What is the Constructive of Marriage?

Marriage creates the basic social unit of family, communityand society. The meaning of marriage in Biblical literatureascribes to marriage a two-fold purpose, Procreation (Gen. 1:28)and Companionship (Gen. 2:18). To these two purposes theTalmud adds a third, the fulfillment of oneself as a person.

He who has no wife is not a proper man; he lives withoutjoy, blessing, goodness, protection and peace. Jewish traditionregards marriage as the idea of human state. While celibacy wasadvocated by the essences, the mainstream of Jewish thoughtlooks upon it with disfavor since it does not permit the individualto procreate and thereby fulfill one's basic obligation to society.

Although the Talmud refers to the sexual urge as yeter ha-ra(lit., the evil inclination), it is basically not regarded as evil.Because the sex drive is such a powerful force in human life, itmust be contained within the bounds of marriage and controlledby limitations on permissibility even within that framework.When thus moderated, it is a powerful motivating force whichserves good end.

Where it is not for the yeter ha-ra, no man would build ahouse, marry a woman or have children. While polygamy waspermissible during the Biblical period and until the Takama adecree for the betterment of society not based upon traditionalJewish law of Robenu Gershom around the year 1,000 C.E., itwas practiced primarily by the upper classes.

Even in Biblical times the norm was that a man had onlyone wife. This is corroborated by the prophets' use of marriageas a metaphor for the relationship between God and Israel, andby the metaphorical interpretation of the Song of Songs. Whilepolygamy was still possible in Talmudic times, it was almostunknown. Marriage was prohibited among close relatives. TheBiblical laurs of incest were supplemented and expanded in theTalmud and became the basic of incest laws throughout Westerncivilization.n

During the Biblical period, endogamous marriages wereencouraged while exogamous marriages were opposed in orderto protect the community from idolatry and to preserve Jewishidentity.

Although marriage is not a sacrament in the Christiansense of the word and can be dissolved by divorce (Deut. 24:14),it is considered a sacred relationship. The Hebrew word formarriage is Kiddusbin (lit., sanctification). In marriage, thewife is consecrated or set apart to her husband. While the legalobligations of husband and wife and their respective families weretraditionally defined in the Ketubal (marriage document), thecouple also had the moral obligations of love, honor and respectfor each other.

In traditional marriage, ceremony has two parts: Erusin, thebetrothal, and Nissu'in the marriage proper.

In Talmudic times, the two ceremonies could be separatedmarried erusin, cohabitation could not take place until nissu'in.This posed many practical and legal difficulties for the coupleas well as for the Jewish community. Consequently in post-Talmudictimes, the two ceremonies were combined into one.This has been the accepted practice since the Twelfth Centuryexcept in a few oriental communities.

A marriage ceremony may be performed in any location, sincesanctity in Jewish tradition resides not in a place but rather inthe purpose for which a place is used. It may be held on any dayof the week except for the Sabbath or a festival when the signingof a legal document is prohibited in tradition Judaism. Whiletechnically this prohibition does not apply in Reform Judaism,the custom of not holding a wedding on the Sabbath or a festivalis so rooted in tradition that it is almost uniformly adhered to.

The marriage enrichment movement and methodology beganin Spain in January 1962 under the leadership of Father GabrielCalvo, and in the U.S. this program became known as marriageencounter. David and Vera Mace began marriage enrichmentwith Quaker couples in October 1962 and 1973. They hadorganized the association of couples for marriage enrichment(ACME); within a decade several thousand lay and professionalcouples in all fifty states held membership in ACME.

In the US, the movement has been closely associated withreligious faith groups, and some fifteen national programs aredirectly connected to an established religious organization.

Many programs are localized but some of the moreprominent national programs are: Marriage Encounter(ME), Marriage Communication Labs (MCL), RelationshipEnhancement Programs (RE), Couples CommunicationalPrograms (CCP), and Training in Marriage Enrichment(TIME), listening and loving Practical Application of IntimateRelationship Skills (PAIRS) and the Association of Couples forMarriage Enrichment (ACME).

In 1975, the Council of Affiliated Marriage EnrichmentOrganizations (CAMEO) was formed with a major concernto establish standards for leadership training, but a system ofnational certification of leaders and accreditation of trainingcenters is yet to be developed. The states aim is to make goodmarriage better and implicitly, the goal is to foster personalgrowth and mutual fulfillment in enough marriage that thepublic image of marriage as a fulfillment relationship will beenhanced. A growth oriented, potential oriented perspectiveof the individual and a dynamic view of the martial system isemployed to promote an intentional companionship model ofmarriage in the varied programs.

Experimental, relational inductive methods of educationare employed to enhance communicational skill and alterbehavior or individual with the primary objective of enrichingthe marital relationship. But prevention of marital dysfunctionis also perceived to be as important as intervention or correction.Methodologically, the programs focus on the couple relationshipthrough self-disclosure of feelings and thoughts concentrate onthe present tense and the positive strengths of the mates, teachcommunicational skill, accept conflict positively and resolve itcreatively, seek behavioral and attitudinal change advocate acompanionship model of marriage and enable the renegotiatingof commitments and the reforming of contracts.

There is some indication that the movement has contributedsignificantly to the stabilizing of marriage and that the programshave enhanced marital relationship in middle class Americans.Sufficient research data has not been collected to verify either thetypes of individuals served or to identify the specific relationshipchanges that have been produced or the stability of the changesover a period of the time. Also, some questions about themovement have been raised from both clinical and theologicalperspective.

Among the clinical concerns are: the lack of selectivity orscreening of the participant the seeming little appreciation of thepower of resistance and anticipatory grief in the promulgationof instant intimacy, the assumption that enhancement of arelationship follows better communication, the arrested focus onintimacy between equal self-fulfilled individuals, and the lack ofstructured after care and or sufficient attention to the reentry ofparticipants following their weekend retreat.

Marriage encounter, however, has developed a follow upstructure involving a monthly couples group. Theologicalconcerns that have been related to the movement are implicithumanism and their implicit promotion of a new churchmentality. Theologically along with enticing persons to maketheir marriage more perfect by mastering skills of sharingfeelings, the movement might also give greater acknowledgementto the ambiguity, the frailty, and the incompleteness of humanexistence.

Otherwise it may be in danger of implicitly encouragingpersons to be committed to a little more than instantgratification of immediate impulsive feelings within the closedsystem of the couple. But marriage is considered a major rolein Christian marriage, even though the institution of marriageis not intrinsically Christian, and its presence throughout timeand space has been recognized quite apart from any theologicalconsiderations. In Christian doctrine, marriage fulfills God's planof creation, for we were created in the marriage in the image ofGod, and blessed as male and female (Gen. 1:27).

Moreover the doctrine of Christian marriage is so integrallybuilt into existence that it provides a paradigm for God'srelation to humanity. In a cosmic analogy, God is to us as aloving husband is to his wife (Jer. 31:32; Isa. 54:5) and this ratiocination is echoed where Christ is pictured as the bride-groomin the synoptic gospels as well as in the writings of Paul (2 Cor.11:2).

From these and similar passages, Christians may deducethat the mystical wedding of God-in-Christ to the church is anarchetype for human marriage. Throughout the Bible, marriageis considered a covenant (Serith) whose very nature is fidelity. Thecovenant is not only between husband and wife, but also betweenthat couple and God. Unlike a legal contract whose agreementmay be broken when conditions change, this covenant is bindingfor better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and inhealth. It partakes of the age-old covenantal characteristic; thatis, it is a freely made promise that will involve an obligatory task,and it is negotiated for permanence. It includes witnesses andsocial family support; it can be renewed and it enjoys the blessingof God whose promise seals it.

The once-heated debate between Protestant and RomanCatholic Christians over whether marriage is a sacrament hasbeen subsiding. It stemmed from a tridentate dogma, whichhad been based on a translation of mysterion (Eph. 5:32) assacramentum. This complex doctrine from Paul's metaphysicalconcept of psychophysical bonds was seen at the councilof Trent as a mystical union. As regulated by the RomanCatholic Church. Marriage is conferred on one another by abaptized woman and a baptized man marrying in the presenceof witnesses. With Christian faith present, this sacrament ofmarriage mediates a means of divine grace.

The Concept of Social Relationship

The term "social relationship" will be used to designate thesituation where two or more persons are engaged in conductwherein each takes account of the behavior of the other in ameaningful way and is therefore oriented in these terms. Thesocial relationship thus consists entirely of the probability thatindividuals will behave in some meaningfully determinable way.

It is completely irrelevant why such a probability exists, butwhere it does there can be found a social relationship.

1) A defining criterion therefore demands at least a minimumof natural orientation of the conduct of each to that of theother. Its content may be most varied: conflict, hostility, sexualattraction, friendship, loyalty or severance of an agreement,economic, erotic, or any other form of competition, a sharing ofoccupations or membership in the some class or nation. In thelater cases, these memberships may not constitute social conduct,as will be discussed later. Furthermore, the definition does notinform as to the degree of solidarity, or its opposite, prevailingamong those engaged in this conduct.

2) It is always a case if used in this context of the meaningimputed to those individuals involved in a given concretesituation, either on the average or in theoretically constructedpure type but it is never a case of normatively correct ormetaphorically true meaning. The social relationship consisteven in the case of such social organizations as a state, churchassociation or marriage in the fact that there has existed, exists, orwill exist a probable conduct in some definition way appropriateto this meaning. It is necessary to emphasize this in order toavoid the rectification of these concepts, their degenerationinto empty conceptualization. Thus a state loses is sociologicalsignificance, as soon as it is probable that it ceases to manifestany kind of meaningfully oriented social behavior. Suchprobability may be very high or it may be insignificant, but inany case it is only in the sense and degree in which it does existor can be estimated to exist that the corresponding relationshipexists. Otherwise no other meaning can be given to the phrasethat a given state exists or has ceased to exist.

3) All parties who are mutually oriented in a given socialrelationship do not necessarily manifest the same subjectivemeaning about it, there need not be any reciprocity. Friendships,love, loyalty, contractual trust and nationalism, on the other side,may well be faced with an entirely different attitude on the other.To the parties involved, their conduct merely shows various formsand meanings, and the social relationship is simply asymmetrical.Nevertheless, they may be mutually oriented in so far as oneparty presumes a particular attitude toward himself on the partof the other and orient his own conduct accordingly.

Regardless of whether or not he is mistaken in hisexpectations, this can and usually will result in a certain courseof conduct and will have consequence for the form of therelationship exists only if in their expectations of this relationshipit means the same to all parties involved. For example, the actualattitude of a child to its father may be at least approximately thatwhich the father on the whole, has to expect. A social relationshipin which the attitudes are completely and fully orientedtoward each other is really a marginal case. According to ourterminology, the absence of reciprocity will exclude the existenceof a social relationship only if such mutual orientation is reallylacking in the behavior of the parties. Here and elsewhere, allsorts of transitional cases are the rule rather than the exception.

4) A social relationship can be of a transitory nature or ofvarying degrees of permanence. That is, it can be of such akind that there is a probability of the repeated recurrence of thebehavior which corresponds to its subjective meaning and istherefore expected because it is in consequence of such meaning.

But in order to avoid giving false impressions, it bearsrepetition to remember that it is only the existence of theprobability that corresponding to a given subjective meaningcomplex, a certain type of behavior will take place whichconstitutes the existence of the social relationship. Thus, thatfriendship or state exists or has existed means only this: that inthe judgment of us, the probability that given certain kinds ofknown subjective attitude of certain individuals, there will result,on the average, a certain specific type of conduct and nothingelse (compare above with No. 2). The unavoidable alternativefrom the legal point of view: whether or not a rule of law isendowed with legal validity and a legal relationship therefore canbe assumed to exist, such a simple alternative is not relevant tosociological problems.

5) The subjective meaning of a social relationship may changefor example, a political relationship or marriage relationship maychange, from one based on solidarity into one based on conflict.But then it is simply a question of terminological convenienceand of the degree of continuity of the change, whether it is saidthat a new relationship has come into existence or that the oldone continues but has acquired new meaning. The meaning toocan waver between constancy and permanency.

The meaningful content which remains relatively constantin a social relationship is capable of being expressed in axiomsto which the parties involved can be expected to adhere at leastapproximately by their partners. This is the most likely to be thecase, the more rational the conduct is in relation to give valuesor goals. There is far less possibility of rational formulation ofsubjective meaning in the case of an erotic attraction or a relationbased on personal loyalty or any other emotional type than thereis, for example, in the case of a business contract.

The meaning of a social relationship can be agreed to bymutual consent. This means that those who participate makepromises concerning theirs or any other way. Each participantexpects then that normally, and insofar as he behaves rationally,the other participant will orient this behavior in accordance withthe meaning of the argument as the first participant understandsit. His own behavior is thus partly goal-oriented and he expectsto adhere more or less loyalty to it, but it is also partly valuerelated, that is, it is his duty to adhere to the argument in thesense as he understands it.

Marriage Ethics

Chronological marriage ethics in the New Testament timescontinued many of these customs, but redefined the relationshipin terms of Christ and the Church marriage had now become asymbol of the kingdom of God. We have little existent evidenceof any nuptial right, except that it gradually involved evolvedinto an adaptation of contemporary customs that featured thepresence of a Bishop and a Eucharist.

Mutuality in the Lord was the key element (Eph. 5:21);tenderness to another was enjoined (1 Peter 3:7); and the unitiverelationship was emphasized (Mark 10:8). Nowhere in the NewTestament is sexual intercourse understood to be exclusivelyfor the procreation of children; the one-flesh bond of marriageis normative. By this time polygamy had been super seded bymonogamy; a higher place was accorded to women (Gal 3:28);and both husband and wife are considered joint heirs of the graceof life. The commitment to fidelity in the relationship and theexpectation of its permanence are stressed: What God has joinedtogether let not man put as under (Mark 10:9).