Consider
the following situation: you are shopping at the grocery store when you notice
a young couple in the aisle ahead of you, filling their cart from a single
list, stopping occasionally to embrace and kiss one another—the picture of
happiness and harmony. If you were to assume that these two are newly-weds
enjoying a blissful morning of shopping together, I have bad news: you are a
social dinosaur.
The
reality is, it’s long past the time when we could presume that people who
appear to be married are actually so. Indeed, I do not think it would be
overstating the matter to say that in the 21st century, couples who live
together conjugally without actually being married are the rule rather than the
exception.
Why is
this so? Many answers might be offered, but I would suggest that the
predominance of social utilitarianism has much to do with it. Utilitarianism, a
philosophy that drives much of modern life, basically teaches that the purpose
of society is to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number of people.
Applied
to marriage, utilitarianism says that the purpose of the relationship is to give
the couple the most possible mutual happiness. Marriage is seen as an
investment whose ultimate purpose is to be profitable for both partners.
In this
light, it is hardly surprising that people choose to “test drive” their
conjugal relationships. After all, no wise investor would put down a cent
without first determining what dividends he or she is likely to reap. Living
with someone before deciding on a lifelong commitment is just good business
sense…
Of
course, there is a problem. A human relationship is not a business venture.
People are not collections of assets to be accessed by others. When I relate to
my wife, I am not merely offering one kind of happiness (financial security,
for instance) in exchange for another (for instance, her maintenance of the
home and care of the children).
If I
relate to my wife in this way, as if she is a means to an end, then she ceases
to be a person and become an object, to be used for my self-centred purposes.
The utilitarian, “investment” approach to marriage, as reasonable as it first
appears, is ultimately an exercise in depersonalization and dehumanization.
But if
marriage is not an investment, how should we view it? In ancient societies, the
answer was clear: marriage was a covenant between two people. Having agreed on
the “goods” of marriage (companionship, children, stability and security), a
man and a woman made a public declaration of a lifelong commitment to one
another. According to the Roman definition of marriage, marriage is “the
sharing of the whole of life.”
The
covenant view of marriage does not ask, “Why should I commit to this person?
What’s in it for me?” Rather, it assumes a shared set of values and publicly
declares a commitment to uphold those values. When David made a covenant of
friendship with Jonathan, he swore to uphold the love they already had for one
another. When God made covenants with Israel, He swore to abide by His
faithfulness to previous generations.
And when
I make a covenant of marriage with my wife, I am swearing to uphold the values
we share around our faith, childrearing beliefs, and so on. I do not ask myself
how much happiness I can gain from our life together. Rather, I commit to her
personally because it is good to do so, regardless of my personal happiness.
But is
marriage nothing more than a covenant bond, a couple’s public commitment to
sharing the whole of life together?
Speaking
as an Orthodox Christian, I would say that marriage must both involve and
transcend such a bond. While a couple needs to be committed to values greater
than their own happiness if they want to make a lasting and harmonious
marriage, their ultimate goal is to make the relationship itself into an
encounter with the very wellspring of their conjugal life. In short, they are
called to make their marriage a sacrament.
According
to the Orthodox Christian understanding, a sacrament is the point of
intersection between God and creation. By this definition, the original
Sacrament is the Person of Jesus Christ—God fully revealed in a human being.
And since Jesus’ humanity was the central point of God’s self-revelation, all
of human life (and by extension, all of the cosmos) becomes a point of
encounter with God—a Sacrament.
The
so-called “sacraments” of the Church are formal ways in which we proclaim and
uphold the sacramental power of all life. In Baptism we claim the foundational
element (water) as a meeting-place with God. In the Eucharist we claim the most
basic of human activities (eating) as a way to enter God’s presence.
By
extension, Orthodox Christianity understands marriage in sacramental terms. Men
and women are called to show forth Christ and His Church through their conjugal
union and daily family life. As the couple love and serve each other, they
reveal the Incarnate love of God in their domestic corner of the cosmos.
Like the
rites of Baptism and the Eucharist, the rite of matrimony is a formal way in
which the Church proclaims the sacramental nature of a marriage. And just as
being baptised or receiving the Eucharist does not prevent a person from
abandoning their faith or committing sins, the rite of matrimony itself does
not achieve any transformation in a marriage; it is not magic, but rather a
challenge for Christians to incarnate the presence of Jesus Christ in their
marriage. How they answer that call is entirely up to them.
In other
words, the sacramental view of marriage begins where the covenantal view leaves
off. This is clear in the Eastern Orthodox rite of matrimony, which is
conspicuously lacking a set of vows for the bride and the groom because it is
assumed and understood that the couple already know and embrace the goods of
marriage and have made a covenant with one another to share the whole of life.
The focus of the service lies elsewhere, on calling the couple to make their relationship
a revelation of Christ.
In short,
the point of a sacramental marriage is not the creation of a lasting marital
bond; the existence of that bond is assumed in a sacramental marriage. For
Christians who are called to be witnesses to Jesus Christ, having a marriage
that works is a necessary prerequisite to a more profound end. We are called to
go beyond making a good marriage, and seek to proclaim in our love for one
another the Source of all good marriages, becoming in ourselves icons of the
eternal wedding of the divine Bridegroom to His human Bride, of God to
humanity, of heaven to earth, in a union that will have no end.
By Fr.
Richard Rene
Source: http://www.pravmir.com/marriage-invesment-covenant-or-sacrament/
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