I’ve heard it said that society’s understanding of marriage has
changed over time. Perhaps that is true … but does that mean it has
gotten better? Is it possible that our understanding of marriage has moved away from the one which best serves the common good?
I’m not a sociologist, but here are the factors which I believe have driven the change in our understanding of marriage.
The Normalization
of Divorce:
It wasn’t long ago that if you wanted a divorce, someone had to be found at fault for the destruction of the marriage.
That means there would have to be some sort of major problem – like
marital infidelity, alcoholism, or spousal abuse.
The reason for this legal preference for permanency was
twofold: First, marriage was seen as a
public good. Healthy, intact families
were recognized as being good for society.
The other reason was that marriage, as an institution, defended children's rights to the support of their parents.
Children come into the world helpless and they make an immediate
moral claim upon their parents. This moral
claim imposes duties on the parents to provide a nurturing environment for
their kids. Divorce was rightly seen as
an abrogation of those rights and duties.
Thus, it could only be done if there was a darn good reason – like those
listed above.
With no-fault divorce, marriages could be dissolved without any
reason beyond the two spouses deciding marriage isn’t fun anymore. Well…
people tend to rise to the level of what is expected of them…
The result was that it became difficult to see marriage as the
bedrock of society and more easy to see it simply as mutually consensual living
arrangement. The public purpose of marriage moved from the protection of children to the happiness of adults.
Also, the byproduct of the increased divorce rate was lots of
people growing up without mom or dad. This change made the criticality of
those roles begin to fade to the background.
It is very difficult to argue for the importance of fatherhood and
motherhood to a society which is accustomed to doing without one or the
other.
But that is not to say this change did not leave a ton of hurt people in its wake, particularly boys who were deprived of fathers. As President Obama said in 2008:
"We know the statistics — that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime, nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behavioral problems, or run away from home, or become teenage parents themselves. And the foundations of our community are weaker because of it.” - 2008 Father's Day Speech to Apostolic Church of God in Chicago.
The Sexual
Revolution:
The Sexual Revolution changed the way society thought about sex (duh).
Society began to see sex not as “the thing that makes babies”, but as a
recreational activity with no larger context of love, commitment, and
responsibility. This might be pleasing to the tastes of an adolescent
boy, but for others this hasn't been a great development.
When applied to marriage, this change in mindset can make children
into an afterthought. And we're still unraveling the [unforseen] [consequences] [of] that shift. They are a mere accessory,
a lifestyle choice – useful only insofar as they make adults happy.
This is change was importance because it forever altered the public
concept of marriage. Marriage became seen even moreso as a civil, legal, and
economic arrangement which affirms the commitment of sexually active adults… until
they divorce.
Gender Neutrality
as a Virtue:
The third cultural factor is the philosophical move from sexual
“equality” to “sameness”. That is to
say, this notion goes beyond equality and states that there is no difference
between men and women. They are completely interchangeable in all cases,
and any distinction between them is misogyny.
We have seen this more and more.
Think of stuff like pushes for gender-neutral bathrooms, people raising
their children as genderless, and schools enforcing the same ideology. Only time will tell the long-term
consequences of all that.
Putting it Together:
Put all of these influences together and what is left of marriage?
Well… we know it isn’t permanent. We know it has nothing to
do with children. It has nothing to do with the mutual complementary of
our sexually dimorphic species. And we know the ultimate good of marriage is the
happiness of adults.
So unless you’ve got some other influence telling you what
marriage is, this is what you are likely to get from our culture:
Marriage: (n): A mutually beneficial living arrangement between two romantically-linked adults which is recognized by the government.
So on what basis would anyone oppose two same-gendered people's
right to form one? The only possible explanation is that these
small-minded creatures are motivated by hatred, zealotry, bigotry, or fear.
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