In Part II we will examine the origins of the marriage relationship.

Much of the material for this series has been excerpted from Ye shall be as gods which succinctly frames the opposing Christian and humanist worldviews with regard to human relationships in general and marriage specifically. [Johnson, Chapter 20, American Family – Marriage and Family.]

As one reflects on how humans have organized themselves over time, there is and has been a great diversity of societal forms in various cultures and periods of history. However, underlying this variety is a structured order or arrangement that reflects the “creational givens.” One of these givens is that the family structure is a societal institution established by the creator. And the family structure consisting of “…a father, mother and children living together in bonds of committed caring is not an arbitrary happenstance; nor is it mere convention that can be dismissed when it has outlived its usefulness.” This ordered family structure is a part of the human constitution and is ingrained in man’s nature in all of its facets—biological, emotional, social and moral. This structure allows for variety but sets definite boundaries, i.e., lines that cannot be crossed without being in opposition to the divinely structured order of the family. [Wolters, p. 96.]

The ordered family structure flows from God and is described in Genesis 1:27 which states, “God created man in his own image…male and female he created them…” Their characters and roles are distinct, but both are created in His image. Therefore, the roles of husband and wife and father and mother (monogamous married couple living with their children) are not societal constructs from which we are to be liberated. True human fulfillment is attained when men and women are faithful to the foundational principles of family.

Through the millennia the molding and shaping of marriage and family progressed, not with changes to the basic structure but in the fleshing out of its bones. By our very nature, men and women are a “pair-bonding” species. From such comes reproduction and nurturance. Parents shape the moral understanding, behavior, feeling, and worldview of their children. Most importantly, “The family is where ‘socialization’—the generational transmission of moral and cultural values—takes place.” The home was the basic organizing unit of humankind—a father, mother, and children living together in bonds of committed caring. The home became part of the extended family, then village, community, and ultimately state. Society arose from the success of the home, and without the stable home a civilized society would have been impossible. [Bennett, pp. 44-45.]

The cultural universals of marriage and family provide for the needs of society, and across the millennia economic and political considerations played a major role in selection of marriage partners. [Coontz, p. 7.] Society grew and stabilized through marriage and family and a network of extended family (relatives and friends) in which there are reciprocal expectations, obligations, and responsibilities. In this larger sense, marriage was more than just commitment between two people. It is a ceremonious and formal union in which two families celebrate the marriage and the consequent “entanglement” of the families. Each family rises in status or affinity with the other as well as having reciprocal claims on each other. With status and affinity comes the motivator to right conduct by not bringing dishonor to the family. Another basic need of society is the establishment of rules for sexual conduct. The family supports monogamy between the husband and wife. To such is born children that have status as family. Without monogamy the family tends to dilution and disintegration through “…loss of legitimacy, social identity, legal recognition, cultural tradition, and an estate.” In both the nuclear and extended families, marriage provides the best arrangement for the nurture and protection of children, the impartation of respect for the authority of parents, and the recognition of obligations to the elder members of family. In other words, the cultural universals of marriage and family are the means whereby generational transmission of moral and cultural values is most effectively achieved. [Bennett, pp. 44-45, 174-178.]

The seedbed of what are considered to be many of the ethical qualities of the modern nuclear family that were critical to its development in Western civilization lay in the tribal society of ancient Israel, but the nuclear family as we know it was not a product of that society. Characteristics of ancient Israel that are in conflict with definition of the modern nuclear family include polygamy and the keeping of concubines among certain classes and the wealthy, arranged marriages (for economic, political, and social reasons), and the lack of legal and property rights and status for women. However, from the Hebrews we received two outstanding contributions to the development of the modern nuclear family: their commitment to family life and making marriage the focus of human sexuality (and opposition to infidelity and homosexuality). Where the Hebrews opened the way, Christianity would continue the moral refinement of marriage and family. As Western civilization was Christendom, we must recognize the importance of Christianity and its inestimable impact on our understanding of marriage and family.

In Christianity, the marriage relationship was of such importance that it is described in terms of Christ’s relationship with the church (His bride). With the new definition of marriage and family in the New Testament came a remarkable elevation in the status of women. In the first century world, women were of low social standing in virtually all cultures. They were considered inferior to men and responsible for sexual sin. But, Jesus’ attitude and example during His earthly ministry became the definitive model for our understanding of male-female relationships, marriage, and family life. Paul’s teachings on the relationship of men and women, marriage, and family added texture and detail to Jesus’ ministry. Both men and women were held accountable to the same standards of morality. The vows of marriage were meant to be permanent with divorce allowed under very limited circumstances.

With Christianity the understanding of the divine concept of marriage and family came into full view. But it would take another 1,500 years before “…permanent, monogamous marriage had triumphed, and home was more comforting and more private.” [Bennett, pp. 45-50, 53.] In Part III we turn our attention to the nature of marriage under the Christian and humanistic worldviews.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), pp. 307-308, 310-312.

Albert M. Wolters, Creation Regained, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1985, 2005), p. 96.

William J. Bennett, The Broken Hearth, (New York: Doubleday, 2001), pp. 44-50, 53, 174-178.

Stephanie Coontz, Marriage, a History, (New York: Penguin Group, 2005), p. 7

This is the first of a five-part series on marriage. In Part I we will examine the underlying worldviews of Christianity and humanism as it applies to humankind’s relationships in the broader sense. Part II will more specifically examine the origins of marriage. In Part III we turn our attention to the nature of marriage under the Christian and humanistic worldviews. In Part IV we will examine the assault on the divine concept of marriage and the pathologies of marriage and relationships under the dominant humanistic worldview in America. In Part V, we will examine the consequences to society under the humanistic worldview of marriage and relationships.

The reader is cautioned to not consider Parts I and II as merely an academic and therefore optional exercise in understanding the radical assault on marriage in twenty-first century America. Rather it is a fundamental and integral prerequisite in understanding marriage and the conflict regarding marriage in the battle of worldviews in the twenty-first century.

Much of the material for this series has been excerpted from Ye shall be as gods which succinctly frames the opposing Christian and humanist worldviews with regard to human relationships in general and marriage specifically. [Johnson, Chapter 20, American Family – Marriage and Family.]

The Trinitarian relationship is a picture of God’s fundamental nature or being. Under the Judeo-Christian ethic or beliefs, man was specially created for relationship with God. We are also made for relationship with one another. These Judeo-Christian beliefs are supported by a thoughtful reflection on the history of humankind in which those permanent things and universals stand as unrelenting testimonies of the truth of this special relationship with God and with each other. This history also points to the hierarchical nature of the relationships of God, humankind, and nature.

The distinction between the respective worldviews of humanism and Christianity regarding relationships can be visualized in positional terms, i.e., vertical versus horizontal. For Christians, the primary nature of those relationships is vertical (hierarchical)—God’s being is shown by the Father-Son relationship and the relationship of Christ with the Church of which He is the head and we are the body. Because man was created in God’s image, the hierarchical pattern of relationships is evident in various entities throughout history— marriage, family, community, nations, and the Kingdom of God. Hierarchy implies authority, superior and subordinate, order, and rank. Furthermore, if society is to be understood, it must have structure, and structure requires hierarchy which implies distinctions.

Weaver called the “steady obliteration of those distinctions” the most significant omen of our time. Modern society embraces the humanistic perversion “…that in a just society there are no distinctions”, but this leads to a loss of cultural center and ultimately disintegration. And the most dangerous idea of modern society is an undefined equalitarianism which pretends to be the champion of justice but is the opposite. [Weaver, pp. 41-42.] In reality, humanistic equalitarianism is a thief of status, property, patrimony, and ultimately freedom. In such is not found justice.

Codes of behavior upon which cultures and societies must rest rely on fraternity and not equality. Fraternity resonates through history as it is the offspring of the seminal purposes of man— relationship with God and other men. The object of fraternity is other-directed and speaks of duty, congeniality, cooperation, and sense of belonging whereas equality focuses attention on self and results in egotism. Equality, rightly applied, is equality before God and the law. But under the humanistic worldview, equality has become a rapacious egalitarianism that imposes regimentation and leveling of circumstance which results in unnatural social groupings. One senses the relentless gravity of the humanistic worldview pulling society downward from hierarchy into a flat (horizontal) social plain and consequential mediocrity. Such humanistic regimentation and leveling of condition result in loss of a sense of belonging and place which leads to suspicion and resentment. From this we see the humanistic definition of equality as “…a disorganizing concept in so far as human relationships mean order.” [Weaver, pp. 41-42.]

If one reflects on the various descriptions of humanism through its definition, philosophy, application, and worldview, one can see the emphasis on the horizontal (egalitarian) and the sharp contrasts with the vertical (hierarchical) with regard to relationships in all spheres of family and society. By egalitarian is meant a belief in human equality with special emphasis on “social, political, and economic rights and privileges” and a focus on the removal of any inequalities among humankind. An examination of just a few of humanism’s principles will assist in developing this mental picture.

Chief among these leveling principles is humanism’s insistence on denial of God, a severance that encompasses both time and authority. In other words, God does not now exist nor existed before the appearance of the universe. Creation was a random process of nature; therefore, we are not subject to the authority of some creator.

A second example of the horizontal nature of relationships (and denial of hierarchy, rank, and order) in the humanistic worldview regards the nature of man. There are no giants upon whose shoulders we stand. Quite the contrary, contemporary man is the latest and greatest model that evolved from the slime pits of the past. As a product of evolution, humankind cannot be fallen nor have need of redemption. If man is not fallen, then there cannot be right and wrong, only different points of view. Man is his own master and owes nothing to a mythical God or the ancients. Humanism’s exaltation of self over family, denial of patrimony, emphasis on the present and the experiential, flexible and interchangeable values, life lived for the moment for there is nothing beyond, and deference to the senses represent a detachment from any hierarchical bonds of duty, obligation, patrimony, and the permanent things. There is no heaven above nor hell below and therefore no hierarchy, only a progressive and everlasting march to an unattainable and unknowable horizon that continually recedes into the distance.

In contrast to the humanistic worldview, Weaver described the hierarchical nature of family and its bond with fraternity.

The ancient feeling of brotherhood carries obligations of which equality knows nothing. It calls for respect and protection, for brotherhood is status in family, and family is by nature hierarchical…It places people in a network of sentiment, not of rights… [Weaver, pp. 35, 41-42.]

With this understanding of the contrast between the two worldviews regarding human relationships, we are now able to move into a more specific examination of the origins of the marriage relationship.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), pp. 305-307.

Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences, (Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1948), pp. 35, 41-42.