Is Marriage Obsolete Or Just Misunderstood?
Is Marriage Obsolete or Just Misunderstood?
A recent Pew Research Center study indicates Americans think marriage is obsolete. So, where does that leave Lutherans?
What with gay marriage, single parenthood, “just living together” and soaring divorce rates, it’s little wonder that 40 percent of Americans think that marriage is obsolete. Most Americans no longer think marriage is necessary for having sex (60 percent believe it’s morally acceptable to have sex before marriage). Or necessary for living together (55 percent). Or for having children (53 percent).
So, why get married at all? The Pew Research Center, the source of these statistics, notes further that marriage rates are going down. In 1960, 72 percent of American adults were married; today, not quite half are married. In 1960, 68 percent of young adults in their 20s were married; today, that percentage is only 26 percent.
These findings reflect not just the new ideas and swinging behavior of the culturally elite. They apply specifically to ordinary Americans. Actually, the Pew study finds that college graduates and people with higher incomes marry at a much higher rate (64 percent) than those with just a high school education (48 percent). So, where does that leave Christians?
One problem may be that few people have a good understanding of what marriage even is. Perhaps the most common assumption today is that what makes a marriage is love, understood as a romantic attraction. When two people love each other, they get married. It follows, though, that if the feeling fades—if one spouse decides “I don’t love you anymore”—then there is no longer any basis for the marriage.
The next step is divorce. As some pastors can testify, some couples who insist on writing their own wedding vows want to replace “As long as we both shall live” with “As long as we both shall love.”
Notice the assumptions in the gay marriage debates. If marriage is based on nothing more than a romantic attraction—as both sides often assume—it’s hard to see why two people of the same sex who have a romantic attraction to each other shouldn’t get married. Also in play is the unromantic view that marriage is just a legal contract that gives certain rights and privileges, such as tax advantages, access to shared property and hospital visitation rights.
If that’s what marriage is, it’s hard to see why two people of the same sex shouldn’t get in on these benefits. It’s also hard to see why the government, which supervises contract laws, shouldn’t be able to just change those any way it pleases.
Click here to read the remainder of Dr. Gene Edward Veith’s article, which was originally published in and is reprinted here by permission of The Lutheran Witness.
Be Informed
Learn more about the LCMS’s rich history of being pro-life with Rev. Ken Schurb in a recent podcast.
Be Equipped
Education seems to be more of a battlefield than ever now with teachers, parents, administrators, and legislators all involved. But “With rare exceptions, it has always been true that the parents who conceive the child raise him the best. And throughout American history, it has been thought that the family is the cradle of good citizenship and therefore of free and just politics.” Dr. Larry Arnn of Hillsdale College offers insight into why a political battle is being waged over children’s intellectual pursuits.
Be Encouraged
“We have to rid ourselves of the idea of the ‘secular’ as some neutral category. It doesn’t exist. It’s a lie. The secular is the religious, and it’s a religion that opposes Jesus. Whether in schools, in TV, in social media, in any aspect of life, beware of the secular! Love Jesus instead. The religion that gives true hope, meaning, and purpose is the religion bought by Jesus’ blood and spoken from His lips, the religion written down by His apostles, the religion of reconciliation with our Creator by the cross of His Son, the religion we are convinced of by His Spirit, and this is the religion that is worthy of our entire lives, our eternal life.”
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