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On
Thursday, February 12, the city of San Francisco issued marriage
licenses to and presided over marriage ceremonies for more than
50 homosexual couples.
On
Thursday, February 12, the Massachusetts Legislature adjourned in
exhaustion after struggling for two days to answer a seemingly simple
question: What is marriage?
On
Thursday, February 12, the precarious standing of marriage became
absolutely clear.
Is
marriage – as the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court declared
and San Francisco officials apparently believe – nothing more than
an intimate sexual relationship between two consenting adults; a
relationship with no rational connection to motherhood, fatherhood,
child bearing or child rearing?
Or
is it something more?
The
answer, viewed from any historical, anthropological or sociological
perspective, is quite clear. Marriage is more than an emotional
and sexual attachment. Much more.
Giambattista
Vico, after completing an exhaustive study of ancient history, concluded
in 1725 that marriage between a man and a woman is an essential
characteristic of civilization. Without strong social norms that
encourage a man to direct his sexual attentions to a single woman
and thereafter care for his offspring, Vico concluded that chaos
ensued. Marriage, he wrote, was the “seedbed” of society.
British
anthropologist J. D. Unwin reached the same conclusion some 200
years later. In his 1934 book, Sex and Culture, Unwin chronicled
the historical decline of 86 different cultures. His exhaustive
survey revealed that “strict marital monogamy” was central to social
energy and growth. Indeed, no society flourished for more than three
generations without it. Unwin stated it this way, "In human
records there is no instance of a society retaining its energy after
a complete new generation has inherited a tradition which does not
insist on prenuptial and postnuptial continence."
In
the 21st century, the findings of Vico and Unwin are
confirmed by hundreds of sociological studies that document the
impact of marital forms and marital dissolution on men, women and
children. Those studies speak with a surprisingly uniform voice:
enduring marriage between a man and a woman is the best environment
for the social, physical, mental, emotional and economic development
of men, women and children. Without stable marriage, women suffer,
men suffer – and children suffer the most. Every deviation from
the ideal model of enduring monogamous marriage between a man and
a woman increases the suffering of men, women and children.
Marriage,
therefore, is more than an intimate association between two people.
It civilizes men. It protects children. It generates social energy.
It fosters individual and collective growth. It teaches norms.
It
creates culture.
But,
on Thursday, February 12, the actions of state and local legislatures
on both coasts demonstrated that marriage is in chaos.
Marriage
must not become the victim of the confusion of Thursday, February
12. America must amend its Constitution to specify that marriage
is a union between a man and a woman. This is the only sure way
to restore order to this venerable and surpassingly important social
institution.
And, unless order is soon restored to marriage, Giambattista
Vico, J.D.Unwin and hundreds of social scientists have already
documented what will happen to America beginning on Friday, February
13.
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© 2004 Meridian
Magazine. All Rights Reserved.
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