Opinion
To Marry or Not to Marry: the Discontents of Having a Civilization
The Royal Examiner ran a piece with the tweedle-dee/tweedle-dum title: “To Marry or not to Marry: the Modern Dilemma”. It was headed under “Interesting things to know,” and the victory went to “Tweedle-dum.”
Two positives are granted to Marriage:
- When divorce happens, you get to divvy up the stuff with a lot less headache
RE Solution: lawyers and notaries can draft legal documents to support you! Don’t sweat it.
- The formal ceremonial nature of a marriage may “ add a degree of emotional security to the relationship.”
RE Solution: realize that the same can be said for “commitment ceremonies” and even “lavish vacations,” which can also “ serve as equally potent expressions of a lifelong pledge to one another.”
Lifelong sexual fidelity to another person as a commitment of love and sacrifice, raising children in the stability of a home with a Mom and Dad who aren’t going anywhere, and, come to think of it, having children period, don’t merit even honorable mentions as reasons to get married.
There was a groundbreaking book written by an atheist in 1934. His name was J.D. Unwin, and he wrote a book called “Sex and Culture.” He had studied eighty primitive tribes and six Great Civilizations, and he himself was startled by the findings: without the widespread practice of monogamous marriage as the cultural norm, civilizations fall apart. Unwin found that civilizations thrived when monogamous marriage is practiced because people, motivated by the desire to take good care of their most precious possessions (their children), make long-term and sacrificial commitments to provide their progeny the best of things: shelter, clothing, food, and protection: i.e., stability. These familial commitments translate to larger commitments to the common order of town, state, and country. Unwin found that historically, the first complete generation who lived without the cultural expectation of pre-marital chastity and post-marital fidelity was the generation in which that civilization lost its collective will to sustain itself. We’re here: following the Grim Pied Piper over the same cliff, others have foregone. In its own small-minded, short-sighted way, the Royal Examiner is part of the dismantling process, in evidence everywhere, of our civilization.
L.M. Clark
Warren County, Virginia
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