Marriage and Other personal

Relationships:

WHY DO PEOPLE GET MARRIED?

In the past it was almost a necessary stage of life, however

with changes in the law and changes in social attitudes
means that co-habitation is increasingly the preferred option
for couples. Why is it then that many of this move on to get
married? Which of these might be an essential reason for
marriage?

• sharing interests and hobbies

• companionship
• a stable relationship for bringing up children
• a long term commitment based on love and trust
• the best kind of relationship for sex
• having the backing and security of the law
• having more money to set up home

CHANGING ATTITUDES TO MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE:

In the West our understanding of

marriage is based on the Judaeo-
Christian tradition as put forward in
the Bible and subsequently
developed by the Christian
churches.

The Old Testament:

• Unsentimental realism is a
hallmark of the Old
Testament view of sex:
• Sex was a chaotic force that
needed to be channeled
through the medium of
marriage.
• The Adam and Eve story in Genesis 2-3 directly mentions marriage in an
aetological sense: because Eve was made from Adam’s rib the sexes long to
be reunited in marriage, ‘bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh’… ‘Therefore
a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife and they become
one flesh.’
• This is consummated in the sexual life of a marriage- they are united as the
one flesh through having sex. This is taken to be the original purpose of sex,
according to the story.
 • In the ‘Song of Songs’ sexual desire is also celebrated in a dialogue between
a woman and her lover:
For him her “rounded thighs are like jewels’ her breasts are like two fawns’
and her ‘kisses like the best wine that goes smoothly gliding over lips and
teeth” she replies that he is to her, ‘ a bag of myrrh that lies between my
breasts’, his body is ‘ivory work, encrusted with sapphires’ and his legs
‘alabaster columns hand were under my head and that his right hand
embraced me.”
• This enjoyment of sex (strictly within marriage) is an important theme of the
Old Testament, a downside however is that the sexual politics of this time
were extremely patriarchal. Women were seen and treated as property of their
husbands or fathers and no rights at all- any offence (rape, attack that leads to
miscarriage for example) is seen as an affront to the man involved as such
acts are an abuse of his property.

The New Testament

The Gospels:
• Jesus has little to say about marriage in
the gospels. When he is asked about
divorce however he makes it clear that the
‘one flesh’ idea of Genesis underpins his
own (Matt 19). He makes clear that he
sees God’s hand the institution of
marriage, and perhaps removes the
relationship from the idea of a ‘property
owning arrangement’ that was common at
this time.
• Jesus also takes a dim view of divorce
and says that it is either impossible (Mark)
or permissible only in the matter of
adultery
(Matthew).
• Jesus
chose to
perform his first miracle at the wedding at Cana
in Galilee; this shows support for the institution.

St. Paul:
• St Paul was a Pharisee before he became a
Christian and some of his thinking about
marriage and sex is based in this background.
He inherited many ideas that the Jews were a
chosen people and were called by God to
distinguish themselves using (amongst other
things) the Holiness Code, as shown in the
book of Leviticus. This makes many forms of
sexual expression (often associated with the
 worship of other fertility religions) off limits – prostitution, adultery,
homosexuality, bestiality etc.
• Paul had similar ideas about Christians – those who had chosen to be saved
by Christ’s sacrifice and accept salvation (given freely by grace) should
distinguish themselves by their ‘whiter than white’ sexual behaviour. As soon
as one becomes ‘in Christ’ one’s behaviour should be such that it does not
unite Christ with sin: therefore Paul forbids adultery and visits to prostitutes for
Christians.

• There is also the key point that he considered that the Parousia was imminent
and therefore people should be focused on preparing themselves for Second
Coming rather than the complication of being involved in a marriage
relationship.

• However St Paul does accept that people do have sexual passions and so
should ‘rather marry than burn’ (with passion) and so have a legitimate outlet
for these rather than fornicating. This is a rather dim view of married life – the
ideal is for celibacy and it is only for human weakness that marriage is to be
tolerated.

• Inside marriage the partners have a duty to one another – sex is associated
with sin and marriage is a way of containing this sinful possibility each partner
should give the other the means to relieve their sexual tensions so that they
can then concentrate on more important spiritual matters.
• Married life is however a forum where one can, ‘live unto the Lord’ and so a
Christian man should take a wife ‘in holiness and honour not in the passion of
lust like the heathen that do not know God.” (1 Thess 4:4-5)

Sex in the Roman world:

Social status is the key to understanding

sexual relationships in the Roman
Empire.
Upper class male citizens should not be
‘infected’ by taking a passive role in their
sex or emotional lives. This meant:
a) Marriage should be unequal, since
women were inferior.
b) A male citizen could have sex with
any one he liked, provided he did
not have sex with a married
woman (for fear of offending her
husband).
c) Hetero/Homosexual love were not differentiated between in the way they are
today, in fact homosexual love was idealized like romantic love is today. As
long as only inferiors were penetrated by the citizen in the sexual act then the
dignity of the male was not affected.
d) There was the belief that while sex was good for you, however significant
numbers also wrote against this that the release of semen was enfeebling to
 men and the sexual act was harmful and dangerous- this view advocated
celibacy in order to maintain virility.

Sexual Asceticism:

Early Christianity
• Despite Paul’s guarded blessing, early Christianity
regarded marriage with suspicion and in fact advocated
celibacy within marriage- unless procreation was
necessary. Some church fathers went so far as to claim
that true Christians did not feel sexual desire at all.
• This idea may have its view in the non-Christian ideas of
the Stoic philosophers. These argued that rulers should
rise above bodily desires and only have sex for the ‘sake of the city’ –
procreation only, since this was one way that one could have ‘self mastery.’
• Justin Martyr (a Stoic convert to Christianity) commended the faith to others
on these grounds, as containing the best of Graeco-Roman culture as well as
the ethical basis of Judaism. As a result monasticism and priestly celibacy
became common and it was even considered a guide to how holy one had
become by the lack of erotic dreams: “Tread under our foot the ghostly foe,
That no pollution we may know.” (Compline Prayer)

St Augustine:

In the 4th century there was a debate within

Christianity about sex, as in many matters the
most influential views belonged St Augustine
and these came to influence the subsequent
Christian views about sex and relationships
until well into our own century.

Augustine did regard marriage as a real good

(not simply the lesser evil, as Paul seemed to
claim) and said that it brought 3 main benefits:

a) Procreation of children
b) To ensure faithfulness between
husband and wife.
c) To be a SACRAMENT as a means by
which God’s grace can overcome sin
and ‘order’ or control the sexual urge.

However there is a down side to Augustine’s

teaching. He considered that original sin was
sexual and carried to us today through sex, all
the way back to Adam. Therefore God permitted sexual intercourse for the sake of
children, ‘the one honourable fruit’ it was still sinful and, however hard the Christian
tried to lie back and think higher thoughts they would still be corrupted by the
experience and become embedded in sinful thoughts. Augustine also grudgingly
allows sex to be excused within marriage only for the reason that it may stop
fornication and adultery. This view also influenced the view that clergy should be
unmarried and was ratified into church law at the 2nd Lateran council, 1139 CE.

Aquinas

Aquinas echoed many of Augustine’s views but placed less emphasis ion the idea of
containing sin and extended the natural law argument – claiming that the central
purpose of marriage lies in procreation and providing a stable environment to bring
up the children. Children need to be instructed by a man if they are to grow up well:

Now a woman alone is not adequate to this task; rather, this demands the work of a
husband, in whom reason is more developed for giving instruction and strength is
more available for giving punishment .. Hence, since among all animals it is
necessary for the male and female to remain together as the work of the father is
needed by the offspring, it is natural to the human being for the man to establish a
lasting association with a designated woman, over no short period of time. No, we
call this society matrimony. Therefore matrimony is natural for man, and promiscuous
performance of the sexual act, outside matrimony is contrary to a man’s good. For
this reason it must be a sin.

Summa Contra Gentiles, 3.2

This is reflected in the way that, for example, in the UK it was within law for a
husband to use moderate force to chastise his wife until 1891. He does, however,
also have duties towards her in that natural justice demands that she should be
cared for until death, as with no more child-bearing years in her, Aquinas argues that
no one else would want her. Therefore God meant for humans to form partnerships
to allow procreation without sin and a stable family environment. Richard Dawkins,
among others, would argue with this out-dated type of biology being used as the
basis for moral strictures of this kind.

Changes to the traditional view:

1) Canon law:
In medieval times the institution of marriage became central to society. This was the
time of Christendom – when the church was held to be the central authority in Europe
and its law makers (e.g., Peter Lombard) were interested in how they were to deal
with the problems that people had in marriages. For this reason the idea of the
‘conjugal debt’ was expanded – sex was a duty for each of the partners to keep the
other from sin, abstinence was now a legal obligation.
2) Courtly Love:
Lyrical poetry of this time enshrined this type of yearning affection between a man
and an unattainable upper class woman and became a paradigm for how people felt
relationships should be run. This raised the autonomy women and is the basis of the
idea of romantic love celebrated today.
3) The Reformation
Protestants rejected the principle of clerical celibacy and this led to re-evaluation of
marriage. Thomas Cramner (archbishop of the CofE) wrote a new marriage service
which stressed that mutual companionship was one of the reasons for getting
married. This was the first time that this had been acknowledged by Christianity.

Recent Challenges for the Christian view of Relationships:

1. Psychology: Freud
and many others
have shown that
sex is not simply a
biological matter
and a healthy
attitude to sexual
relationships,
especially what
one is taught about such things will seriously
affect one’s mental health in later life.
2. Life expectancy and contraception: Since the
Victorian age the world’s population has
increased dramatically, as has life expectancy.
This meant that smaller families became the
norm in western
countries, this
was a result of
abstinence and
coitus interruptus
initially, however
as contraception became more and more effective
 churches had to deal with the fact that their members were using such
methods to enjoy sex for pleasure. All churches initially banned these methods
(e.g. CofE stated this in 1908) but eventually gave these methods their
blessing (CofE approved this officially in 1932, and again more emphatically in
1958 stating that the size of the family was firmly up to the conscience of the
Christian couple).
3. Since this uncoupling of the link
between sex and marriage by
means of efficient contraception
led to a different understanding of
the purpose of marriage that built
on previous understandings: In the
preface to the marriage service it
is made clear that there are 3 main
purposes to marriage now-
children, companionship and
unitive sex. It is considered the
right relationship for sexual
relations to take place and this
intimacy is said to be good in that
it draws together the couple and strengthens their relationship.

1662 Book of Common Prayer 1980 Alternative Service Book

‘It was ordained for the procreation of
Children, to be brought up in the fear
and nurture of the Lord.’
‘It was ordained for a remedy against
Sin and to avoid fornication’
‘It was ordained for mutual society,
help and comfort, that one ought to
have of the other, both in prosperity
and adversity.’
‘Marriage is given, that husband and wife
might comfort and help each other, living
faithfully together in need and in plenty,
in sorrow and joy.’
‘It is given, that with delight and tenderness
they may know each other in love, and
through the joy of their bodily union, may
strengthen union of their hearts and lives.’
‘It is given that they may have children and
be blessed in caring for them and bringing
them up in accordance with God’s will, to his
praise and glory.’

4. This key development in the Protestant churches has led inevitably to the
current debates about the permissibility of same sex relationships and sexual
expression between persons within exclusive and loving relationships not
formalised in marriage.

Therefore there are various rules that are imposed on personal relationships by the
institution of Christian marriage. It is a contract that is made between three parties –
the couple and God, it is intended to help people grow close together and form stable
families. The promises they make to God and to one another are to a permanent and
exclusive relationship. The penalties for breaking these promises are to sin against
God and to hurt each other. Divorce is therefore a difficult subject – especially if one
takes the view that marriage is a sacrament by which God has made the couple
become ‘one flesh’ – as Roman Catholics do.
 They can therefore not allow a divorce to take place.
The nearest equivalent is an annulment- this is where
the marriage is declared to have been void since there
was (at least one of 12) impediments to its validity as a
marriage. These are: if man was not at least16 and
wife not at least 14, if either is impotent, if either is
already married, if one has not been baptized, if either
has previously made a vow of chastity, if either are in
holy orders, if either has been forced into the marriage,
if either has murdered their spouse in order to marry
again, if they are blood relations, if they are directly
related through the law, if the couple are living together
after an invalid marriage ceremony, if adopted children
(though unrelated) marry one another. If a Catholic
couple was to get a civil divorce they could not remarry
in church and run the risk of being excommunicated.

R Jones in Groundwork for Christian Ethics argues that these have often been used
as a convenient way to allow couples to divorce by the back door, whereas the
Catholic psychiatrist Jack Dominian takes a liberal view but
prefers the idea of annulment to divorce since he says that
the church should look more carefully into what the
minimum conditions are to call a relationship a marriage
and then to rule a marriage nullified if no such marriage
were to exist.

Protestants, however have long since regarded marriage in

a very different way to Catholics. This is largely a result of
the thinking and actions of the first leader of the
reformation, Martin Luther (1483-1546). Luther had been a
monk but enacted his views himself by marrying a former
nun, Katherine von Bera. He claimed that:

1) Christian marriages are not distinctive – they are not sacraments and do not
remove sin. Rather they are simply where a man and woman make promises
to one another about their future fidelity and desire to have children.
2) Marriage is not exclusively Christian. Rather it is simply the name given to the
institutionalization of the natural human desire for couples to live together.
3) Marriage is a mystery or allegory of the relationship between Christ and his
Church. This is seen in the moment where the marriage is solemnized by the
priest giving the couple God’s blessing- from this point onwards they dedicate
themselves to one an other and another stage in their spiritual life, as
approved by God and try to live out their lives together with commitment and
dedication such as Christ has for the church.

Divorce is allowed on the basis of adultery (Based on Matt 5:32) but should not be
considered to be easy. Remarriage can be allowed for the party who was not
guilty in the previous marriage breakdown. The C of E follows a similar line and
has become more forgiving in their attitudes to remarriage in recent years- it is left
to the discretion of the parish priest as whether they wish to perform a second
marriage ceremony for that person.

Other views of Marriage and Divorce:

Why would a non-religious person wish to get married?

Marxist views:

Frederick Engels (1820-1895) and Karl Marx (1818-1883) regarded the Victorian
model of a Christian marriage to be symptomatic of what was wrong with society.
They regarded it as a materialistic, possessive institution, driven by greed and
class considerations that continue to keep the structure of society in place and
thereby stop true freedom and revolution from taking place.

1) Marriage Is Exploitative Ownership:

Marxism claims that is through the ownership of property that
the bourgeoisie keep the proletariat down and exploit their
labour for their own profit. Marriage is a sign of such an
unjust society which perpetuates a false morality at the
expense of full and loving relationships. Monogamous
marriage is a form of prostitution of women, which because it
is unsatisfactory has led to widespread infidelity, it is the
cause of the problem – not (as St Augustine claimed) the
cure for it.

• Monogamous marriage is supported by the bourgeois

classes because it legitimizes the rights to power and
property.
• Monogamous marriage is based on the conflict
between man and wife which has shown the problems
of society as a whole in miniature.
• True love, as frequently glimpsed in literature is
outside of marriage as it is a restrictive institution that kills true relationships.
• Real marriages are impossible in a capitalist culture since there is the constant
danger of exploitation of one of the partners by another.
2) Marriage of Equals:
• Instead Engels proposes a different notion of marriage, based on the
relationship of 2 equals living in a communist society where love and mutual
trust can be expressed without the machine of capitalist exploitation cannot
get in the way.
• He claims that monogamous marriage has never
really happened before – it was all a sham way of
men passing on their property to legitimate heirs and
had nothing to do with real monogamy- instead it was
based on prostitution. However, come the revolution,
true monogamy will be achieved- partners will marry
for the right reasons and therefore they will stay
together.
 FEMINISM:

• In her Feminist Politics and Human Nature,

Alison Jaggar agrees that Marxism
underscores the economic basis of women’s
oppression, but fails to highlight the true source
of that oppression: the aggression and
domination of men.
• She points out that the elimination of the
capitalist economic system has not substantially
transformed women in socialist nations and
thereby denies that gender inequality can be
explained adequately by economic causes.
• Catharine MacKinnon, in her Feminism Unmodified, argues that the notions of
‘natural law' (religious) and 'autonomous choice' (utilitarian) which underlie
traditional accounts are also fatally flawed.
• Radical feminists such as MacKinnon claim that socially constructed sexual
roles make it extraordinarily difficult for women to identify and nurture their
own sexual desires and needs. Women are socialized to meet male sexual
wants and needs in order to prove their own value and fulfil their socially
created duties.
• Male dominance and female
submission are the accepted
norms of sexual behaviour, and
broadly define the respective roles
of the sexes generally. The
Christian reliance on natural law is
misplaced because our sexual
needs and desires are mainly a
matter of social conditioning, while
the contractarian faith in informed
consent is a sham because that
same social conditioning limits the
range of women's real
opportunities and choices and
nurtures a false consciousness
about women's place in the world and in relationship to Men.
• Therefore MacKinnon claims that women will always remain subordinate to
men unless sexuality is re-imagined and remade. Such radical feminists (e.g.
lesbian separatists) tend to be suspicious of the kinds of sexual activity
commended in centrist regimes: married, heterosexual, monogamous,
reproductive, private, in a well-defined relationship, and so
forth.
• Many feminists suspect that such carefully defined sexual
activity facilitates in a direct fashion the general political
subjugation of women. In her Lesbian Nation, Jill Johnston
champions the separatist position and endorses sex among
women only as a way of making a political statement and
transcending male oppression. Under this view, women must
 undermine the domination and power of men in all relevant contexts, one of
the most important of which is sexual activity.
• What, then, do feminists view as morally permissible sex? Sex is morally
permissible only if the traditional roles of male dominance and female
submission are absent, women are not politically victimized by their sexuality,
and women have the power and capacity to control access to and define
themselves.
• What events can ensure that such conditions pertain? There is a range of
answers that include:

a) The total separation of women from men, including a female boycott of

heterosexual relations;
b) The decommodification of the female body; a biological revolution (e.g.
artificial reproduction) to liberate women from the fundamentally unequal tasks
of child-bearing and rearing;
c) Economic independence of women from men
d) Pay for those women who provide domestic and socially necessary services
which is comparable to the wages earned by men in the public sphere
e) Obliteration of the distinction between 'men's work’ and 'women's work'; and
full access for women into the public spheres, particularly those prestigious
positions which define political and social power.

Critique of feminism

a) Lesbian Separitism:
Less radical feminists and non-feminists, on the other hand, insist that such a
posture is unnecessary and also limits women’s choices and denies even the
theoretical possibility of engaging in non-exploitative consensual heterosexual
activity. It portrays men as incapable by nature of anything other than oppression
and exploitation. The separatist view seems flawed because while it begins in a
general disparagement of the idea of an ahistorical human nature, it ends in
reliance upon just such a notion.

More general criticisms

Taken literally, some feminists suggest that virtually all women are incapable of
informed consent because they have been victimized by extended conditioning by
male-dominated society. This concession, however, seems too broad and could
be used as a justification for paternalism: if women are truly incapable of informed
consent then why should they not be subject to the same paternalistic treatment
that is afforded other groups, such as children, who lack that capacity?

Furthermore, why should we assume that sexuality is so essential to personhood

or womanhood? One of the assumptions feminists have made is that sexual
activity implicates a woman's innermost being and most important constitutive
attributes. But is that fact a biological necessity or merely a social artefact of
male-dominated society?

HUMANISM AND MODERN MARRIAGE:

Utilitarianism:
This view, based usually on the ideas of J.S.Mill (1806-1873), looks to the
consequences of a marriage in order begin philosophizing about it. The terms of the
marriage/relationship are to be decided by the couple themselves as they, as rational
beings, are able to decide what they want to maximize their happiness in such a
relationship.

Open Marriages:
This idea claims that, provided there is honesty between the
partners then one can have a non-exclusive marriage
relationship where both partners can look outside the marriage
bed for sexual satisfaction. They argue that both partners will
be happier in that their needs are satisfied and they are treating
one another like adults in doing so, on another level their
relationship may be deepened from knowing that their long
term emotional needs are met by their life partner.

A good example of a Utilitarian approach to relationships and

its danger can be shown in the 1993 film
Indecent Proposal in which a husband allows a couple allow a man
to sleep with the wife for a night in exchange for a million dollars.
This makes fine Utilitarian sense; however the film then proceeds to
portray a marriage breaking down as the husband becomes
consumed by doubt over his wife’s commitment to him and motives
in marrying him. Those who oppose the idea of open marriages
argue that like such a film the concept is a contradiction in terms
and has an insufficient understanding of how humans behave and
react in relationships.

Bertrand Russell and Serial Monogamy:

Russell argues that the only serious
consequence of sexual relationships was when children
appeared and therefore regarded marriage as a stable
environment for them to grow up in. He argued that once
children were born to the couple then the relationship
could no longer be considered a private affair, and so the
sexual partners should now legalise their relationship
through marriage providing the children with insurance
that the two parents will share the job of bringing them up
and caring for them.

In a rational ethic, marriage would not count as such in

the absence of children. A sterile marriage should be
easily dissoluble, for it is through children alone that
sexual relationships become of importance to society, and
worthy to be taken seriously by a legal institution. I think
that all sex relations which do not involve children should
be regarded as a purely private affair, and that if a man
and a woman choose to live together without having children, that should be no
one’s business but their own.” Marriage and Morals (1929)
However, he argued that, if not for the sake of children, adults need not stay together
since they are by nature ‘serial monogamists’:

‘I think that uninhibited civilized people,

whether men or women, are generally,
polygamous in their instincts. They may fall
deeply in love and be for some years
completely absorbed in one person, but
sooner or later sexual familiarity dulls the
edge of passion, and then they begin to look
elsewhere for the revival of the old thrill.”
Marriage and Morals (1929)

However, provided that there are liberal divorce laws, Russell still had high praise for
the institution, ‘I believe marriage to be the best and most important relation that can
exist between two human beings.’ You could say that Russell’s vision is increasingly
realized in secular society as it becomes more and more common to marry more
than once in life and conduct a series of sexual relationships without any intention of
marriage. Russell says that from a
humanist position such an attitude
does not undermine the institution of
marriage but accepts that the
happiness of the individual needs
freedom to adapt and change to new
circumstances in life.

However, there are those who will

point out that such an impermanent
view of marriage does not prepare
children well for life and can have
negative psychological effects on society and undermines the seriousness with which
people might enter into a marriage relationship to begin with.