Megan over at Reflections on the Snow-Covered Hills is having an amazing discussion about the nature of civil vs. religious marriage, especially in light of gay marriage. One of her commenters, Jason, asked us to detail the differences between civil and religious marriages.
Below is my reply. I invite Megan's crowd of commenters to come on over and continue the discussion here, if they wish.
Taking up Jason's challenge -- much of my marriage, in its day to day workings, is similar to Jason's. My husband and I love and support one another, raise children together, share a home and household expenses, pool our earned money, file a joint tax return, claim each other on our benefits, take care of each other when sick, are intimate. Jason and his husband also do all these things, I'm guessing.
The differences are harder to quantify (and I'm going to talk about Catholic marriage in terms of what the Church teaches now -- many Catholic couples you know may not be living this commitment fully -- heck, I know I don't fully live up to it, but Hubby and I try.)
A major difference is the idea of the purpose of marriage. In Catholic thinking, marriage is NOT about romantic love at all (although that's very nice and encouraged.) It's about love as an action, as a set of choices. It's committing not to the feeling of love, but to the idea of raising and caring for a family. Of course many, many married couples also raise families, including Jason and his husband, but I would argue the secular view of marriage is that it is about a commitment to romantic love first. For Catholics, romantic love is secondary, although still very nice and encouraged.
As Catholics who practice our faith, my husband and I have pledged to procreate -- the Catholic wedding service requires you to state you are open to new life and will accept any children God sends through the marital act. (Notice I didn't say parenting, because Jason and his husband do that as well, as do many if not most straight and gay married couples.) That means no artificial birth control. We also accept the indissolubility of our religious marriage -- in other words, we accept that we are married until one of us dies, period. No spiritual divorce (although we have the legal right to divorce the civil aspect of our marriage, and the Church accepts that legal separation is sometimes necessary for the safety of members of the family.)
My husband also has different duties as a married Catholic man than Jason and his husband would -- Hubby is responsible for the entire family's religious education and direction, and that includes me. It's his job to feed my faith and to help me in my religious learning. He will answer for that when he meets the Lord in a greater way than I will for his education. Now, if he abdicated these responsibilities to me or the kids, I would need to step in and teach my kids my faith on my own. And of course, I am very involved in their education, but I take my lead from Hubby.
I also have a different duty as a Catholic wife, and this is a doozie -- I have committed to obeying Hubby's spiritual direction. That doesn't mean going against my personal conscience, ever, but it does mean accepting he has the duty to be involved in my religious life, and I have a duty to accept that and to at least listen to him. It also means I have to accept his primary spiritual direction of the children.
The most important difference of all, I guess, is the Catholic belief is that marriage is a sacrament, not just a ceremony, and therefore confers special graces to the couple through the Holy Spirit. It is a marriage of three, really, a promise to each other and to God, and the Holy Spirit helps us live the vocation.
I hope I haven't totally butchered this, and it is all given with respect. I know other Christians see marriage slightly differently, as will people with different spiritual beliefs. This is simply what my faith teaches, and I think the additional layers on our marriage, the non-civil stuff, is more obvious once explained like this.
3 comments:
I thought that was a very good post, actually. It seems to me, both from observing others and from my personal experience of relationships, that people don't commit to this "pack" aspect of human family structure, where you have to accept a leader and work together toward a common goal. In fact, this is exactly what I'm looking for now, a man who is gonna be the leader of the pack and with whom I can share the work of life. Romance, even sexuality, I don't really care, I just want a leader and a partner. And everyone I meet is looking for someone to go out to the bar with.
But I digress. The point is, I think I'd have to agree, there is a huge difference between a real marriage based on something solid (whether religion or something else), and a legal union that can be dissolved when convenient.
Thanks for posting.
So, this was a tricky one for me. I have to be honest with you, as I was reading your post, I kept thinking, the core of what your marriages are, is not different, your religions are.
I have a question for you. If for example, Buddhism does not assign the same duties as the RC Church does to a husband and a wife, does this make a Buddhist marriage any less a marriage? The same question could be asked by swapping in any set of beliefs.
IMHO, the core of what marriage is, is the stuff you described in the first few paragraphs. The stuff you described in the later few paragraphs are simply tools provided to you by your religion that are meant to help keep things running smoothly.
My two cents.
Amy, my argument is not that non-Christian marriages are not valid marriages. My argument is that they are not Christian marriages, not the same. And civil marriages and religious marriages are different. I would guess a Buddhist marriage has aspects above and beyond a civil marriage. too.
As for "tools to keep things runniong smoothly... hmmm. I disagree with you. My argument is the very purpose of a Catholic marriage is different than our society's general view of marriage. The grace of the Holy Spirit does help us live up to these expectations.
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