In His Name Devotionals
MARRIAGE & FAMILY
In His Name Devotionals
MARRIAGE & FAMILY
Based on Genesis 2:24, Christians view marriage as a heterosexual covenant in which one man and one woman publicly declare their commitment to each other—receive one another in sexual union—and live in nurturing partnership.
From this fundamental social unit formed by two parties, the larger concept of family emerges. Separated from their families of origin, a man and woman create their own home and may choose to enlarge their family unit by having children. Such offspring receive the family’s name, participate in its status within a larger community, and contribute to its spiritual and economic welfare. But this view of marriage is not distinctive to Christianity. Let us consider it from the standpoint of ethics alone, without God or Holy Scripture.
For instance, in nature reproduction, protection of infants, and training youth take place without marriage. Groupings of animals live in proximity and with defined roles without any legal mechanism for declaring themselves to be family. In the more complex relationships among humans in community, however, concepts of marriage and family exist principally as a cultural institution to protect the rights of adults, rear children with complementary male and female role models, creating social accountability for intimate sexual expression.
So why marriage? And why family? When procreation does occur, human society must protect the rights of the parental adults both in relation to one another and to their offspring. Unlike the situation with great apes, a new dominant male on the block does not confer sexual rights to all nearby females. Unlike apes, human society confers legal and financial benefits to family units for the purpose of assisting them in maintaining commitments to one another and to children they bear. And, yes, marriage and family—while not predicated on reproduction—combine to support procreation both by encouraging monogamy and punishing promiscuity; this is done with the hope of keeping in relationship the two persons who are most naturally inclined to pursue the welfare of offspring. The fact that relationships sometime fail doesn’t argue against the desirability of this process.
At the very least, marriage is a social convention that fosters accountability to an institution we call family. And the twin traditions of marriage and family are at the heart of what the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court recently called the “primary weave in the social fabric.” That same court’s move to redefine marriage as non-heterosexual in nature is nonsensical—not only in light of Judeo-Christian morality, but naturalistic ethics as well. Courts should not be allowed to do by judicial fiat what history, culture, theology, and ethics have consistently said makes no sense.
