The Hazards of Redefining Marriage

– by Dr. Robert Benne

Once upon a time—actually, at least 2000 years of time—marriage in the West was defined in thickly-textured way.  There were multiple dimensions to its definition—natural, social, consensual, and religious.  The natural seemed obvious:   two complementary beings—male and female—entered into a permanent one-flesh union that included sexual fidelity.  They were complementary in physical and emotional ways and when nature took its course in sexual intercourse, they had children.  Since the children were their “flesh and blood,” the parents had strong attachments to them and provided the optimal context for their upbringing.

This natural unit was immensely important socially.  It provided new beings for the society and ideally brought them up as productive citizens who would make positive contributions.  This social task could best be performed by that unit, not by a single person, other social units, or the state.   Further, this social task was performed ideally by a permanently-committed biological mother and father, who had complementary roles in parenting. This union was also consensual, though it took centuries to fully develop this characteristic.  Adults had to consent freely to enter this natural, social institution.  Sex was the seal to this covenant, not to be performed before or outside its bonds.  Further, because of its importance only people who could perform its natural, social, and consensual functions were allowed to marry.  It was difficult to enter and exit.

In almost all societies marriage also had a religious meaning, mainly because marriage of the above sort was central to their sacred texts.   Catholics celebrated it as a Sacrament, Reformed as a Holy Covenant, Anglicans as a Commonwealth, and Lutherans as a Holy Estate.  However, because marriage was such an important natural and social institution, the state made provision for civil ceremonies outside the churches, though even those had strong religious reverberations.  (All this is fully researched by John Witte in his fine book: From Sacrament to Contract)

Since the 1960s in the West this “thick” institution has been gradually thinned down to its consensual dimension.   Consenting adults enter into a contract to which they give whatever meaning they want to it.  Most see it as a legitimated romantic arrangement.  With such a thinned out definition it is clearly discriminatory to keep gays and lesbians from entering the contract, now called “marriage.”   It will also soon be deemed discriminatory to prevent more than two from entering the contract, or to close it off to family members.  But what they are entering is not marriage in its full sense, and in such a situation it is not clear why people should encumber themselves with contractual obligations at all when they can easily co-habit.  We now have a high incidence of co-habitation along with its documented instability and deleterious effects on children.   A smaller percentage of the population is married than ever before. Defining down has real-world consequences, especially for children.

At bottom this “thinning out” of marriage was the product of the sexual liberation movement’s dubious assumption that sexual desire unregulated by anything besides consent will be harmless.  But it is hardly that. Besides making marriage unstable for the fewer who enter it, it has produced a society awash in pornography, sexual assault (consent isn’t always observed when desire is really unleashed), sexualized entertainment, premarital sex along with venereal diseases, the celebration of homosexuality, and a celebrity culture based on being “hot.”

Truth be told, heterosexuals are the ones primarily responsible for this de-moralization of sex.  Hugh Hefner was its latter day prophet, Playboy its original scripture, both now hopelessly obsolete.  However, the dominant gay culture adds to it with its “monogamish” notions of fidelity, in which sexual exclusiveness is no longer part of the marital contract.  Also, the desire of gay and lesbian couples (and some heterosexuals) to have children has led to some dubious unnatural fixes—paying for eggs, surrogacy, and sperm donation—that lead to the “making” rather than the “begetting” of children.   Such “production” of human beings can undermine their intrinsic dignity as well as their flourishing.

The re-moralization of sex and marriage will probably not occur until the full effects of our increasing decadence are experienced.   Then, perhaps, led by a renewal of religious life, a wholesome culture of marriage can be revived.  In the meantime, we should quit “defining marriage down” by changing the laws surrounding marriage.  While law itself cannot build up that wholesome culture of marriage, it can certainly help tear it down.