Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Marriage May Be Weak, But Not Forever

Marriage is on the decline. People who do get married are getting married later in life. And many couples forego the legal ceremony and simply live together. Of course, once people start living together, they don’t really see the need for a ceremony because they are “essentially married.” It sounds bleak, and indeed it is, but I don’t think it will always be this way.

Life goes in cycles. Part of the reason why people don’t see a reason to get married these days is because they see marriage as something of a religious nature. It is religious people who see a problem with adultery, so when people reject God they also reject marriage. But in time, people will begin to see that marriage isn’t a matter of religion, but God instituted it for a reason. Let me give you a real life example, I’ll change the names to protect the guilty.

Jason and Rachel were high school sweethearts. They were so in love. One night, maybe even many nights, things got out of hand and they found themselves in bed together. That was okay, they thought. No one would find out and if they did, who cares? But then Rachel missed a period. A baby was on the way. She told Jason and though he was sorry he’d gotten her pregnant, he wasn’t ready to be a father and they broke up. The baby came and for several months it was just Rachel and her parents taking care of the baby. But then Jason decided that he wanted to be a part of his son’s life. So they worked out a deal where Rachel would keep the baby for a while and then Jason would keep the baby for a while.

All went well, until one day, Rachel and her parents went to pick up the baby and Jason wouldn’t open the door. “He’s sleeping.” He said, and wouldn’t let her take the baby. Then the calls began. Jason would call Rachel and tell her what a bad mother she was for not taking care of the baby, but when she would go to get the baby, he wouldn’t let her see him. One day, Rachel’s mother called Jason’s mother and asked, “Why won’t you let us see the baby?” Then came the reply, “We’re afraid you’ll take him and not bring him back.”

Though we might think Jason a bad person, Rachel didn’t think so when they were together. So what I think people will begin to see is that the commitment of marriage prevents nice people from turning into monsters. People can be driving to do almost anything when they fear their children will be taken away from them. Forget the religious side of it, marriage is an agreement between two people that they are going to stay together. People will begin to see that the people who have made that commitment and work to keep it are much better off than those who have not. When that happens, people will return to the desire for marriage.