Marriage, Divorce, and the Hypocrisy of Traditional Values

Faith, tradition, and government recognition: three things worth examining when considering the institution of marriage.

It's interesting. I don't make any bones about the fact that I'm not a Christian, at least not from a literal Biblical perspective. I suppose you could say I'm culturally Christian while spiritually being more or less a transcendentalist. With that said, I've always found some of the teachings attributed to Christianity interesting, particularly when you start examining the contradictions. According to Mark 10:11–12 and Luke 16:18, remarriage after divorce is considered adultery. Yet Matthew 5:32 makes an exception when adultery has taken place. So apparently, all this business about saving yourself until marriage isn't quite as important as some would have us believe.

After all, a man can marry a woman who was previously married, whose first husband is still alive, and that's supposedly perfectly acceptable under certain circumstances. So much for the sanctity of virginity and all the emphasis placed on abstaining from sex before marriage. If virginity is such an important virtue, why does it suddenly become negotiable? It makes little sense to wait until marriage to have sex when the very same people who preach these standards are willing to make exceptions for circumstances that suit their religious interpretation. If the rules surrounding sexual morality can be adjusted depending on someone's marital history or circumstances, then perhaps these supposedly absolute moral standards aren't quite as absolute as we're led to believe. That's why all these rules and regulations make so little sense to me. But to each their own. 

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And that's really the point. If you're going to claim to believe in these teachings, then live by them. You can't cherry-pick the parts that suit you, reinterpret the ones that don't, and then expect everyone else to regard you as some authority on traditional values. If you're going to hold yourself out as a defender of biblical marriage and traditional morality, then perhaps you should start by being consistent about what you're defending. Otherwise, it's little more than selective moralizing. You don't get to have it both ways.

The Biblical institution of marriage, particularly as reflected in ancient Hebraic customs, was rooted in a patriarchal system in which women could be treated as property and marriage arrangements could involve transfers of wealth and family obligations. You cannot practice husbandry with livestock that doesn't belong to you. Yet somehow, we're still carrying forward an institution with roots in a very different time and expecting everyone to treat it as though it has some timeless, unquestionable authority. In that respect, I would argue that much of what people consider traditional marriage is little more than playing make-believe.

This is a prime example of why I believe legal marriage, including common-law marriage, needs to be abolished and the government needs to get out of this farce altogether. Two people should be perfectly capable of loving one another, sharing their lives, and making whatever commitments they choose without requiring government recognition or permission to do so. There's a difference between making a personal commitment to another human being and obtaining a government-issued marriage license. If people want a traditional religious marriage, that's their business. Just don't expect everyone else to subscribe to the same rules, particularly when those rules seem to be subject to so many convenient exceptions.

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