them. I think you’re right that they’re appels/oranges, and I’m not meaning this as a critique of Adam by any stretch of the imagination, cause why someone selects a topic is also pretty complicated and hardly reducible to the point that Christians (and others) have a tendency to gravitate around particular issues regardless of Scriptural treatment of the topic (in this case finance more so than bankruptcy per se; I particularly prefer our complicated mess to Scripture’s solution). In fact, evidence that Adam’s post doesn’t apply to that casual criticism is that he nowhere mentions statistics or their comparison with nonbelievers, which itself is an oversimplification of divorce and how its handled and why the “comparison” works imo. OTH – it’s an interesting trivia fact, precisely cause it’s trivial. Actually Adam, a compliment, I appreciate your site precisely for its non-conventional perspective on popular topics of Christianity.
No,It does’nt like that.Marriage is based on trust…………not in bankcruptsy
Kenny Chesny tickets!!!!!
It comes as no surprise that someone interested in Kenny Chesney tickets has this level of grammatical clarity.
Also, Joshua, you say that people don’t have to confess to bankruptcy, which is not true- bankruptcy filings are public records and anyone can have access to them if they know where to look. Just a clarification.
Thanks for the clarification, I meant as in conversation.
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