Anthony Esolen at Mere Comments is writing a series of essays that he calls “Pseudogamy,” reflecting the sham and pretense that we as a society have made of the sacred institution of marriage. It’s worth reading in its entirety, but here are some selected quotes to whet your appetite.
Marriage — marriage such as Jesus defined it — is the foundation of society not simply because it is the best environment for raising children, though it is. It is the foundation because in it man and woman commit themselves one to another, as if they were, so to speak, gods freely bestowing freedom upon what they create.
I return to the notion of cosmos: order. Man and woman unite in marriage to bring into being a new generation; and even when they cannot do so, because of age or some physical defect, they may well wish to do so, or they stand for others as exemplars of the act that naturally brings forth children. All of which is to say that marriage that is open to children is part of the order created by God. Then marriage that is not open to children violates that order, and introduces into our understanding of marriage a destructive chaos.
In these two posts, Mr. Esolen says eloquently and intelligently some of the things I tried to start talking about in this post on marriage: that we have already lost the meaning of marriage before the activists and anti-Christians came along to try to put into statute and law what was already broken. I’m not saying that it’s a losing battle but rather that we will have to re-examine the fundamental Biblical meaning of marriage itself before we will be able to speak truth to our culture and, perhaps, change the course we are travelling toward the destruction of both marriage and family.
A couple of years ago I read a good article by Esolen about cousins and their bond. I’m glad you reminded me about him.
You know, I agree that our culture totally misses the true sacred meaning of marriage, but I guess I would question where we place blame. I mean, in the time of Jesus and Paul, marriage was a sham then as well. At that point it was culturally acceptable for men to engage in cult prostitution in the local pagan temples. It was culturally acceptable for much of the Bible for men to have multiple wives. Divorce was common.
I would say that marriage isn’t understood or honored AND HAS NEVER BEEN except within the people of God. Since marriage is truly a reflection of God and love and relationship, it is of course misunderstood by everyone who does not know Him.
And so – I suggest that we got to Paul and Jesus and the rest of our heroes and see what they taught should happen in regards to marriage within the church…. and then what they taught about marriage for those who don’t believe.