MARRIAGE -- SPEAK UP

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Date Posted: 19:00:38 08/08/03 Fri
Author: JOEBIALEK
Author Host/IP: oh-lakeside-cadent1-13-15-86.clvhoh.adelphia.net / 68.170.222.86
Subject: MARRIAGE

With all the debate about same-sex marriages, perhaps it is time to discuss the institution of marriage itself. Webster's dictionary defines marriage as the institution whereby men and women are joined in a special kind of social and legal dependence for the purpose of founding and maintaining a family. Some would argue that the family is a microcosm of society and further that as the family goes so will the society go. Hence, the breakup of the family may cause the breakup of society. The question that remains, however, is if marriage is still necessarily the best institution to found a family. We are constantly reminded that the divorce rate is approximately fifty percent in the United States or that one of every two couples get divorced or you have a fifty-fifty chance of staying in the same marriage. Of the remaining fifty percent of couples who are married, only ten percent admit to being happy with the relationship. Any statistician in the world would say that numbers of these kind would indicate that something is seriously wrong with the institution of marriage. Countless children experience the fallout of a bad marriage but at the same time use that experience as their only guide. People in our society receive the same amount of training about human relationships as they do about child rearing. Therefore it is little wonder that even though most people enter into a relationship with the best of intentions they flounder at communication and understanding. It is not good enough to expect that one can only learn about relationships from their family, friends and co-workers; one must be willing to educate themselves in philosophy, psychology, sociology, spirituality and economics. Another institution in our society, education, is supposed to help foster the growth and development of the individual and family but yet the current public school curriculum does not serve this end. Marriage in the United States today has become an institutional burden to relationships much like religion has become an institutional burden to spirituality. Too much focus is given to adhering to rules and regulations and not enough to fostering loving relationships. Consequently, cohabitating appears to be the natural evolutionary result of the breakdown of the marriage institution. Still, as with marriage, the legally binding requirement is that the children must be provided for. If we are not careful to begin again the conscious effort to cultivate a more serious approach to human relationships, marriage as an institution will cease to be taken seriously and ultimately fade away.

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