What is marriage? How are husband and wife to livetogether? What can they expect of each other? And what is Christian marriage?Do married believers relate to each other differently than do non-Christians?

Marriage is under attack and our images and expectationsof it are in a state of flux. On the one hand, many lament the passingof the patriarchal family with its clear line of authority and order. Onthe other side, some take issue with any of the marital structures andcommitments to permanence which remain, calling them outdated and stifling.Yet many of us are uneasy with the fervor generated by partisans of bothviews.

Although social scientists assure us that the proportionof marriages broken by separation, death, or divorce has increased onlyslightly during this century, it is true that marriage is being severelytested. Even though some marry without commitment for a lifetime, othersexpect far too much of marriage. These opposing attitudes must be exploredif we are to understand what is happening today.
 

{81}
2.5.1 Forceful/fragile vows  [go to Table of Contents]

Marriage is a social as well as a personal relationship.[22]It is public and not private in its nature. For the Christian, it is theopen commitment, before God, of a man and woman to each other for life,a declaration blessed and supported by the community of believers. Throughtheir voluntary choices, they promise to each other an enduring relationshipof mutual care. Their vows go beyond the present moment and project intoa future shaped by their life together.

It is a shared responsibility that they take on, expectingto do whatever is needed so that love will endure, yes, even flourish.It is for always; that is its glory as well as its vulnerability, sincethe promises they make to each other are at once forceful and fragile.They discover they are both weaker and stronger than they had known. Butit is also this openness to risk on which they base their hopes and commitments.

Marriage is faithfulness in spite of change. Fidelityis the heartbeat of a living marriage.[23]They give themselves to one partner exclusively. It is their effort asbelievers in Christ to be faithful to their calling as disciples, to theirpartners, and themselves.

Thus, they open themselves to possibilities, theymake some demands, and they hold each other in trust. Marriage is not onlymutual love and commitment, but it is also lifestyle, the design and patternthat emerges from the choices made together. These choices {82}are not once and for all, but are part of an ongoing process. As creatorsin marriage, both are partners who live within and are part of an ongoingcreative work.[24]

Each of them changes in his or her relationships andresponsibilities, but as husband and wife, they expect to grow throughtheir experiences together. This commitment gives them courage to riskand to choose actions and attitudes that enrich their way of life. Theywork together on the changing process of their present relationship.

Few would deny that love is most needful for a goodmarriage. Less is said about another vital human bond: trust. Without it,marriage would be, at best, a fragile contract with a shaky future. Trustis mutual confidence regarding the attitudes and behaviors that a coupleexpects of each other as husband and wife. It isself-disclosure and intimacy, a relationship of giving and receiving.[25]

Many things may be tolerated by partners in marriage:extravagance, neglect, poor extended family ties; but when trust fails,faith in each other is lost. Faith makes marriage an enduring contract,since each believes the union will be permanent.[26]

22. Letha and John Scanzoni,Men,Women, and Change (McGraw-Hill, second edition, 1981), p. 20. [back]
23. Clayton C. Barbeau, Joyof Marriage (Winston, 1976), p. 30.  [back]
24. Barbeau, p. 1.  [back]
25. Sidney Jourard, The TransparentSelf (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1971), pp. 25-33.  [back]
26. Ned L. Gaylin, "Trust: TheOverlooked Essential of Marriage," Medical Aspects of Human Sexuality.Vol. 16, No. 11 (November 1982), pp. 53-54.
 

2.5.2 Marriage in man's world  [go to Table of Contents]

Over the years, as human beings have experienced differentways of living together, the shape and {83} meaningof marriage has changed. At first, pacts were made between families andclans, arrangements for marriages that would assure that the group wouldsurvive and carry on its tribal traditions. Children, especially males,were vital for this purpose. Under such a contract, women had to be fertileand virgin to assure the ethnic purity of the group (Jer. 3:1).

The ideal of sexual equality set forth in the Genesis2 Creation account rarely found expression in Israelite society. Men ruledat home and in all other affairs as well. On rare occasions, a Miriam orDeborah came forward to offer leadership, but they were clearly the exceptionsrather than the rule. Women were treated as inferior to men.

Examples are many. A man's wife could be listed alongwith his property (Exod. 20:17), although she ranked above real estateand livestock The payment required to redeem a person from a vow was higherfor a man than for a woman. For a man between the ages of twenty and sixty,the fee was fifty shekels; for a woman, thirty. The spread for personsolder and younger was less marked, but even there, women were rated ata lower sum (Lev. 27:1-7).

But the marriage present made by the groom to thebride's father at the time of a wedding though often assumed to be a purchaseprice, was probably something different (Exod. 22:16). It was more likelya refund to the bride's family for the lost services of their daughter.A wife might be divorced, but she could not sold by her husband. She wasnot a slave (Deut. 14).

Sexual standards weighed more heavily on the womanon the man. Premarital virginity was expected of women but not requiredof men. A married woman who been sexually unfaithful was treated more harshlythan a husband involved with another woman unless the was also married(Deut. 22:13-29).

A woman's role was to be a wife and the mother ofchildren, preferably sons. She was also expected to after the flocks, workin the fields, and provide food and clothes for the family. It was hardwork, easier only if she received the respect and {84}affection of her husband. The ideal of a husband expressing his love forhis wife was often noted (Gen. 24:67; 29:30; Eccl. 9:9). The warmest tributeoffered to a wife and her mother appears in Proverbs 31:10-31.
 

2.5.3 Marriage as covenant  [go to Table of Contents]

It was within marriage that sexual intercourse betweena man and a woman was regarded as appropriate. And in Old Testament times,almost all adults were married. Not being married, it seems, was consideredabnormal.

Although polygamy (having more than one wife) wasno where prohibited, the general practice for most people, from the timeof David on, was monogamy. Who might marry whom was the subject of a numberof rules. Marriage partners were usually chosen from among persons outsidethe immediate kinship group. But after the people returned from Exile,the circle of possible mates was limited more strictly to Israelite familieslest the faith and culture be diluted (Ezra 10:10; Neh. 10:30).

The marriage of a woman and a man was usually theresult of an interfamily agreement rather than a civil or religious affair.We know of no written contracts of marriage in the Old Testament, thoughsuch contracts have been found in a Jewish community of Egypt in the fifthcentury B.C.

Sometimes the marriage agreement was spoken of asa "covenant" (Mal. 2:14; Prov. 2:17, NIV). Divorce was not prohibited butregulated (Deut. 24:1-4) and at times frowned upon (Mal. 2:16). The rightof divorce belonged only to the husband. A barren wife or the birth ofonly daughters justified the husband in taking another wife. Yet marriage,as noted earlier, continued to have a value in Israelite society that wentbeyond the rearing of children.
 

{85}
2.5.4 Penalty for fornication  [go to Table of Contents]

Judaism, both in Palestine and in other countries,was still a man's world. The rabbis could speak positively about women,but usually they treated women as inferior to men in mind, ability, andstatus.

Within marriage, sexual intercourse was regarded asduty. Sometimes, in response to Greek influence, mention was made thatsuch activity should not be for carnal desire.

Adultery, incest, and all forms of sexual perversionwere strongly opposed. But fornication did not receive legal condemnationuntil the end of the first century A.D., although the penalty was not alwaysupheld by the rabbis. This does not mean that Jewish leaders took adulterylightly. But when it did occur, the woman rather than the man bore thebrunt of social disapproval.
 

2.5.5 Marriage--a divine gift  [go to Table of Contents]

As far as we know, Jesus did not marry. But he acceptedthe institution of marriage as part of God's design for human beings (Mark10:2-12 and parallels). He affirmed the Creation account that brought mutualfulfillment out of diversity, the female and male becoming one flesh. Thushe supported monogamy, a marriage of one man to one woman which God expectedto be permanent. Jesus enlarged the principle of Genesis 2:24 by adding,"What therefore God has joined together let not man put asunder" (Matt.19:6).

He said that when Moses made allowance for divorce,he departed from the original divine plan expressed in Creation (Deut.24:1-4). Jesus called on persons to heed the original purpose of God andshape their lives by it. Divorce represented a miscarriage of the divinepurpose in marriage, an outward evidence of an inner failure, a hardnessof the heart, an inability {86} or unwillingnessto grow in true union. Unity found its true center in the heart, when personswere one inwardly as well as outwardly. "Physical fellowship must haveand maintain its center in moral fellowship. Copulation without communionis fornication."[27]

In the light of this emphasis on the heart as thekey to genuine unity, we can understand Jesus' condemnation of adulteryin the heart (Matt. 5:28), what the rabbis called "adultery of the eyes."

Note:
27. Ethelbert Stauffer, TheologicalDictionary of the New Testament, Vol. I, p. 650.  [back]
 

2.5.6 Sex within the marriage  [go to Table of Contents]

Paul's view on marriage was colored by his beliefthat the end of the age was near (1 Cor. 7:26, 29, 31). The situation,as he saw it, was urgent; undivided dedication should be given to "theaffairs of the Lord" (1 Cor. 7:32-35).

The great Pauline statement on Christian marriageappears in Ephesians 5:22-23 and should not be overlooked. This positivestatement serves to balance the qualifications in 1 Corinthians 7.

Not only did Paul regard marriage as valid for Christians,he encouraged sexual intercourse within the marital relationship. Bothwife and husband were to be sensitive to the desires and fulfillment ofthe other. They should abstain from these obligations to each other onlyby mutual agreement and only for short periods (1 Cor. 7:3-5).

Thus, Paul does not view the purpose of sexual intercourseas only for the procreation of children. The sex act has the value of unitingthe married couple.

Both fornication and adultery undermine this unityand are condemned as contrary to the will of God. Two {87}passages may show why this is so: 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 and Ephesians 5:21-33.

In the first, Paul challenged a view held by somein Corinth that saw no wrong in a Christian having sexual relations witha prostitute. Apparently, those Corinthians felt that bodily urges weremeant to be fulfilled. They saw no difference between satisfying hungerand fulfilling the sex drive. Both, they thought, were of the same typeand in the fulfillment of either there was no moral meaning.

Paul did not agree. The sex act involves one personwith another in a way that eating food does not. Eating is impersonal,an "I-it" type of relationship. But the sex act moves to an "I-thou" plane,a relationship between two persons.

Thus, for a Christian to enter into sexual intercoursewith a prostitute is to become "one body with her" (1 Cor. 6:16). Sucha union is not in keeping with the Christian's union with Christ. Thisis not because sexual union is wrong. If it were, then marriage would bewrong for Christians. Paul did not prohibit marriage. But among one-bodyrelationships, some are right and some are wrong.

What is the difference? In Ephesians 5:21-23, Christianmarriage is a relationship that is like Christ's relationship to the church.This example does not mean that marriage and the church are alike at allpoints. But the comparison of the one-body relationship of Christ and thechurch bears on our understanding of what is wrong with the one-body relationshipcondemned in 1 Corinthians 6:16.

The Ephesian example focuses on Christ's love andself-giving for the good of the church. Throughout his life, Christ wasa person for others. His life was love for others, a love that was faithfuleven unto death. He shared himself to the highest degree. Such is the exampleof the relationship that should develop in the marriage of a man and awoman.

But this is not the kind of relationship found inCorinthians 6:15-20. The "thou" in the union had become an "it." It wasa union of bodies only on the physical level, a union like that of animals.In no {88} way does sexual intercourse in sucha case symbolize the love between Christ and the church. Prostitution isa clear misuse of sex, a degrading of personality.

According to the Scriptures (1 Cor. 6), sexual intercoursemust be accompanied by a life-uniting intent. Any attempt to separate thesex act from such an intent opposes this divine design. Prostitution issinful because it makes this separation. Any act of sexual intercoursethat is not accompanied by a life-uniting reality comes under the samescriptural condemnation as does prostitution.

Christ's love and faithful self-giving provide theframework in which sexual intercourse was meant to take place. Where truelove and real commitment are lacking, there the sexual act has no truemeaning, for it was meant to be both the sign and seal of mutual self-givingin the bonds of lifelong fidelity.
 

2.5.7 Marriage--a metaphor  [go to Table of Contents]

The holiness of marriage began to be celebrated asfollowers of Yahweh began to see how much their experiences in marriagewere like life with God.[28] Theyrecognized the need for faithfulness, stability, and endurance even throughperiods of failure and infidelity. Hosea first made an explicit connectionbetween marital commitment and Israel's covenant with Yahweh. This comparisonof a marriage and a faith covenant with God caught the imagination of theIsraelites. Both relationships were commitments of love which worked towardlifelong fidelity. So marriage became a metaphor for a sign of God's enduringlove for this group of people.

Christians then reinterpreted the relationship of {89}Yahweh and Israel in terms of Christ and the church. In Paul's lettersthe faithfulness of Christians is compared to that of a wife to her husband.These metaphors are powerful but also bear the limits of their culturalorigins.

These figures of speech work only in one direction.The trust given and received between the partners in a marriage can throwlight on our faith relationship with God. But we cannot use our relationshipwith God to describe the way a marriage works. "Commitment and fidelitybetween two humans have different limits than a relationship between usand God. God, we believe, cannot fail us; ultimately we have no other Godto whom we belong."[29]

Another limit to these comparisons concerns the roleof the partners in marriage and in a faith relationship. Hosea was partof a patriarchal period when he caught the portrait of a God who remainsfaithful to a faithless, idolatrous, and adulterous nation. It is not surprisingthat Israel was shown as the harlot and Yahweh as the patient and lovinghusband.

This pattern continues in the New Testament as Paulcompares Christ to a husband and the church to a wife (Eph. 5:22-33; Col.3:18-19). When God and husband are placed side by side, does this not implythat the husband is the stable, faithful, and more godlike member of amarried pair? This reinforces a bias against women as the weaker sex, thosemore likely to fail or to be unfaithful. Here it seems that the maritalimagery becomes less descriptive since in the experience of husband andwife, "both are equally sinful and struggling, equally capable of forgivenessand generous self-disregard."[30]

Notes:
28. Evelyn E. and James Whitehead,MarryingWell: Stages on the Journey of Christian Marriage (Doubleday, 1983),p. 60.  [back]
29. Whitehead and Whitehead, p.62.  [back]
30. Whitehead and Whitehead, p. 62.
 

{90}
2.5.8 Servants of each other  [go to Table of Contents]

What are the differences between what a man and whata woman expect of marriage?

The covenant which was described earlier between Yahwehand Israel and between Christ and the church is a covenant between non-equals.God offered the covenant and God's people made attempts, with many shortcomings,to be faithful to it. The marriage covenant was also one between non-equals,with the man as the head of the house. Although the commitment was madeby both the man and the woman, the relationship was one which was reciprocal,but not mutual. The hierarchy (superior/inferior order) was clear.[31]For example, the male was considered owner of the property (the female).[32]

Society, at the time of Jesus and, later, of Paul,was thoroughly patriarchal. Each Jewish male, likely including even Paul,gave thanks each morning that he was not born a woman. But it was alsothrough Paul and in this cultural setting that a new way, a Christian wayof husband and wife being together, was introduced. Two different viewsof what marriage can be like appear in the Pauline writings, a relationshipof hierarchy and one of mutuality.

The first view was that woman was clearly at the footof the social ladder. The first letter to Timothy, in another way, impliesthe subordination of woman "because Adam was formed first and Eve afterward,and it was not Adam who was led astray but the woman who was led astrayand fell into sin" (2:13-14, JB). The identity of the real original sinnerearned woman a place at the bottom of the scale. Thus, in that milieu,marriage was naturally a {91} form of hierarchy.[33]

Within such a culture, Paul introduced the other view,a new order of living together in the Lord, a way of gentleness and lovefor each other (Col. 3:18-19). How different from the owner/property contract.Paul did not overturn the ordered system, but promoted its transformationwith Christian love. Ephesians defined this new pattern for a husband andwife even further, again with a great deal of affection: "Wives shouldregard their husbands as they regard the Lord, since as Christ is the headof the Church and saves the whole body, so is a husband the head of hiswife; and as the Church submits to Christ, so should wives to their husbands,in everything" (Eph. 5:21-24, JB).

Thus, Christian love was combined with a marriagebased on hierarchy, a totally new way of looking at marriage: a man isexpected to cherish his wife as Christ did the church, with love and fidelity(Eph. 5:25-33).

Consider the power of Christian love. At first, itjust changed the relationship of husband and wife, or master and slave,from one of control of property to a love that gives and receives, challengingthe hierarchy itself.[34]

We have seen this in the overthrow of master and slave.This radical mutuality discourages a husband from an improper godlike andeven fatherly love of his spouse. "While paternal love can be profound,it is nonetheless the love of a father, not a husband."[35J

Paul went further. Not only did he try to alter thecultural contract of marriage through the transforming power of Christiancare and gentleness; he also appealed for a new kind of mutuality thatchanged the way a husband and wife were to live {92}together. "However, though woman cannot do without man, neither can mando without woman, in the Lord; woman may come from man, but man is bornof woman--both come from God" (1 Cor. 11:11-12, JB, emphasis supplied).

Consider also the letter to the Colossian believers,where the writer exhorted the readers to live out the radical new lifeof Christians. "You have stripped off your old behavior with your old self,and you have put on a new self which will progress toward true knowledgethe more it is renewed in the image of its creator" (Col. 3:9-10, JB).The words that follow again described the new equality: "In that imagethere is no room for distinction between Greek and Jew, between the circumcisedor the uncircumcised, or between barbarian and Scythian, slave and freeman. There is only Christ: he is everything and he is in everything" (v.11).

This idea appeared first in Galatians when Paul remindedhis readers that they were no longer living according to the Jewish law,but were called to a profoundly different way of being with one another."All are baptized in Christ, you have all clothed yourselves in Christ,and there are no more distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free,male and female, but all of you are one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:27-28,JB).

Even though these passages may be viewed as statingan ideal, they invite us to set aside distinctions, privileges, and culturalexpectations. We can make conscious choices that will lead us to this radicalkind of mutuality, aspiring to such love in the marriage relationship.

Thus Christian marriage is a way of life, dynamicand on the move, an active concern for the growth of each other. It isnot the answer to all our human {93} needs, butit does provide opportunities for fulfillment.[36]Too often we have become slaves of marriage because of our unreal and highexpectations of each other and of the relationship.

We seem to have a great need for smooth working partsthat will preserve the structure. We have put great emphasis on harmony,agreement, avoidance of conflict, and adapting which may lead to pretense,game playing, or a total submerging of one of the persons, generally thewife, to keep up the image. The power of a partner's role may be used toimpose one's will on the other. Can we, in our marriage journey, let goof constricting ideas about how we are to be together as husband and wife?Can we move toward the ideal of radical mutuality described by Paul inGalatians 3:27-28 and in Ephesians 5:21: submitting to one another, outdoingeach other in being servants to one another?

Christians struggle to let go of old ways of life--whethercompulsions of control and conformity or other learned expectations--andlive a new and challenging life in Christ. This has been true in history,it is so in our private lives, we can expect it to be true in our marriages.[37]

Notes:
31. Whitehead and Whitehead, p.67.  [back]
32. Scanzoni and Scanzoni, p. 310. [back]
33. Whitehead and Whitehead, p.68.  [back]
34. Willard Swartley, Slavery,Sabbath, War, and Women (Herald Press, 1983), p. 166.  [back]
35. Whitehead and Whitehead, p.69.  [back]
36. E. Mansell Pattison, "LivingTogether: A Poor Substitute for Marriage," Medical Aspects of HumanSexuality, Vol. 16, No. 11 (Nov. 1982), p. 87.  [back]
37. Whitehead and Whitehead, p.72.
 

2.5.9 Covenant and contract  [go to Table of Contents]

Covenant and contract: these two kinds of social agreementshave much in common. But they also have come to have meanings quite differentfrom each other. A covenant was originally a binding agreement with responsibilitiesfor both parties. As Israel's relationship to Yahweh was better understood,love and affection became part of the covenant as mutual responses. So,in the marriage covenant, a wife eventually came to be seen as more thansimple property, more than a business arrangement. "The {94}legal commitment and contract of marriage must be matched by an internal,personal commitment if it is to imitate that covenant that Yahweh establishedwith Israel, 'writing it upon their hearts' (Jer. 31:33)."[38]

And so the unconditional nature of Israel's faithcovenant came to suggest a most different view of marriage: it did notdepend just on the husband's pleasure, the wife's ability to bear children,or her faithfulness. Marriage among Christians and among Jews came to beunderstood as both a legal agreement (contract) and a commitment of personallove (covenant).

After Constantine turned Christianity into a statereligion in A.D. 313, more and more interest was given to turning Christianpractices into laws applied to everyone. Thus, the image of contract beganto replace that of covenant. Christian marriage came to be defined in morelegalistic terms. Much more concern was focused on rights and obligations,and even on the legal consummation of marriage, than on the personal andinner commitments of a couple to each other.

Today the church seems to be returning to a covenantalview of marriage. At the same time, Western society seems to be interestedin marriage as an explicit contract. Perhaps many persons have less trustin social agreements and are unsure about what commitment involves. Thisin turn makes the idea of marriage as a contract seem more appealing.

The desire to put limits on a commitment has createdinterest in marriage as a contract. Just as covenant suggests the unconditionalcharacter of marriage, so contract sets up limits and conditions. Today,contracts may include limits to childbearing, financial obligations, sexualexclusiveness, and even the length of stay together. Individuals may feela great need to protect their futures and their own {95}interests and investments. This kind of contract could suggest distrust.

However, Christian motives may be involved in somelongings for a contractual view of marriage, especially in light of ourhigh hopes for marriage. Couples may be committed to Christ and to eachother, but come to marriage with very different ideas of how they willlive together. They enter the relationship assuming that each will followin the ways in which their own fathers and mothers lived out their marriedlives together. Conflict may arise when those expectations differ.

If each wants to pursue a career, whose job comesfirst? Do they want children? How will duties in the home be divided? Arereligious views different? Which church will they attend? The assumptionthat they will agree on all these issues is highly unlikely, consideringthe romantic enthusiasm which usually accompanies courtship! Discussing,clarifying, and agreeing--this warmer tone of contract may indeed be ofgreat value.

Thus, covenant and contract are not either-or choices.Both are binding commitments with rights and obligations on both sides.Covenant is an unconditional commitment. It believes that love can surviveand grow through many changes. But we may also need a contract that clarifiesexpectations to help the covenant grow and endure.

Note:
38. Whitehead and Whitehead, p.64.  [back]
 

2.5.10 The risks of intimacy  [go to Table of Contents]

A truly intimate relationship means being togetherand also able to be separate. The myth of togetherness has fostered thenotion that intimacy demands doing everything together, thinking alike,and feeling guilty because of different interests.[39]{96}Disagreements may even come to be seen as obstacles rather than sourcesof enrichment for each other. Those who choose never to really reveal themselvesalong with their differences to their partners never really give themselvesaway. They also never come to know the great mystery of the discovery anddelight of knowing their partner as a unique human being.

Intimacy is more than sexuality or romance, and notjust a polite synonym for genital play. It is the psychological strengthwhich grounds our capacity to love. Choosing to be married involves therisks of intimacy. I allow my spouse to come close to me in a way thatlets that person know and influence me. We face the risk of being changed,of coming to know ourselves in a different way because of our lives together.[40]

Intimacy also depends on identity; it cannot substitutefor it. Our capacity for closeness and mature intimacy must be more thana merger, it must include a sense of autonomy and responsibility for self.Intimacy invites me beyond individualism, but not beyond integrity.

Notes:
39. Barbeau, pp. 58-59.  [back]
40. Whitehead and Whitehead, p. 227.
 

2.5.11 Words for love talk  [go to Table of Contents]

Today we use an interesting term to describe sexualintercourse: lovemaking. This suggests more than getting rid of energyor a reduction of tension. It is also an expression of our affection foreach other as a married couple; we make more love! "Lovemaking is, by nature,generative: sometimes this is the generation of children; always it canbe the generation of love."[41] Lovemakingas a duty, reluctantly performed, is no longer a sign of growing {97}love. It is to signify our love for each other and to generate more love.

To understand this, we search for ways to describe"love talk." One definition of love refers to human stirrings which areoften explicitly sexual. Another is the unexpected and unaccountable lovewe receive from God, a gift of grace.

Because of the physical aspects of interpersonal love,we may come to believe that we are lovable simply because of our attractiveness.The equation of loveliness with youth, physical beauty, or performancecan lead to a negative view of self when there are changes in appearanceor the ability to perform. These changes may negate the exploration ofnew channels to express mutual love.

Although there may be great pain and frustration,there can be a strong bond between marriage partners that survives andmay even flourish through long, debilitating illnesses or difficult circumstancesof many kinds, deprived of genital expression.[42]What began in exciting sexual expression develops, not away from eroticlove and even romance, but into more varied and enduring expression.

Lovemaking, then, may change, as couples mature, fromthe highly excited sex play that marked the beginning of marriage, to amore reflective style and rhythm that brings deep contentment and satisfaction.We become less dependent on current cultural stereotypes of sexual performanceand more tuned in to a finer sense of likes and needs. This frees not onlyfrom cultural imperatives but perhaps also from religious prescriptionswe may have inherited from our youth.

{98}
The virtue of intimacy includes a growing skill andadeptness at ... lovemaking. Attention to each other over the years ofour marriage can teach us the many ways, genital and otherwise, in whichwe can please each other and make more of our love."[43]

Notes:
41. Whitehead and Whitehead, p.230.  [back]
42. Whitehead and Whitehead, p.219.  [back]
43. Whitehead and Whitehead, p. 232.
 

2.5.12 Sex and faithfulness  [go to Table of Contents]

Sexual exclusiveness is an important token of fidelityand trust in marriage. It does not demand that we must stand apart emotionallyfrom all others, but it does mean that commitment to the permanence andpriority of our marriage is of greatest importance. Empathy, time, attention,affection, erotic stimulation and sexual intercourse: these all are a partof and belong in a marriage relationship. Each partner should be satisfiedand receive from the other all those things that belong to him or her.Spouses are then free to give empathy, time, attention, and affection toothers, male or female. The lines must be carefully drawn however in givingor receiving stimulation which leads to sexual activity. That remains exclusivelybetween husband and wife. When a marital relationship is strained or troubled,both partners need to be cautious in giving or receiving time, attention,and affection from someone other than the spouse. Strained relationshipscause people to be vulnerable.

We realize that our sexual love is significant toour mutual fidelity, but faithfulness to one another includes much more.This faithfulness will influence many areas of our lives together: work,family, and church. It involves the movement of our love in the midst ofchanges and choices that continue to shape our lives.
 

{99}
2.5.13 God's saving presence  [go to Table of Contents]

Marriage, then, is for a lifetime: our interactions,commitments, behaviors, our lifestyle together, our work, our play, ourfamilies and at the core, our mutual love for Christ and each other. Itis a relationship which strengthens us as a couple, and makes us a witnessto the larger community of God's saving presence in the world. It is ajourney in the development of committed Christian love. It is the promiseswe hold ourselves to, risks of creative and procreative activity together,attitudes that sustain and nurture, deepen and mature the relationshipof love between us.

To be married in the Lord is to be able to experiencethe presence of God in our life together, God's call to minister, God'scall to celebrate the love and grace of God. It tests and reinforces basiccommitments that shape our lives. It is striving to be faithful to ourcall as Christians and faithful to each other.
 

2.5.14 Study and discussion  [go to Table of Contents]

1. Consider the following Scriptures: Leviticus 27:1-7;1 Corinthians 7:26-31; Matthew 19:4-6; Ephesians 5:22-33.

2. What is marriage?

3. Why is marriage being severely tested?

4. How can a husband and wife be faithful to eachother in spite of change in our society?

5. What is Christian marriage?

6. Do married believers relate to each other differentlythan do married non-Christians?

7. What do we expect of marriage?

8. List the ingredients that go into make a marriagecovenant. How is this different from a marriage contract?

{100}
Films: You Haven't Changed a Bit; ThingsAren't Right So They Must Be Wrong; Sexuality and Communication,Chernik Film (to be used with discretion).
 

2.6 Fertility and Infertility  [go to Table of Contents]

Conception control has, in recent years, become animportant element in marriage. Family planning means having children bychoice and not by chance. A couple can plan for the number of childrenthey think they can care for and choose the time and intervals of theirchildren's births.
 

2.6.1 For family planning  [go to Table of Contents]

Family plarining is desirable for a number of reasons.Having too many children, or having them too early, can impose strainson the marriage relationship. Planning provides an opportunity to protectthe health of the mother and to safeguard the welfare of the children whennecessary.

Limiting the size of families also has meaning forthe welfare of the community and the resources of the world. At the timeof the divine instruction to "be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth"(Gen. 1:28), this command was appropriate. The population of the worldwas small and resources were adequate to allow for significant increase.Today, many believe that the number of people now living on our planethas about reached the limits of what can be safely and comfortably sustained.At the present rate of growth (about 2 percent per year), the populationof the earth will double in thirty-five years and there will be 8 billionpeople by the year 2020.

Our understanding of Christian stewardship envelops {101}all areas of our lives, including that of family planning. To plan properlyrequires a knowledge of conception control, and a careful selection ofthe method to be used.

Successful family planning requires that both husbandand wife share in the responsibility. They need to talk to each other aboutconception control, their feelings about the various methods, and theirattitudes toward children and parenthood. Special thoughtfulness on thepart of both wife and husband--each striving to understand the other'sdesires and fears--is essential to the success of family planning.
 

2.6.2 Artificial insemination  [go to Table of Contents]

Since Old Testament times, infertility, the inabilityto conceive a child, has been viewed as a curse from God. In the New Testament,it is different because the continuity of God's people no longer dependson the bearing of children. Now the highest value in life is commitmentto Christ and advancement of God's kingdom. Giving birth to spiritual offspringand nurturing them is a privilege and joy open even to those Christiansfor whom marriage and family is not a part of God's plan. For those whochoose marriage and family, God's grace and blessing is upon them as well.

Even where a Christian couple is deeply committedto each other and the church, they may well experience intense longingfor a child and and yet face bitter disappointment when they are unablebecause of infertility to give birth to a child. In the past, where thecouple was truly infertile, the only way to satisfy this longing was toadopt a child. In recent times, couples have had an alternative to adoption--artificialinsemination by donor (AID). This option, although available for severaldecades, has become used more often only in recent years.

In this procedure, an anonymous donor's sperm is {102}used by a physician or nurse to impregnate the wife of a husband who hasbeen found to be infertile. If the wife conceives by this method, she isthen able to experience a pregnancy and delivery similar to that of a womanwho has conceived naturally through intercourse with her husband.

Couples who cannot conceive because of the husband'sinfertility may choose AID over adoption for a variety of reasons: 1) theunavailability of children for adoption; 2) so that the offspring willbe from at least one of them; 3) so that they can experience the pregnancytogether; and 4) so that they can have more control over the quality anddevelopment of the offspring.
 

2.6.2.1 Questions to ask  [go to Table of Contents]

The use of AID does raise a number of moral, psychological,and legal issues, none of which have been fully resolved. The proceduredoes introduce a stranger (the donor) into the family unit. Is AID, then,adultery? In adultery, the relationship between the husband and wife isendangered, if not actually broken.

With AID, care is taken that the donor be totallyanonymous. Only in fantasy is the donor a possible factor. Most couplesdesire to see the actual AID as a medical procedure with no emotional significance.Many describe the whole process of deciding for and receiving AID as anexperience which binds them together. Most evidence suggests that it generallystrengthens the relationship when both husband and wife are actively involvedin the decision and both clearly desire the procedure. Therefore, accordingto this view, AID is not adultery because it does not in and of itselfendanger the marital relationship.

Most couples do choose to keep the fact of AID a secretfrom family, friends, and offspring. The husband, not the donor, is listedas the father on the birth certificate. In some cases, even the delivering {103}obstetrician is unaware of the child's true parentage. Is this secrecya level of deception?

Protection of this secret may be a factor that helpsbind a couple together in that they are forced by the secret to resolvethe issues relating to their decision by themselves without turning tofamily or friends for support. This does bind them together but it canalso be stressful. Some couples may actually separate because they areunable to work through the meaning of their infertility. A pastor or othersupportive counselor could help them work through the grief regarding theirinfertility and make an appropriate decision regarding adoption or artificialinsemination by donor.

Another ethical issue involved with AID is the chancethat offspring of the same donor may marry without being aware that theyare siblings. A single donor's sperm could be used to father dozens ofchildren though responsible physicians limit the number to five or sixinseminations. The possibility does, however, exist, that as AID becomesmore popular, persons will marry, not knowing they have the same biologicalfather.

In light of the above issues, the Christian communitycan take the position that while AID can be a blessing, a couple shouldcarefully consider the various issues before making the decision. It isto be hoped this process will involve the support of a Christian pastorwho can help them decide whether to handle their infertility by remainingchildless, by adoption, or by artificial insemination by donor.
 

2.6.2.2 For discussion  [go to Table of Contents]

What are the moral and ethical questions that a coupleneeds to discuss when considering a pregnancy by artificial inseminationby donor?