What Is The Purpose of Marriage? Is It Whatever You Want It To Be?

So, last Thursday, I wrote a post commenting on the recent poll from the Wall Street Journal and NBC News. The poll showed that only 30% of Millennials and Gen Zers believe having children is important. That means 70% don’t which is a startling number. In my post, I gave my opinion on why I think this is so. Mostly, I believe that it is a product of the devaluation of life through abortion and the growing acceptance of euthanasia. I, also, believe that we’ve lost the purpose of marriage. To be fair, many Millennials and Gen Zers are legitimately worried about the planet and its resources and feel adding more children is harmful. Others have legitimate reasons for not having children in their marriage at the present time because of job situations and financial concerns. All of which I get and understand.

However, I have a sneaking suspicion that a big reason for these percentages is selfish motivations. I’ve dealt with the “child-free” crowd before and let’s just say that selfLESSness isn’t their strong suit. This isn’t my opinion. They will happily tell you that they have zero problem being selfish. They like their “freedom, their money, and their sex without babies.” True to form, hundreds of “child-free” people found their way to my Facebook post and commenced in verbal battle. At first, some of them were trying to propose legitimate reasons for not having children in marriage. Some were fairly cordial. However, I posed one of two questions to them: “What is the definition of marriage or what is its purpose?”

For this blog, I am going to take their attempted definitions of marriage and show why they don’t work.

Ashley: “The purpose of a marriage is for those who are considering entering into the marriage to decide.”

My Response: This “purpose” is bereft of any meaning. It certainly doesn’t answer the question. If a child asked you what the purpose of marriage was and you gave this response, they’d leave more confused than when they started.

Nikki: “I have only one person who I have chosen to live with and support for our lives.”

My Response: All this is, is a description of life circumstances. It doesn’t define what marriage is or give its purpose. You could have two friends that live together and support each other for life, never getting married. You could choose to live with a parent for the rest of your life and support them. A special needs child often lives with their parents for the rest of their lives.

Danielle: Marriage’s purpose is to tie two CONSENTING ADULTS into a union, which could be emotional, financial or political in nature depending on circumstances.

My Response: A business meager could tie two consenting adults into a financial relationship, too. Definitions that are so general in nature and could describe many different things are not good definitions.

Melissa: Marriage is a partnership between two people.

My response: You can have partnerships with co-workers, business owners, friends, contractors, and many other types of relationships. This, in no way, shows how marriage is unique from other relationships.

Melissa: Marriage itself is a civil contract wherein you pledge to share half of everything. That’s all it is.

My Response: If I didn’t know any better, I’d think she was describing a business partnership.

One lady gave me the Oxford Dictionary definition which is: The legally or formally recognized union of two people as partners in a personal relationship.

(As a side note: I went and looked in my actual dictionary from 1996 and the definition was: The legal union of a man and woman as husband and wife. It’s not completely satisfying but at least it isn’t completely vague and ambiguous.)

My Response: The recent definition is the vaguest definition I can ever imagine. If I was an alien and came to earth and asked what marriage was and this definition was given to me, I’d really have no clue as to what it truly meant. This is what happens when marriage gets watered-down into meaning anything people want it to mean. It loses purpose and explanation. If any relationship can be a marriage because you say so, then no relationship is a marriage. Notice how it says “two people.” It doesn’t even say “adults.” When I pressed the lady who offered this definition on if she would be okay with an adult marrying a child, she decided to make an adjustment to the dictionary definition.

“I’d add that it should say “two consenting adults.”

Yeah, but it doesn’t and now the definition that she offered up doesn’t agree with what she wants it to say. This definition from the dictionary is about as explanatory as saying an apple is a fruit that comes from a tree. It begs the question: Which fruit from which tree? If I pick a fruit from a tree how do I know it’s an apple or not?

I had a few others tell me that marriage is whatever a couple defines it to be, but that’s nonsensical. Words have meanings. We can’t go around just defining things however we want. That causes chaos and makes our language meaningless.

What surprised me most was that nobody added in the sexual aspect to the definition. As Catholics, we are accused all the time of being anti-sex, yet the Catechism explicitly talks about the sexual union between the married couple and the importance of it.

Finally, someone asked me for my definition and here is my answer paraphrased from the Catechism:

Marriage is a covenant in which a man and woman freely and fully bind themselves for life for the building up of the family. It is a sexual, lifelong commitment that should be faithful and a total gift of self. Marriage not only binds the married couple but brings together two families and builds foundations for society to be built off of. The couple is ordered toward the procreation of children and is responsible for their care and upbringing. 

Now, I was asked repeatedly (even though I addressed it in my original post) if I thought that infertile couples have invalid marriages. First, let me say, I was never writing to all people that don’t have children or can’t. I was writing to those that view children as a burden and parenthood as a joyless state in life that needs to be avoided at all costs. I made this clear in my post but still people must have missed that and so I’ll address it again.

1. Having children is not what makes a marriage valid. Nowhere does the Catholic Church teach that having children is what makes a marriage valid. The validity of a marriage is decided at the wedding and, oftentimes, children are not around yet. Your marriage doesn’t become valid once a child is born into your marriage. There are many valid marriages out there that are without children.
2. Our marriages are supposed to be faithful, fruitful, free, and a total gift of self. But, what if a married couple can’t be fruitful? Does that make their marriage less than one that can have children? Absolutely not. God may be calling them to use their vocation of marriage to be fruitful in other ways. There is the possibility that in time infertility could be corrected. Another direction they may be called to is adoption but not always. Sometimes, an infertile couple is fruitful by serving around their community by opening their home to family, friends, and neighbors. Sometimes, they are fruitful in serving in volunteer capacities where they bring light and love to the marginalized. All of these options are good and noble. And I fully appreciate that for couples that ache for children, this may be a very heavy cross to carry even if their marriage is fruitful in other ways. No matter what, the husband and wife’s sexual union is ordered towards the possibility of life and hopefully they are open to it.

Like I said, after I posted my thoughts on parenthood and children, several dissenters expressed their disagreement. Many of them claimed that lack of jobs, lack of money, or concern over the environment were their overriding reasons for not wanting children. All of these reasons are understandable. The environmental issue is debatable, but I’m not going to brush off people’s real concern over it. With regards to the lack of jobs and money, it’s important to note that the Catholic Church encourages prudence when deciding on the size of your family. The Church understands that there are real and grave reasons why a couple may refrain from having children at a given point.

But….as the day went on, out of the woodwork came all the people that I was originally writing to; the group that sees children as a “disease,” “vermin” and “parasites.” The crowd that quite literally sees children as the “worst things in the world.” There were hundreds of commenters and they all expressed their thoughts about parenthood and children in the most disgusting, filthy, vulgar ways possible. It was truly sad to see such ugliness spewed out and I had to delete most of the comments because I couldn’t bear to have people read them. Hundreds of the comments were plain evil and true colors were shown.

My intent in writing my original post is to change the narrative about parenthood and children. I want people to understand that parenthood is hard but it’s also a great joy. I want people to understand that children are never easy to bring into the world but they are worth it. Marriage has a purpose and it’s not just whatever anyone wants it to be. The definition and purpose of it has to be different than the definition and purpose of any other relationship found on Earth. Those that challenged me were unable to do so. The latest dictionary definition is meaningless and a product of a PC culture. Societies all over are interested in marriage because it is where the foundation of the family is born. It is where children are raised and taught to become productive, helpful citizens. The future of all civilization continues on with the foundation of the married couple and the family they build.

We change the narrative, Catholic Pilgrims, by making our own marriages strong, united, and loving. No matter what, our marriages are to be an example of Christ’s love and a beckon of light in dark times.