Sunday 7 March 2010

What is marriage?

"I don't believe in divorce, that's why none of the women in my family are married."
When I first saw this quote I thought that it had great potential for some fun: I don't believe in losing so I won't support a football team; I don't believe in failing, so I won't try; and so on...

But then I found myself reading the source article and questioning what has happened to the churches teaching on forgiveness when attitudes like that expressed above take hold?  Of course it is disappointing when marriages come to an end, but to not enter into them because of fear that they will not last?

The source article continues:
"They want to get married eventually, but they want to wait until they’re sure the marriage will last. And eventually, about 70 percent of women who ever give birth outside of marriage will indeed wed."
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/news-events/publications/insight/social/kathryn-edin
 So perhaps this is not about a fear of commitment, but an impatience in waiting for the right person.  This is perhaps more difficult today as I suspect that, just as one copy of the New York Times contains more information than people had in a lifetime in years gone by, people have so much wider a choice of partner than they ever used to have.

No comments:

Post a Comment

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails