Throwback Post:
I think the question of the continuing deification of the state in modern life is an interesting one. Ultimately, winning the argument about traditional marriage (by which I mean both the belief in man-woman marriage and also the indissoluble nature of marriage- i.e., no divorces aside from Jesus’ single exception) is a daunting task for modern Christians. It is a daunting task because even before the debate begins, Christians are faced with the fact that nearly everyone (including Christians themselves) already have a distorted understanding of marriage.
Prior to the modern era, the basic conception of marriage in Judeo-Christian culture was as an Order of Creation and an economic relationship. Since all property was tied up in land, and land was owned by families, marriage was a way of ensuring intelligent and rational means of wealth transference and (depending on the status of the family) political alliances. Theologically speaking as well, love was secondary in the definition of marriage. In Luther’s commentary on Genesis and in the Catechisms, he understands marriage as an Order of Creation established by God that defines the human self in this age. Here Luther echoed Jesus in Matthew.
Luther writes that God designed the world to function according to three estates after the Fall: marriage / family (including economic or civil life), the Church, and the government to curb evil. Everyone has vocations within these estates.
Similarly, the Roman Catholic Church understands marriage as both an something rooted in creation, and elevated by the order of grace. Though I may disagree with the Roman Catholic definition theologically, the commonality between it and the Lutheran one is clear: marriage is a reality rooted in legal, creational, and economic relationships. It isn’t about the subjective feelings or personal preferences of the participants. People in the pre-modern world, of course, did experience romance and love (it’s a universal human phenomenon), but such realities had only an incidental relationship to marriage. For perspective on this, read some of the medieval chivalric romances: the authors actually assume that love and romance are only incidental to marriage, or in very extreme versions, very nearly impossible within marriage.
Things changed in the 19th century. Since capitalism made wealth transference and generation possible without handing it down through kinship, western European and American society developed a new rationale for marriage. This rationale was companionship and romance, and marriage was therefore redefined as a public ratification of one’s subjective romantic feelings. After this, divorce became more common. Why? Because if one no longer experiences affectionate companionship with one’s spouse then the whole relationship ceases to serve its function. Hence, why not just move on? Of course there were still legal barriers to divorce, but after the 1960s and the advent of no-fault divorce, rates of divorce went off the charts. Moreover, the theory of companionship marriage also made same-sex marriage and other martial arrangements thinkable in new ways. If companionship and romance are the rationale for marriage, then why shouldn’t individuals of the same sex get married since they can obviously experience love and companionship as well as an opposite-sex couple?
This is why the same-sex marriage argument is so powerful in our context, even though at best it’s an exercise in the logical fallacy of “begging the question.” In other words, what advocates for same-sex marriage already assume is that same-sex relationships are the equivalent to heterosexual relationships. Consequently, denying gay men and lesbians the ability to marry is an act of discrimination. Same-sex marriage is a a matter of “marriage equality.” Nevertheless, the question remains: why can the advocates of same-sex marriage assume that there is an equivalency and appeal to this equivalency with such success? Because most assume that marriage is a public ratification of subjective feelings about another person- i.e., companionship marriage. Since most heterosexual individuals in our society already assume this, such an appeal works. If one, for example, believes that marriage is an Order of Creation and tied to specific heterosexual activities, then the argument doesn’t work. Also, if one assumes that marriage ordains certain goods that are tied to the sexual diversity of the persons involved and that these goods remain good irrespective of the subjective feeling of the partners, then the argument also falls apart.
But almost no one still sees marriage as an Order of Creation, and that’s why the same-sex marriage debate is not winnable for Christians in this society: we abandoned the correct understanding of marriage a long time ago. As a result, we can’t appeal to a model of marriage that even conservative Christians unconsciously don’t ascribe to.
This is a revised version of thoughts first posted May 14, 2013.
Image of Luther and the Three Estates from Bryan Wolfmueller, “Thinking Like a Lutheran: The Three Estates (Quotation Collection Post),” World Wide Wolfmueller, July 30, 2016, https://wolfmueller.co/threeestates/.