More on Marriage

These are my notes of the input I gave to a Conversation last Saturday between local churches, together with our MP Robert Halfon. We were delighted to have both him and the Labour candidate Suzy Stride with us. It was a high quality discussion with excellent contributions from many people.

When I was a boy I used to enjoy visits to my cousin to play Lego.

Marriage is like the Lego building block for our life as a community.

Is is an amazing idea. Whether anyone had thought of it before the Jewish tradition adopted it, I don't know. Certainly for me it is within the Jewish and Christian traditions that I see it's rationale.

A woman and a man commit themselves in trust to one another for life. There is no security apart from their trust in each other. "It is a place to learn forgiveness, compassion, and much besides.

I guess we all know the changes that go on in someone's life when they marry. Other priorities are put aside. It is one another that come first. Where the Jewish and Christian traditions are followed this then provides a bedrock for children.

This is spelt out in the story of Adam and Eve. It is found in the Christian literature, eg Ephesians 5 - where marriage is a symbol of Christ's love of the church.

Marriage is a place where we learn as adults and as children what it is to live in trust and love. And as such it is over against both the capitalistic culture and also an all embracing state. It is an alternative society.

This is not a private institution but a public one. In the west we focus on the private but in India there is a focus on the public. And we too have this tradition, when a young man might ask his beloved's father for her hand in marriage.

1. It is part of the fabric of Public Life
A place for children to be born and nurtured, where traditions and aspirations are passed on. It is the foundation of the next generation .
It creates extended family.. It knits society together
And society in turn upholds marriage. It is made in public.

2. It is part of the Fabric of Creation. Ties of blood run very deep. You discover this say at a funeral, when family rallies together in support. Love for children works at the very heart of who you are. The sexual bond is part of this. Children who are physically related to both parents have a security that ours do not.
I am not denying the need or desirability for adoption or indeed some other interventions. However, we intervene when something is less than the best it might be.

3. It is part of the Fabric of Hope. Israel set up a community where debts were remitted from time to time, where slavery was limited. It signalled a hope for a better world. Marriage was part of that. The Christian community looks to a new heaven and a new earth.

In this, I am not arguing against other relationships. My views on those are not relevant to my argument. Rather I am saying that marriage is different and needs to be treated as such. To equate with civil partnerships is to deny what marriage is. We lose marriage at our peril. To do so would be to privatise trust, to undermine the very institution which speaks hope, trust and love into the very fabric of daily life.