Marriage and Me

"If gay marriage was legalized, what difference would it make to you?" That's considered a popular argument today for changing the definition of marriage to allow for two people of the same sex to get married. Never mind that it isn't an actual argument for a position. Truth be told, it's a difficult question to answer. The idea is if it makes no difference to your marriage, what difference should it make to you if they do something else?

The problem, unfortunately, is much larger than we realize. The assault on marriage has been going on for a lot longer than we imagine. Now we are being told (not asked) that we need to redefine marriage in what looks like a small step. So small is the step, it seems, that the majority of people don't even see it.

What is marriage? Part of the difficulty of this seemingly simple question is the mixing of definition and application. You will commonly get answers like "It has changed over time" with "proofs" like polygamy, arranged marriages, and bans on interracial marriage. The problem with this is that they are not definitions of marriage, but applications of marriage. They are ways that marriage was carried out, not defined. Consider this example. A popular argument is that marriage used to be defined as a condition where the woman was the property of the man. And it seems rational ... except it isn't a definition. It would be like defining an automobile by where you drove it. But if you break it down, in all cases you'll find a constant thread, a commonality that clearly makes the definition of marriage rather than how marriages were carried out. Marriage for all time has been the union of a man and a woman, the key component of human society that produces a family with two opposite-gendered parents to raise children. That is the bottom-line version.

Not so today. Marriage to most is a social contract. It is a union of lives emotionally, legally, economically, socially, and so on. Marriage is the fundamental core of a society, serving a variety of integral purposes. Biblical marriage differs from the social contract concept because a contract says, "If you meet your obligations, then I will meet my obligations." The biblical version doesn't allow for failure to meet obligations; it is a covenant that is not to be broken. The obligation, then, is that I will always love my wife regardless of whether or not she meets my expectations.

That's a long way from today's view. While marriage has for most of time been viewed as a life-long commitment to another with the aim of bearing and raising children and meeting other generational and societal obligations, we've worked hard in the last century to liberate marriage from these traditional views. Marriage in the latter half of the 20th century was viewed as some sort of prison camp for women. Think, for instance, at the outrage some expressed over that "horrible" wedding ceremony where the minister pronounced them "man and wife". "See?" the left raged, "It isn't a union of equals! He's still a 'man', but she's not a woman -- she's a 'wife'!" So we threw it out. We acquiesced. And that whole "life-long commitment" thing had to go. So in 1980 for every woman who divorced her husband there were 12 men who divorced their wives and in 1990 the ratio had changed. For every man who divorced his wife there were 600 wives who divorced their husbands. Ah, equality! And that whole thing about children ... that had to go. It was pushed out in the 1970's with the overpopulation scare and almost completely demolished in the following decades when we assured women that their primary function in life was to do whatever they wanted to do. Having children would just have to wait ... perhaps indefinitely. As a result, birthrates in America have dropped to a low of 2.03 births per woman ... by choice. (The birthrate required to maintain replacement is 2.1.) And that whole "opposite-gendered parents" thing as the optimum for raising kids ... well ... you know how it is. It's not true ... right? Well, to be clear, yes, it's still true. (Throwing out "Good same-gendered parents are better than rotten opposite-gendered parents" is a red herring -- apples to oranges.)

So, starting with a covenant -- an agreement to meet my obligations regardless of your response -- in which two people of opposite gender become a united entity called "a family" with the expectation of bearing children and so on, we've certainly come a long way, baby. Now we're at a "contract of equals" in which discomfort is grounds for termination and children are possible at best and, too likely, problematic. In other words, a life-long relationship forming a union founded on commitment, selflessness, and family has "progressed" to a tenuous relationship with shaky commitment and self as the primary focus. Now ... all you have to do is change "he and she" to "whatever" and we're at "gay marriage".

What difference will it make to my marriage? I will still be committed to my wife for life. I will still be committed to my children for life. I will still honor "marriage" in its original sense. Passing that on to the next generation has become more difficult, and with each passing decline it gets worse. What will my grandchildren think marriage is? At this rate, a casual friendship between ... oh, who knows? But it will be warm and friendly, I'm sure. Meaningless, but warm and friendly. And my definition -- the definition of the ages -- will be an archaic, hard-to-find concept. Yeah ... that's too costly for me to support.