The purpose of secular marriage

[Pah]

What is the state interest, compelling or otherwise, to promote marriage through the incentives it provides? I would suggest these:

1. To promote a stable, lifelong, monogamous sexual relation between two people.

2. To provide protections for each member of the couple and their children.

Expansion of the thoughts found here

 

[Solly]

There are the economic interests too. I wonder how much our adherance to the nuclear family model reflects modern industrialisation, and the need for cheap, compact, and plentiful housing for workers to man the factories that sprang up in the 19th century.

See this interesting article here: http://www.gracecathedral.org/enrichment/excerpts/exc_20000927.shtml

 

[Pah]

There are the economic interests too. I wonder how much our adherance to the nuclear family model reflects modern industrialisation, and the need for cheap, compact, and plentiful housing for workers to man the factories that sprang up in the 19th century.

See this interesting article here: http://www.gracecathedral.org/enrichment/excerpts/exc_20000927.shtml

I think it can be said of the feudal times as well. That the Lord of the Manor, the state if you will, had an interest in ptotecting and provisioning his realm and encourage the union of a couple for stability and population growth. I beleive Boswell mentions it in both Same-Sex Unions and in The Construction of Homosexuality. The Church interest at the time was to bless the union.

The book,Christianity and the Making of the Modern Family by Rosemary Radford Ruether seems, from the extract you cited, that is might provide the same history as Boswell albeit from a different perspective.

Bob

 

[Solly]

And since the church is no longer an arm of the state, or vice versa, and since the conditions economically, are different, with much more independance, the requirement to maintain a conservative status quo also disappears. Over on Tweb the comment was made that most homosexuals would not choose life long unions anyway, but that the few that did would somehow destabilise society. yet those in the church who support same sex unions do so in the context of love, faithfulness, and longevity of union. The fact that homosexuals are sinners just like the rest of us, means that there will be failures, and we have no reason to think the proportion would be any different than for heterosexuals. but I am at a loss to see how the mere fact of same sex unions, as opposed to aggressive 'evangelisation' by homosexuals, would be a dnager to soceity as it currently exists, since the nuclear family is already in decline.

 

[Pah]

And since the church is no longer an arm of the state, or vice versa, and since the conditions economically, are different, with much more independance, the requirement to maintain a conservative status quo also disappears. Over on Tweb the comment was made that most homosexuals would not choose life long unions anyway, but that the few that did would somehow destabilise society. yet those in the church who support same sex unions do so in the context of love, faithfulness, and longevity of union. The fact that homosexuals are sinners just like the rest of us, means that there will be failures, and we have no reason to think the proportion would be any different than for heterosexuals. but I am at a loss to see how the mere fact of same sex unions, as opposed to aggressive 'evangelisation' by homosexuals, would be a dnager to soceity as it currently exists, since the nuclear family is already in decline.

Divorce is being addressed but with a hardly comparative degree of effort or funding as the touted danger of homosexuality entering marriage. I beleive the state interest is valid but the method of encouraging the results of that interest is faulty. I would rather see an investment in education and counseling prior to the ceremony so that a better chance may be had to foreclose divorce. Making it difficult to divorce is much more detremental to society than the spending of effort to make the marriage better beforehand. Here, a faith-based initiative for members of the religion would be welcome in my mind. I'd put a gate in that separation wall.

(But don't tell my liberal friends I said that)

Bob

 

[Solly]

Divorce is being addressed but with a hardly comparative degree of effort or funding as the touted danger of homosexuality entering marriage. I beleive the state interest is valid but the method of encouraging the results of that interest is faulty. I would rather see an investment in education and counseling prior to the ceremony so that a better chance may be had to foreclose divorce. Making it difficult to divorce is much more detremental to society than the spending of effort to make the marriage better beforehand. Here, a faith-based initiative for members of the religion would be welcome in my mind. I'd put a gate in that separation wall.

(But don't tell my liberal friends I said that)

Bob

I know that over here there are programmes for those choosing to marry, but that is for Christians generally, run by churches. since you don't have to get married in church, you won't necessarily encounter an helpful vicar/minister/pastor who will take you to one side first.
It has been a campaign policy in the UK, by Christians and other faith groups, that sex education should be more than simple biology, but that tends to get the liberals up in arms about enforcing moral codes etc. I am sure there is scope for consensus on the issue, and not just from religious groups. But with the media portraying encounters betwen male and females as invariably sexual, be it in films or soap operas; with magazines full of articles telling you you have the right to a satisfying sex life; with advertising still, after decades of feminism, still using sexual images to sell products; and with celebrities living the high life, it is something of an uphill struggle with one's own children, let alone a nation.
However, I do believe it needs some movement on the part of conservative faith groups - and Muslims are little different from Christians on this matter, since they are a few hundred years behind the rest of us, where they have not assimilated Western Values.

It's rather like groups that want to follow Thoreau and Survivalists. Are our states mature enough to accommodate those who feel the need to be different from just being economically viable units in the big machine.