Marriage & Celibacy
What's the nature of marriage to God anyway? God never forbade arranged marriages, neither did Jesus, yet the most important relationship you'll ever have is the marriage one, so how can you marry someone you don't know or barely know? That is, the marriage is created artificially -- before the wedding, there was absolutely no relationship; after, the two are now the most important people in the world to each other.
Why is the marriage bond the only human relationship (as far as I know) that's broken at death? So for example, your mother will still be your mother in heaven, but your wife won't still be your wife. I don't know why this should be.
Isn’t the Song of Solomon too romanticized? Real life is not like this. All they ever talk about is how good the other looks, not about their virtue, relationship or companionship.
Isn’t it strange that in heaven, the most wonderful of places, people will have the same mother, but not the same father? Then there will be strange types of families even in heaven, and so how can it be a perfect place? Think of what it would be like for polygamous families.
How is there a portion of the Spirit in marriage? (Mal 2:15) Could this be said to be a form of common grace?
How does a young widow incur condemnation upon herself by “abandoning her former faith” and remarrying? This passage makes it seem like marriage is a bad thing. (I Tm 5:11-12)
That the 144,000 “have not defiled themselves with women” and “are virgins” makes it sound like sex is a bad thing. (Rv 14:3-4)
In the new creation there won’t be any romantic love. So that means that the romantic love here on earth will end. In the new creation former husbands and wives will still love each other, but not in a romantic way. But if all romantic love must come to an end, then what was the use of it in the first place? And knowing this, who the heck would want to get married? It’s such a waste! (in a way) (Mt 22:30)
Why do we only see celibacy encouraged in the New Testament, and not the Old, with the exception of Jeremiah (Jer 16:2)? (I Cor 7:1, 6-7, 25-28, 32-35, 39-40)
Why was John the Baptist OK with Herodias' first marriage to her uncle (Herod's half-brother, Philip)? (Mk 6:18)
On sham annulments (ie, Catholic divorce): This is a huge problem and important topic, and pretty much nobody's talking about it, which is why I will.
One of the glories of the Catholic Church (and yes, I mean "glory", that is, something to be supremely proud of), is its teaching on marriage, divorce and remarriage. The interesting thing is that the Church isn't really teaching anything new or revolutionary, since all it's done is stick to what everyone from time immemorial has known about marriage -- that it's forever.
So for those of you who don't know what the Catholic Church teaches, it says (in a nutshell), that there's no such thing as divorce, with 3 exceptions, but we can get to that later (and why I believe there probably ought to be no exceptions). In other words, though you might get a legal divorce, you can say you're divorced all you want, but that doesn't mean you're divorced in the eyes of God. And if you're not really divorced, then that means you can't get remarried until your first spouse dies, at which point, you're free. Remarriage, dating other people, having any kind of romantic relationship -- these are all really just adultery (more on this as well later). This is true no matter what the reason for the divorce, even if it's not your fault. So adultery is no excuse for you to do the same (ie, divorce your cheating spouse and remarry), and being abandoned doesn't mean you can abandon your spouse. Real harsh, I know, and Jesus agrees: '"I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.” 10 The disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” 11 But he said to them, “Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given. ... Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.” So Jesus basically says, "Take it or leave it. I'm not going to water this down to make it easier on you."And to give you a fuller explanation, here's the same basic quote, but from Mt 5:31-32: “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery."
And here, the same quote put slightly differently (I think more clearly): “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery. (Lk 16:18)
The same teaching from St. Paul: a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. 3 Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. (Rom 7:2-3)
And again, from St. Paul (I Cor 7:10-11): To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband 11(but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife.
Let's first look at why divorce is wrong, then we can go over what makes almost all annulments wrong.
First of all, without even defending Jesus' words recorded in the bible, we can prove that there's no divorce simply from natural law. What is marriage after all other than a permanent partnership of life between a man and woman? This is something everyone understands intuitively. Everyone knows that marriage is supposed to last forever (that is, until the death of one of the spouses). Everyone gets married with the expectation that it's going to be forever. Even for people who believe in divorce (and that's most people in this day and age, at least in countries and societies that can no longer be called "traditional"), nobody believes that divorce is a good thing, or even OK. It's generally seen as a necessary evil, a last resort. But what's the point of promising to be together or making this commitment, if it can always be undone if you so wish? Divorce defeats the purpose of marriage and confounds its meaning. You can't just say "We're married", and then just as easily say, "We're not married anymore." If you do that, you're turning marriage into a joke, and in fact, that's where it's heading and where it's been heading for a long time. Divorce contradicts marriage, attacks it at its very heart, and renders it completely meaningless, in which case, what's the point of getting married? If you're not committed to marriage and the meaning of marriage, don't get married. The number one way to divorce-proof your marriage is to not believe in divorce.
But what if it's too hard? Isn't it too hard? People might object that all of this might sound very well on paper, but that real life isn't so cut and clean. They might say my view is too simplistic, that I'm guilty of black-and-white thinking. I object. What kind of argument is that, that it's too hard? That's not an argument at all. That's called "I don't feel like it." That's called, "I say such-and-such is right, or such-and-such is wrong, because I say so, because it's convenient, because that's what's easier for me." Folks, that is not a reasonable argument. That's not an argument at all. That's called punking out. Nobody here is saying marriage is easy. I like how Jordan Peterson put it. He said that marriage isn't for when things are easy -- you don't marry for that! Marriage is precisely for when you don't feel like staying married! It's to force you to work it out, whether you like it or not.
Let's look at some history here. Did you know that with the rise of Christianity in Europe, the divorce rate fell? So the Church did a pretty good job of stamping out divorce (although in the Middle Ages, people were still trying tricky things to get around the rules, which we can get into later, when we talk about annulments.) So how did we get to this abysmal state, where there's some countries where the divorce rate is higher than 60% (like Luxembourg [65%] or Portugal [71%])? This is ridiculous and unbelievable. What happened? -- The Protestant Reformation.
Luther was the first one to permit divorce in certain cases, for example, in cases of adultery, abandonment or (willfully) not fulfilling the conjugal duty. While his criteria was pretty narrow, adultery itself covers a large percentage of marriages, since tons of people cheat, although the percentage obviously depends on sex, social status, time and place. There are also tons of sexless marriages out there. In any case, this was the first opening of the floodgates -- it's been one slippery slope from there. We can go more into this later. Shamefully, the Reformation was given dramatic impetus due to divorce -- England's well-known break with the Church due to Henry VIII wanting to divorce his wife. (Or what he wanted to call an annulment.) So then we shouldn't be too surprised that Henry did what many people are doing today -- getting divorced and married over and over again (6 times, in fact). This same guy chopped off not one, but two of his wives' heads. And there he was proclaiming himself to be the head of the Church in England (which in itself is screwed up). These things should be a clue that something went terribly wrong. Fast forward to nowadays and it's no wonder that people are getting divorced left and right. Almost everyone believes in divorce, and so hardly anyone believes in marriage, despite what they might say to the contrary. Even Protestants, who frown on divorce, ultimately uphold it as morally acceptable because they allow remarriage. How can there be remarriage unless you're truly divorced? Which means that they believe that you can truly divorce and that God will honor that. And so many of them get remarried right in church, right in front of God, and this is supposed to be acceptable, a joyous occasion, and the couple ought to be congratulated. What better way to scandalize the Lord? The only way you can say "No divorce" and really mean it is to not allow remarriage (except due to being widowed).
As time has passed and things have gotten even more liberalized, the very attitude towards divorce has changed. I discovered this the hard way when a relative was getting divorced and I went on the internet to try to find articles about how to help someone getting a divorce. All I could find was articles on how to support someone getting a divorce. It was all very PC, and I was particularly looking for articles from a Christian perspective! That was not what I had in mind. I wanted to know how to help this relative by supporting their marriage, not supporting their divorce! I searched in vain, but couldn't find a single one! That's when I realized just how far the divorce-positive culture had really gone. It was clear that even Christians are ashamed to honestly tell their friend or loved one that they would like to see them happily married and are willing to help them to that end. Or maybe they need some tough love and need someone to tell them straight out that they really have no good reason to get a divorce. Instead it's become all about emotionally supporting someone in whatever they've decided, without any regard for whether the decision itself is good or bad. And if this means ruining their lives and the lives of their spouse, children, family and friends, so be it. Why is it that something as serious and traumatic as divorce has come to be deemed at the same level of moral significance as deciding between chocolate and vanilla ice cream, as in, it really doesn't matter what you choose, so long as you're happy with your decision? We don't say this about other moral matters, like cheating on your taxes, lying on a resume, or being rude to underling workers. But getting a divorce is much worse than all of these things, and has much more serious and long-term repercussions, not just for the couple, but for society. Headaches at work can be bad, headaches from friends and family can be bad, but the worst kind of people headache is marriage problems. Therefore, this ought to be taken with the utmost seriousness, not just a flippant, "Well, just get a divorce. Problem solved." That's not solving the problem. That's just a complete and permanent failure.
So now onto Catholic annulments, which have become for all intents and purposes, Catholic divorce, no matter what the naysayers say. This is where ultimately, canon law is at fault, since it gives all sorts of reasons for why a marriage can be considered invalid. This has really just become a way for Catholics to have their cake and eat it too, ie, being proud to say there's no divorce, but also allowing people to do just that -- getting divorced and remarried in the Church.
So the only way a Catholic can do this is to get an annulment, that is, you have to come up with a reason for why you were never really married in the first place. If you were to say you accidentally married your brother or sister, this would definitely be a valid annulment, since your "marriage" is really incestuous, meaning it goes against God's law and natural law, and also civil law (although that doesn't really matter), so of course, you're not really married. Another truly valid reason for an annulment is a forced marriage, something that's more common in poorer countries, and which I think can especially happen in Muslim countries, given that the bride isn't actually at the wedding ceremony.
But this is also where there's a problem with canon law, since apparently, a shotgun wedding can be considered a forced marriage, if you want it to. That is, if you have a shotgun wedding, but you end up quite happy with your spouse, then you're considered validly married. That is, just because you had a shotgun wedding, that doesn't mean the Church says you're invalidly married, that you're not really married, that you're actually fornicating and that you need to get a civil divorce (which would be the case if you married your own sex, or married your brother or sister). No. It would only be considered invalid if it turns out after the fact that you're not happy and want out. So you see the duplicity here. Although the Church, in investigating a marriage to see if it qualifies for an annulment, will only look into the facts of the wedding, and not the subsequent life of the marriage, since what it's looking for is impediments to valid consent, in fact, it does look at the life of the marriage, since that's almost always why the couple is there in first place -- because they're unhappily married. Doesn't it tell you something that in the US, the Church used to only grant a minuscule number of annulments (338 in 1968), but nowadays, you have about a 90% chance of being granted one if you seek it (27,000 in 2006)?
Other causes for an annulment include those found under Canon 1095: "The following are incapable of contracting marriage: those who suffer from a grave defect of discretion of judgment concerning the essential matrimonial rights and duties to be handed over and accepted; those who are not able to assume the essential obligations of marriage for causes of a psychic nature." 2/3 of all annulments are granted because of this crap, which, as you can see, can be easily interpreted to mean whatever the heck you want.
Now let's get deeper and attack another 3 big reasons for granting annulments. These concern what are called in the Church the 3 goods of marriage: bonum fidei, bonum sacramenti, and bonum prolis. These mean, respectively, fidelity, permanence, and procreation.
First, bonum fidei. Someone wanting an annulment can claim that either they or their spouse didn't intend to be faithful. A weak example of this would be a womanizer having the attitude that marriage vows aren't to be taken seriously. An extreme example of this would be a couple that agrees to have an open marriage, or a porn actor getting married. (And yes, I've actually read about real-life cases of this.) I have to admit, when I first read about the polyamorous couple getting married, I had to wonder if I could even really call that a marriage, and this was way before I knew anything about bonum fidei. My conclusion, years later, is that yes, they were really married, even though they had agreed between themselves that they were allowed to have other relationships. I concluded this about the extreme examples from the strength of the weaker example. Obviously, there's tons of people out there who are cheaters at heart and only hold their marriage vows to be some sort of idealized abstraction. Though this kind of person ought not to get married, indeed, they do, they can, and they can validly get married. You might say that a womanizer can't validly marry, but on the other hand, they say that anyone is capable of cheating. Even King David committed adultery. While I'm sure the day before he saw Bathsheba he was sure he'd never do such a despicable thing, in fact, he just didn't know himself well enough, because in fact he was capable of such a thing. Let's say the womanizer gets married and then the next day he has a change of heart and decides that in fact, he's going to be good. Could anyone say that he's not really married because of his state of mind and his attitude at the time of the wedding ceremony? If this man, years later, were to admit that he used to be womanizer, right up to his wedding day, would a church marriage tribunal come after him and his wife claiming they need to get an annulment, because of this man's defect of consent? Of course not! They would just leave him alone and be glad he had a change of heart. Likewise, if a porn star gets married with no intention of quitting their job, I wouldn't thereby say that they're not really married -- only that they're really married and they're choosing to break their marriage vows. It's like the parable of the obedient and disobedient sons (Mt 21:28-32). The one who said he would obey ended up not obeying, and the one who said he wouldn't ended up changing his mind and being good. It's this second son who ends up being commended. Likewise, if a man goes into marriage without taking it seriously, but later decides he was wrong in his thinking, we would commend him and let him live happily with his wife and truly consider her to be his wife, and if another man goes into marriage believing he'll be faithful, but he ends up having an affair, we would just say he's a hypocrite. But they were both validly married. We need to stop thinking that only well-adjusted people can marry. No, it's an innate human capability. Unless you're severely retarded, you can get married. I can't really think of any other kind of impediment due to personal defect. Even people with Down's syndrome have had successful marriages. There's a big difference between saying that a lot of people shouldn't get married (which I would whole-heartedly agree with, and even Jesus agreed, as we saw above), and saying that a lot of people cannot contract a valid marriage, not because it's against the law, but because they're inherently incapable of doing so because of, say, a personality defect. But doesn't everyone have many personality defects to one degree or another? Even when Jesus agreed that marriage is hard and implicitly agreed with his disciples that "it is better not to marry" because of this, he didn't then bar people from marrying. No, he just said that if you bite off more than you can chew, you've still got to chew it. Let's pause here and really let the words of Jesus sink in -- what I mean is, consider carefully before you marry whether this is good for your eternal soul or not. I once heard a Protestant pastor say that the first thing God's going to ask you about at the Judgment (if you were married in this life) is what kind of spouse you were to your spouse. Although the bible nowhere says this, that definitely sounds right to me. So it would be horrible to think that you're endangering your soul (that is, in jeopardy of going to hell), all because you couldn't manage to get along with just one other person (your spouse). You had really better think this through, because by marrying, you may just be condemning yourself to eternal damnation. What's even more ironic is that so many people rejoiced and celebrated the day they got married, when this very day would turn out to be the undoing of their souls.
Now let's move on to bonum sacramenti. Many canonists would argue that your marriage is invalid if you don't believe that marriage is indissoluble, but that's pretty much everyone, because everyone believes in divorce nowadays. In fact, this is the very reason Pope Francis said that most marriages are invalid. Am I the only one who can see just how ironic this is? They believe in divorce, so when they (inevitably) end up wanting one, you say, "OK, go ahead" because they believe in divorce? Circular reasoning at its best, and this is what the canonists came up with when they were revising canon law during the Second Vatican Council.
The only kind of marriage that I can think of that could actually be annulled under the bonum sacramenti test are certain kinds of temporary marriage in Islam (mutah, misyar and urfi marriages; by the way, nikah mutah literally means "pleasure marriage", while nikah misyar is "traveller's marriage"). So we can see the problem right away here. Temporary marriage is a contradiction in terms. But that's literally what nikah mutah (for Shiites) and misyar (for Sunnis) are -- in mutah marriages the marriage period is specified beforehand, after which it's automatically over, while the misyar marriage leaves this more open to the later discretion of the couple. For example, a man from a Muslim country may go overseas to study, contract a (misyar) marriage to keep himself satisfied while he's away, but decide that he'll end it when his studies are over. On the other hand, he can also decide that he'll stick around indefinitely. My point is that he makes no definite commitment. Urfi marriages (in Sunnism) work a bit differently but are likewise often used in this way. All three forms are often used as covers for prostitution, especially mutah marriages, which can be contracted for as briefly as a few minutes. Although the Church upholds the validity of natural marriages, including Islamic ones, we can see here that mutah, misyar and oftentimes urfi marriages cannot be considered marriages at all (at least not from the Christian perspective), since they are purposefully temporary. In the Church's eyes, this is just fornication. But let's throw a wrench into all this and ask hypothetically, what if one were to contract a mutah marriage for 100 years, which you could very well do? I don't see why anyone would do this; you might as well just get married the regular way, but there's nothing to stop a Shiite from doing this. So if they were to do this, could it then be considered valid, given that one could hardly hope to even live that long, and therefore for all intents and purposes, the "marriage" would be de facto a partnership for life, if not by law? I'm not going to answer this here, mainly because I don't know, and partly because I don't see much utility in it, but it's certainly something to think about. Perhaps this will come back to haunt us later in our discussion. A slight variation on this would be someone who would like to stay with their partner forever in an ideal world, but they're too practical to actually get married, because they're afraid of divorce. Therefore, they contract a mutah marriage and specify the time limit at 1 year. They figure that this is a short enough time to put up with if things turn sour, but long enough to feel close enough to a real marriage. At the end of the year the "marriage" automatically ends and then they decide if they'd like to continue for another year, and so it continues, year after year, until they're both dead. And a variation on this would be a misyar marriage where the couple agrees to be with each other indefinitely, but both reserve the right to end it whenever if they feel like it, however, they do in fact end up never separating. This is the scenario that most approximates secular society -- the couple wish to be together forever "in an ideal world" (so if pressed they'd have to admit that it's not "for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health until death do us part"), and afterwards they may or may not make it to the grave together. However, by saying this I'm not implying that I therefore agree with the pope about most marriages being null. This is because when one gets married, by definition, you agree to a definite, not an indefinite commitment, and this is the fundamental difference between a regular vs a misyar marriage. Therefore, it doesn't matter that you believe in divorce, since the terms of the marriage, and what the couple is agreeing to, are completely different -- the regular marriage couple agreeing to definiteness (ie, until the grave) and the misyar couple to indefiniteness. We're not talking about intentions here (although that's what church marriage tribunals are going to be looking at when looking at an annulment case, and which is the very thing I'm arguing against as the matter under consideration). Why do intentions not matter? Imagine that you promise your kid that you'll make it to their school play. For whatever reason, you don't really want to go. Maybe you think it's a waste of time, maybe you just promised this to your kid because you feel guilty for not being a better parent. In any case, you end up not going. Maybe because you just didn't take your promise very seriously, or because something else came up that you thought was more important. Your kid confronts you afterward. What if you were to tell them that it was OK to break your promise because what you were really promising was that you would come only if you felt like it? That it's only bad to break promises if, at the time you made the promise, you had the intention of keeping it (whatever the heck that means, since feelings always change -- isn't that the point of a promise, after all?) Besides really confusing your kid as to what makes for proper moral reasoning, plainly speaking, this just sounds like some sly argument straight from the mind of the devil. It's absolutely ridiculous that people are actually buying this crap when it comes to marriage, which is the very last place people should be looking to apply this sordid argument. So you see here, if you make a promise, no matter your intention or motivation or willingness to keep the promise, having made the promise, you are still morally bound and obligated to keep it. The same goes with marriage.
Now just as an interesting thought experiment, what if people started writing into their marriage vows that they'd only stay together under certain conditions -- as long as you treat me right, as long as I don't find someone better .... Can you imagine people actually reading this out to each other at the altar? It's so unromantic, it makes you want to laugh, I guess because as ridiculous as it is, it's also the honest truth. I'd love to see someone make a YouTube video about this. And even better, I'd love to see it go viral. Just imagine it -- a picture-perfect couple trying to pass this off as just a joke; you know -- the kind of joke that you know isn't a joke.
So for even more hypocrisy, let's turn to the Church's double standard when it comes to ordination. As bad as a priest might turn out to be, he's considered indelibly a priest. The hierarchy doesn't go searching into and analyzing his ordination ceremony to try to find something that'll allow them to let this guy off the hook and boot him out the church door. This is because, under Catholic (and Orthodox) theology, this would wreak all sorts of havoc, since all the sacraments rely on for their validity the validity of a priest's ordination, with the exceptions of baptism and holy matrimony. You can't undo an ordination, and although it's true that the Church teaches that neither can you undo marriage, they've figured out a way to have their cake and eat it too -- it's called getting an annulment, and annulments are just Catholic divorce. This is especially evident given that in all the annulment directives I've seen as issued out by dioceses, you have to get a divorce before you get an annulment. That's the very first step in getting an annulment, but that really makes no sense if the marriage is truly invalid. Let's take an example of a "marriage" that's truly invalid -- a case of a brother and sister who marry each other, whether it was on accident or not. In such a case we wouldn't look into what caused the breakup of the marriage, what the couples' intentions were at the moment they got married or any of that. We just know they're brother and sister and we've got to separate them asap. Why in the world would the Church force them to wait until the state grants them a divorce? What good would that do? Furthermore, they wouldn't even be getting a divorce from the state, since the state would also be giving them an annulment. So we see that Catholic annulments are just rubber-stamping civil divorces.
Now let's move on to bonum prolis. This one's particularly relevant today given that more and more couples are choosing to remain childless, and are actually able to do so at higher rates than ever before due to all the birth control options out there. Let's look at the only 2 ways you could fail to fulfill this requirement.
1)You could have a completely sexless marriage, and I can only see 3 reasons why this would happen --
a)for either a religious,
b)a secular, or
c)a physical reason, and
2), because you've sterilized yourself (and I'm not even sure if this really counts as not fulfilling this requirement, but we'll get to that later).
So let's take the sexless marriage for religious reasons -- a Josephite marriage. First of all, we have to consider this a valid marriage because it's the kind that the Virgin Mary and Joseph had. However, for the rest of us, I'm not quite sure why someone would want to contract this sort of marriage unless
1)both the husband and wife are asexual (and yes, there are asexuals out there who get married for romantic/companionship reasons, which is perfectly understandable) or
2) one or both are homosexual (I suspect this is the real reason why Jacques Maritain decided to go Josephite on his wife, as an example).
Herein lies the problem, the contradiction, and I'm really surprised that no one seems to have caught this, as far as I can tell from my research on the internet -- that if a couple goes into a marriage with the agreement to be childfree, this is considered to invalidate their marriage, but if it's a Josephite marriage, it's suddenly considered OK. So the Church seems to want it both ways -- to say that to will to not have children invalidates a marriage, but to do so for spiritual reasons is OK.
But what about the asexual couple? From what I've read, it appears that if they agree to never consummate their marriage, it's considered invalid, unless of course, they decide to do this for spiritual reasons, in which case it's considered OK. I don't know about you, but this sounds real inconsistent to me. You can't have it both ways. Either the Josephite marriage and the asexual marriage are both invalid, or they're both valid. However, since the Josephite marriage is obviously valid, so must the asexual marriage, and so the Church shouldn't prohibit asexuals from getting married, even if they don't fulfill the bonum prolis. But then, neither does the Josephite marriage.
As the policy now stands, an asexual couple can get around this by agreeing to have sex at least once. However, this seems to go against the spirit of the law, which says that one of the purposes of marriage is to produce and raise children. So if the asexual couple has sex only once, they may very well conceive just from that one time, but chances are they won't. So then even though they're married, it proves unfruitful and they're not fulfilling the 3rd good of marriage. The Josephite couple is even worse because there's absolutely no chance of children. So it seems that the Church either has to throw out the bonum prolis criterion, or outlaw Josephite marriages. However, since this is impossible to contemplate, given the example we have in the Holy Family, something else has got to give, which means allowing asexuals to marry.
Neither can I see why those who are permanently impotent or physically unable to have sex can't get married in the Church. I'm not sure why this is treated as an impediment to marriage, and not treated the way sterile people are -- able to get married in the Church despite their inability to have children.
This conclusion rather complicates things for the next part of the bonum prolis question. This is because if we can throw out the requirement for procreation due to Josephite marriages, we can throw it out for any marriage, even for people who have no difficulty in or disinclination to have sex, which is how I would characterize the three above examples (Josephite -- disinclined for religious reasons; asexual/homosexual -- disinclined for secular [personal preference] reasons; and permanently impotent/impaired -- impossible for physical reasons). But what about the vast majority of marriages where none of these considerations apply? This is where we talk about not the childless, but the childfree lifestyle.
First of all, in the above 3 cases, the one thing that they all have in common (other than being sexless) is that the motive for getting married is for companionship. The marriage is considered good because of the good of couple, not the good of children, nor for the good of procreating the next generation for the good of society. There is an indirect benefit to society in that what's good for the well-being of 2 individuals who are committed and caring for each other is also good for the stability of society. But I wouldn't necessarily call it a direct benefit the way procreation is a direct benefit to society.
I think this motive applies to Josephite marriages as well. After all, if you're not going to have sex, you might as well become a monk or a nun. So obviously the couple thinks there's something to be gained from a heterosexual partnership. Even if it's not sexual in nature, it must at least have some kind of romantic/heterosocial aspect to it, and I don't think this bond can be reduced to mere friendship, since one is not necessarily inclined to marry their friend, even if this friend is of the opposite sex.
I must point out, though, that this motive cannot strictly be applied to the Holy Couple. Even though they hadn't planned for it, in God's plan, the purpose of their marriage was to raise Jesus. Could Mary have done this on her own? Sure, and he could have perfectly provided for her and his Son too, but there's a reason God made children to be raised by a married couple, and even though Joseph wasn't Jesus' biological father, God still provided for his Son in this way through adoption. At the same time, this doesn't mean that their marriage was purely utilitarian. After all, had they not been surprised by Jesus' miraculous conception, they would have had a fully normal marriage just like anyone else -- sexual and everything. I know there's a lot of people out there who will vigorously oppose this view because they believe that Mary was dedicated as a virgin to God for his service in the temple, but there's no record of this in the bible, nor is there any definitive teaching on this from the Church -- it's merely a story that has circulated in the Church since ancient times which some have believed and some haven't. Given that there's no mention of this in Scriptures and no authoritative teaching on this from the Church, I have to assume the most likely scenario -- which is that Mary and Joseph were just an average and ordinary engaged couple. Given this, even if their marriage was asexual, there's no reason to think that it wasn't romantic or at least heterosocial. Basically, I don't think they saw each other as "just friends", and I definitely don't think they saw each other as "just roommates" tasked with raising the Son of God. In any case, I just wanted to point out before we continue that even though Josephite marriages exclude the bonum prolis, this isn't entirely true of the Holy Couple's marriage, since Joseph adopted Jesus. It's still partially true because Mary and Joseph never attempted procreating together, and I have to remind you that the bonum prolis requirement applies not to just raising children, but procreating them as well. Basically, I'm saying that an intention or promise to adopt and raise at least one child doesn't cut it.
Having said that, we turn back to childfree couples. One thing I'd like to clarify is this ambiguity about bonum prolis. On one hand I'd have to say that the rationale behind bonum prolis is sound -- it should be apparent to everyone, whether you're Christian or not or Catholic or not, that ideally, children ought to be raised by their biological parents, and that their parents ought to be married to each other. In general, people don't want to have children out of wedlock, which is the number one driving force behind abortion. So even among secular people, the distaste for single parenthood is very strong. Love and marriage and a baby carriage -- they just go together.
But on the other hand, you have the Josephite marriage and all that that entails, as we discussed above. It's the wrench in the system. You could try to get out of this by saying that the Holy Couple's marriage was unique, one-of-a-kind and exceptional, in which case we would just have to do away with Josephite marriages all together and everything would be so much tidier, but this conclusion can't possibly be accepted because natural law, God's law, is unchangeable and can't allow for any exceptions, no matter how exceptional the situation. If we say that Josephite marriages are invalid due to the violation against bonum prolis, this would also invalidate Mary and Joseph's marriage. But their marriage could not possibly have been invalid since it was God who commanded Joseph to take Mary as his wife.
One thing we could argue for, and so possibly save our system, is to relax the stipulation that the couple procreate, and merely impose the duty to bring up children. This would cover Joseph's situation, in which case, we would also have to obligate Josephite, asexual/homosexual couples and the sexually impaired to adopt. But this brings with it its own set of problems. This is because the Church teaches that what makes a marriage is consent, not children. Though children are the ultimate purpose of marriage, marriage comes before children, not the other way around. That is, the marriage is already in place, ready to "receive" children. After all, a couple is really and validly married as soon as they exchange consent. Put another way, every marriage starts out as a "Josephite marriage", at least for a short time, until it's consummated, and then it becomes a regular marriage. This is why even couples who know themselves to be infertile can still get married in the Church, whether this is because of some medical condition or just from the aging process (being post-menopausal). This is also why you're not allowed to get an annulment just because it turns out that either you or your spouse is infertile, and it also explains why being impotent doesn't invalidate a marriage, unless this impotence can be proven permanent, and only if its onset began before the wedding. (However, as we discussed earlier, I believe this last case [of impotence] is inconsistent with Josephite marriages and ought to be struck from canon law.) It's also why a couple can have sex even when they know that no child can be conceived from an act of sex. which is why it's perfectly fine to have sex during pregnancy, after menopause, while breastfeeding, during the natural infertile times during a woman's monthly cycles, and even if the couple is infertile due to some medical or biological reason.
This is a good time to touch on another inconsistency which I mentioned briefly earlier but can elaborate on further. What's weird to me is that what matters to the Church (as canon law now stands) is not that the couple is actually able to produce children, but whether they can perform the act that naturally leads to children -- sex. This is why infertile couples of all stripes can get married, but the sexually impaired cannot. So if you're permanently impotent, or were born without a vagina, etc, the Church will refuse to marry you. Even stranger is the distinction made between azoospermia (no sperm in the semen), and retrograde ejaculation (ejaculating backwards into the bladder so that no semen can be deposited in the vagina). In the former, the couple can get married, but in the latter, marriage will be refused. The reasoning is that with azoospermia, the marital act can still be completed, even if in fact it turns out unfruitful because there's no sperm in the semen. With retrograde ejaculation, the marital act is not completed in the proper way (with the semen deposited in the vagina) and so the marriage is deemed impossible to consummate, and is therefore null. Not only do I think this is the wrong place to draw the line, but due to the leniency which Josephite marriages afford us, I don't even see why there has to be the possibility of having sex in order to make the marriage.
Let's look at a rather contrived, but clever example to illustrate this. Let's say a couple decides to contract a Josephite marriage, but that unbeknowest to them, the man in fact is impotent. However, they never find out about this because they never attempt to have sex. This is an epistemic quandary, because in the eyes of the Church, the couple is validly married. However, are they validly married in the eyes of God, since God knows the man, is in fact, impotent? Or is the fact that the couple married with the intention of remaining continent enough to overlook the fact that the man cannot partake of the marital act? But things get even more complicated when you remember that neither spouse can refuse the marital act if the other requests it, even if at the beginning there was a mutual agreement to perpetually abstain. It is this possibility, however remote, which the Church would focus on, and therefore, I would have to say that the Church would refuse to marry such a couple, if it could be known that the man was permanently impotent. So to highlight this -- 2 couples, both deciding to be Josephite, and both would really carry this out and not fail and never have sex. However, one of the couples would not be able to ever consummate their marriage due to the man's impotence. If all these facts could be known beforehand by the Church, the Church would agree to marry the consummatable couple, but not the impotent one, even if in fact, neither couple would ever even attempt to consummate their marriage. Strange indeed. And I think this is just one more example of why canon law needs to be amended to better fit the teachings of the Church, since as it now stands, canon law contradicts Church teaching. By Church teaching here, I mean the dogma of Mary's perpetual virginity and the Holy Couple's Josephite marriage, as both the bible and tradition instruct us. These things cannot be argued with, but canon law can, and therefore, it's canon law that must be amended.
Let's take another example, a marriage that becomes asexual, for whatever reason, even though it didn't start out that way. Again, the couple doesn't have to produce as many children as they possibly can. That's not the command. The command is that you not purposely frustrate the natural purpose of sex, which is children (through birth control), nor purposely frustrate the natural purpose of marriage, which is children (through birth control, but even through NFP, if it's always used with the purpose of never conceiving). But as we've already seen, while it's easy to see why you shouldn't actively frustrate the natural end of sex through birth control, this isn't so easy to say of using NFP in the same way -- as birth control. Even though no particular sex act is positively frustrated, by that very same reason, it seems that every sex act is frustrated, albeit in a passive way. But then, it's hard to draw a distinction between this and allowing infertile or older couples to get married. This is different from allowing a pregnant, lactating or non-ovulating woman to have sex. In these cases, although the individual sex act is biologically unfruitful, with an infertile couple or older couple (where the woman is past her childbearing years), the entire marriage is inherently unfruitful. However, these people are still allowed to get married. The difference here is that the infertile couple isn't intentionally excluding children, whereas the childfree couple is. Let's tie this in with Josephite marriages, and this is where it gets real tricky. Let's say a couple decides to be Josephite, but the reason they decide this is because they don't want children. And not because they want the childfree lifestyle, but because they know that children are an extremely time-consuming sacrifice, and they would like to devote themselves to some kind of ministry that they feel they would best be able to accomplish together, as a team, a married couple, than single. Therefore, they want to be married, but do not want children, so they decide that being Josephite is the perfect solution for them. And indeed,
find pope reference
research: history of the marital debt
what's the purpose of marriage -- children, undoubtedly, but what of the marriage of the lamb?
history of the emphasis on procreation -- extremely negative and harmful views on marriage and sex.
people finding all kids of reasons to divorce, taking whatever excuse they can grab onto -- middle ages genealogies, faking them too
have to wonder if people really love anyone but themselves -- can't keep their marriage together even for the sake of their children. kids going off the deep end because of divorce.
my priest's confounded argument about how we know more about psychology nowadays -- but still proud that the teaching's the same. apparently agrees with the high number of divorces and annulments.
case of fraud and deception. this too hypocritical. strange case of the gold diggar and billionaire
not consummated; really just another attempt to get out of it
intersex
Why is the marriage bond the only human relationship (as far as I know) that's broken at death? So for example, your mother will still be your mother in heaven, but your wife won't still be your wife. I don't know why this should be.
Isn’t the Song of Solomon too romanticized? Real life is not like this. All they ever talk about is how good the other looks, not about their virtue, relationship or companionship.
Isn’t it strange that in heaven, the most wonderful of places, people will have the same mother, but not the same father? Then there will be strange types of families even in heaven, and so how can it be a perfect place? Think of what it would be like for polygamous families.
How is there a portion of the Spirit in marriage? (Mal 2:15) Could this be said to be a form of common grace?
How does a young widow incur condemnation upon herself by “abandoning her former faith” and remarrying? This passage makes it seem like marriage is a bad thing. (I Tm 5:11-12)
That the 144,000 “have not defiled themselves with women” and “are virgins” makes it sound like sex is a bad thing. (Rv 14:3-4)
In the new creation there won’t be any romantic love. So that means that the romantic love here on earth will end. In the new creation former husbands and wives will still love each other, but not in a romantic way. But if all romantic love must come to an end, then what was the use of it in the first place? And knowing this, who the heck would want to get married? It’s such a waste! (in a way) (Mt 22:30)
Why do we only see celibacy encouraged in the New Testament, and not the Old, with the exception of Jeremiah (Jer 16:2)? (I Cor 7:1, 6-7, 25-28, 32-35, 39-40)
Why was John the Baptist OK with Herodias' first marriage to her uncle (Herod's half-brother, Philip)? (Mk 6:18)
On sham annulments (ie, Catholic divorce): This is a huge problem and important topic, and pretty much nobody's talking about it, which is why I will.
One of the glories of the Catholic Church (and yes, I mean "glory", that is, something to be supremely proud of), is its teaching on marriage, divorce and remarriage. The interesting thing is that the Church isn't really teaching anything new or revolutionary, since all it's done is stick to what everyone from time immemorial has known about marriage -- that it's forever.
So for those of you who don't know what the Catholic Church teaches, it says (in a nutshell), that there's no such thing as divorce, with 3 exceptions, but we can get to that later (and why I believe there probably ought to be no exceptions). In other words, though you might get a legal divorce, you can say you're divorced all you want, but that doesn't mean you're divorced in the eyes of God. And if you're not really divorced, then that means you can't get remarried until your first spouse dies, at which point, you're free. Remarriage, dating other people, having any kind of romantic relationship -- these are all really just adultery (more on this as well later). This is true no matter what the reason for the divorce, even if it's not your fault. So adultery is no excuse for you to do the same (ie, divorce your cheating spouse and remarry), and being abandoned doesn't mean you can abandon your spouse. Real harsh, I know, and Jesus agrees: '"I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.” 10 The disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” 11 But he said to them, “Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given. ... Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.” So Jesus basically says, "Take it or leave it. I'm not going to water this down to make it easier on you."And to give you a fuller explanation, here's the same basic quote, but from Mt 5:31-32: “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery."
And here, the same quote put slightly differently (I think more clearly): “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery. (Lk 16:18)
The same teaching from St. Paul: a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. 3 Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. (Rom 7:2-3)
And again, from St. Paul (I Cor 7:10-11): To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband 11(but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife.
Let's first look at why divorce is wrong, then we can go over what makes almost all annulments wrong.
First of all, without even defending Jesus' words recorded in the bible, we can prove that there's no divorce simply from natural law. What is marriage after all other than a permanent partnership of life between a man and woman? This is something everyone understands intuitively. Everyone knows that marriage is supposed to last forever (that is, until the death of one of the spouses). Everyone gets married with the expectation that it's going to be forever. Even for people who believe in divorce (and that's most people in this day and age, at least in countries and societies that can no longer be called "traditional"), nobody believes that divorce is a good thing, or even OK. It's generally seen as a necessary evil, a last resort. But what's the point of promising to be together or making this commitment, if it can always be undone if you so wish? Divorce defeats the purpose of marriage and confounds its meaning. You can't just say "We're married", and then just as easily say, "We're not married anymore." If you do that, you're turning marriage into a joke, and in fact, that's where it's heading and where it's been heading for a long time. Divorce contradicts marriage, attacks it at its very heart, and renders it completely meaningless, in which case, what's the point of getting married? If you're not committed to marriage and the meaning of marriage, don't get married. The number one way to divorce-proof your marriage is to not believe in divorce.
But what if it's too hard? Isn't it too hard? People might object that all of this might sound very well on paper, but that real life isn't so cut and clean. They might say my view is too simplistic, that I'm guilty of black-and-white thinking. I object. What kind of argument is that, that it's too hard? That's not an argument at all. That's called "I don't feel like it." That's called, "I say such-and-such is right, or such-and-such is wrong, because I say so, because it's convenient, because that's what's easier for me." Folks, that is not a reasonable argument. That's not an argument at all. That's called punking out. Nobody here is saying marriage is easy. I like how Jordan Peterson put it. He said that marriage isn't for when things are easy -- you don't marry for that! Marriage is precisely for when you don't feel like staying married! It's to force you to work it out, whether you like it or not.
Let's look at some history here. Did you know that with the rise of Christianity in Europe, the divorce rate fell? So the Church did a pretty good job of stamping out divorce (although in the Middle Ages, people were still trying tricky things to get around the rules, which we can get into later, when we talk about annulments.) So how did we get to this abysmal state, where there's some countries where the divorce rate is higher than 60% (like Luxembourg [65%] or Portugal [71%])? This is ridiculous and unbelievable. What happened? -- The Protestant Reformation.
Luther was the first one to permit divorce in certain cases, for example, in cases of adultery, abandonment or (willfully) not fulfilling the conjugal duty. While his criteria was pretty narrow, adultery itself covers a large percentage of marriages, since tons of people cheat, although the percentage obviously depends on sex, social status, time and place. There are also tons of sexless marriages out there. In any case, this was the first opening of the floodgates -- it's been one slippery slope from there. We can go more into this later. Shamefully, the Reformation was given dramatic impetus due to divorce -- England's well-known break with the Church due to Henry VIII wanting to divorce his wife. (Or what he wanted to call an annulment.) So then we shouldn't be too surprised that Henry did what many people are doing today -- getting divorced and married over and over again (6 times, in fact). This same guy chopped off not one, but two of his wives' heads. And there he was proclaiming himself to be the head of the Church in England (which in itself is screwed up). These things should be a clue that something went terribly wrong. Fast forward to nowadays and it's no wonder that people are getting divorced left and right. Almost everyone believes in divorce, and so hardly anyone believes in marriage, despite what they might say to the contrary. Even Protestants, who frown on divorce, ultimately uphold it as morally acceptable because they allow remarriage. How can there be remarriage unless you're truly divorced? Which means that they believe that you can truly divorce and that God will honor that. And so many of them get remarried right in church, right in front of God, and this is supposed to be acceptable, a joyous occasion, and the couple ought to be congratulated. What better way to scandalize the Lord? The only way you can say "No divorce" and really mean it is to not allow remarriage (except due to being widowed).
As time has passed and things have gotten even more liberalized, the very attitude towards divorce has changed. I discovered this the hard way when a relative was getting divorced and I went on the internet to try to find articles about how to help someone getting a divorce. All I could find was articles on how to support someone getting a divorce. It was all very PC, and I was particularly looking for articles from a Christian perspective! That was not what I had in mind. I wanted to know how to help this relative by supporting their marriage, not supporting their divorce! I searched in vain, but couldn't find a single one! That's when I realized just how far the divorce-positive culture had really gone. It was clear that even Christians are ashamed to honestly tell their friend or loved one that they would like to see them happily married and are willing to help them to that end. Or maybe they need some tough love and need someone to tell them straight out that they really have no good reason to get a divorce. Instead it's become all about emotionally supporting someone in whatever they've decided, without any regard for whether the decision itself is good or bad. And if this means ruining their lives and the lives of their spouse, children, family and friends, so be it. Why is it that something as serious and traumatic as divorce has come to be deemed at the same level of moral significance as deciding between chocolate and vanilla ice cream, as in, it really doesn't matter what you choose, so long as you're happy with your decision? We don't say this about other moral matters, like cheating on your taxes, lying on a resume, or being rude to underling workers. But getting a divorce is much worse than all of these things, and has much more serious and long-term repercussions, not just for the couple, but for society. Headaches at work can be bad, headaches from friends and family can be bad, but the worst kind of people headache is marriage problems. Therefore, this ought to be taken with the utmost seriousness, not just a flippant, "Well, just get a divorce. Problem solved." That's not solving the problem. That's just a complete and permanent failure.
So now onto Catholic annulments, which have become for all intents and purposes, Catholic divorce, no matter what the naysayers say. This is where ultimately, canon law is at fault, since it gives all sorts of reasons for why a marriage can be considered invalid. This has really just become a way for Catholics to have their cake and eat it too, ie, being proud to say there's no divorce, but also allowing people to do just that -- getting divorced and remarried in the Church.
So the only way a Catholic can do this is to get an annulment, that is, you have to come up with a reason for why you were never really married in the first place. If you were to say you accidentally married your brother or sister, this would definitely be a valid annulment, since your "marriage" is really incestuous, meaning it goes against God's law and natural law, and also civil law (although that doesn't really matter), so of course, you're not really married. Another truly valid reason for an annulment is a forced marriage, something that's more common in poorer countries, and which I think can especially happen in Muslim countries, given that the bride isn't actually at the wedding ceremony.
But this is also where there's a problem with canon law, since apparently, a shotgun wedding can be considered a forced marriage, if you want it to. That is, if you have a shotgun wedding, but you end up quite happy with your spouse, then you're considered validly married. That is, just because you had a shotgun wedding, that doesn't mean the Church says you're invalidly married, that you're not really married, that you're actually fornicating and that you need to get a civil divorce (which would be the case if you married your own sex, or married your brother or sister). No. It would only be considered invalid if it turns out after the fact that you're not happy and want out. So you see the duplicity here. Although the Church, in investigating a marriage to see if it qualifies for an annulment, will only look into the facts of the wedding, and not the subsequent life of the marriage, since what it's looking for is impediments to valid consent, in fact, it does look at the life of the marriage, since that's almost always why the couple is there in first place -- because they're unhappily married. Doesn't it tell you something that in the US, the Church used to only grant a minuscule number of annulments (338 in 1968), but nowadays, you have about a 90% chance of being granted one if you seek it (27,000 in 2006)?
Other causes for an annulment include those found under Canon 1095: "The following are incapable of contracting marriage: those who suffer from a grave defect of discretion of judgment concerning the essential matrimonial rights and duties to be handed over and accepted; those who are not able to assume the essential obligations of marriage for causes of a psychic nature." 2/3 of all annulments are granted because of this crap, which, as you can see, can be easily interpreted to mean whatever the heck you want.
Now let's get deeper and attack another 3 big reasons for granting annulments. These concern what are called in the Church the 3 goods of marriage: bonum fidei, bonum sacramenti, and bonum prolis. These mean, respectively, fidelity, permanence, and procreation.
First, bonum fidei. Someone wanting an annulment can claim that either they or their spouse didn't intend to be faithful. A weak example of this would be a womanizer having the attitude that marriage vows aren't to be taken seriously. An extreme example of this would be a couple that agrees to have an open marriage, or a porn actor getting married. (And yes, I've actually read about real-life cases of this.) I have to admit, when I first read about the polyamorous couple getting married, I had to wonder if I could even really call that a marriage, and this was way before I knew anything about bonum fidei. My conclusion, years later, is that yes, they were really married, even though they had agreed between themselves that they were allowed to have other relationships. I concluded this about the extreme examples from the strength of the weaker example. Obviously, there's tons of people out there who are cheaters at heart and only hold their marriage vows to be some sort of idealized abstraction. Though this kind of person ought not to get married, indeed, they do, they can, and they can validly get married. You might say that a womanizer can't validly marry, but on the other hand, they say that anyone is capable of cheating. Even King David committed adultery. While I'm sure the day before he saw Bathsheba he was sure he'd never do such a despicable thing, in fact, he just didn't know himself well enough, because in fact he was capable of such a thing. Let's say the womanizer gets married and then the next day he has a change of heart and decides that in fact, he's going to be good. Could anyone say that he's not really married because of his state of mind and his attitude at the time of the wedding ceremony? If this man, years later, were to admit that he used to be womanizer, right up to his wedding day, would a church marriage tribunal come after him and his wife claiming they need to get an annulment, because of this man's defect of consent? Of course not! They would just leave him alone and be glad he had a change of heart. Likewise, if a porn star gets married with no intention of quitting their job, I wouldn't thereby say that they're not really married -- only that they're really married and they're choosing to break their marriage vows. It's like the parable of the obedient and disobedient sons (Mt 21:28-32). The one who said he would obey ended up not obeying, and the one who said he wouldn't ended up changing his mind and being good. It's this second son who ends up being commended. Likewise, if a man goes into marriage without taking it seriously, but later decides he was wrong in his thinking, we would commend him and let him live happily with his wife and truly consider her to be his wife, and if another man goes into marriage believing he'll be faithful, but he ends up having an affair, we would just say he's a hypocrite. But they were both validly married. We need to stop thinking that only well-adjusted people can marry. No, it's an innate human capability. Unless you're severely retarded, you can get married. I can't really think of any other kind of impediment due to personal defect. Even people with Down's syndrome have had successful marriages. There's a big difference between saying that a lot of people shouldn't get married (which I would whole-heartedly agree with, and even Jesus agreed, as we saw above), and saying that a lot of people cannot contract a valid marriage, not because it's against the law, but because they're inherently incapable of doing so because of, say, a personality defect. But doesn't everyone have many personality defects to one degree or another? Even when Jesus agreed that marriage is hard and implicitly agreed with his disciples that "it is better not to marry" because of this, he didn't then bar people from marrying. No, he just said that if you bite off more than you can chew, you've still got to chew it. Let's pause here and really let the words of Jesus sink in -- what I mean is, consider carefully before you marry whether this is good for your eternal soul or not. I once heard a Protestant pastor say that the first thing God's going to ask you about at the Judgment (if you were married in this life) is what kind of spouse you were to your spouse. Although the bible nowhere says this, that definitely sounds right to me. So it would be horrible to think that you're endangering your soul (that is, in jeopardy of going to hell), all because you couldn't manage to get along with just one other person (your spouse). You had really better think this through, because by marrying, you may just be condemning yourself to eternal damnation. What's even more ironic is that so many people rejoiced and celebrated the day they got married, when this very day would turn out to be the undoing of their souls.
Now let's move on to bonum sacramenti. Many canonists would argue that your marriage is invalid if you don't believe that marriage is indissoluble, but that's pretty much everyone, because everyone believes in divorce nowadays. In fact, this is the very reason Pope Francis said that most marriages are invalid. Am I the only one who can see just how ironic this is? They believe in divorce, so when they (inevitably) end up wanting one, you say, "OK, go ahead" because they believe in divorce? Circular reasoning at its best, and this is what the canonists came up with when they were revising canon law during the Second Vatican Council.
The only kind of marriage that I can think of that could actually be annulled under the bonum sacramenti test are certain kinds of temporary marriage in Islam (mutah, misyar and urfi marriages; by the way, nikah mutah literally means "pleasure marriage", while nikah misyar is "traveller's marriage"). So we can see the problem right away here. Temporary marriage is a contradiction in terms. But that's literally what nikah mutah (for Shiites) and misyar (for Sunnis) are -- in mutah marriages the marriage period is specified beforehand, after which it's automatically over, while the misyar marriage leaves this more open to the later discretion of the couple. For example, a man from a Muslim country may go overseas to study, contract a (misyar) marriage to keep himself satisfied while he's away, but decide that he'll end it when his studies are over. On the other hand, he can also decide that he'll stick around indefinitely. My point is that he makes no definite commitment. Urfi marriages (in Sunnism) work a bit differently but are likewise often used in this way. All three forms are often used as covers for prostitution, especially mutah marriages, which can be contracted for as briefly as a few minutes. Although the Church upholds the validity of natural marriages, including Islamic ones, we can see here that mutah, misyar and oftentimes urfi marriages cannot be considered marriages at all (at least not from the Christian perspective), since they are purposefully temporary. In the Church's eyes, this is just fornication. But let's throw a wrench into all this and ask hypothetically, what if one were to contract a mutah marriage for 100 years, which you could very well do? I don't see why anyone would do this; you might as well just get married the regular way, but there's nothing to stop a Shiite from doing this. So if they were to do this, could it then be considered valid, given that one could hardly hope to even live that long, and therefore for all intents and purposes, the "marriage" would be de facto a partnership for life, if not by law? I'm not going to answer this here, mainly because I don't know, and partly because I don't see much utility in it, but it's certainly something to think about. Perhaps this will come back to haunt us later in our discussion. A slight variation on this would be someone who would like to stay with their partner forever in an ideal world, but they're too practical to actually get married, because they're afraid of divorce. Therefore, they contract a mutah marriage and specify the time limit at 1 year. They figure that this is a short enough time to put up with if things turn sour, but long enough to feel close enough to a real marriage. At the end of the year the "marriage" automatically ends and then they decide if they'd like to continue for another year, and so it continues, year after year, until they're both dead. And a variation on this would be a misyar marriage where the couple agrees to be with each other indefinitely, but both reserve the right to end it whenever if they feel like it, however, they do in fact end up never separating. This is the scenario that most approximates secular society -- the couple wish to be together forever "in an ideal world" (so if pressed they'd have to admit that it's not "for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health until death do us part"), and afterwards they may or may not make it to the grave together. However, by saying this I'm not implying that I therefore agree with the pope about most marriages being null. This is because when one gets married, by definition, you agree to a definite, not an indefinite commitment, and this is the fundamental difference between a regular vs a misyar marriage. Therefore, it doesn't matter that you believe in divorce, since the terms of the marriage, and what the couple is agreeing to, are completely different -- the regular marriage couple agreeing to definiteness (ie, until the grave) and the misyar couple to indefiniteness. We're not talking about intentions here (although that's what church marriage tribunals are going to be looking at when looking at an annulment case, and which is the very thing I'm arguing against as the matter under consideration). Why do intentions not matter? Imagine that you promise your kid that you'll make it to their school play. For whatever reason, you don't really want to go. Maybe you think it's a waste of time, maybe you just promised this to your kid because you feel guilty for not being a better parent. In any case, you end up not going. Maybe because you just didn't take your promise very seriously, or because something else came up that you thought was more important. Your kid confronts you afterward. What if you were to tell them that it was OK to break your promise because what you were really promising was that you would come only if you felt like it? That it's only bad to break promises if, at the time you made the promise, you had the intention of keeping it (whatever the heck that means, since feelings always change -- isn't that the point of a promise, after all?) Besides really confusing your kid as to what makes for proper moral reasoning, plainly speaking, this just sounds like some sly argument straight from the mind of the devil. It's absolutely ridiculous that people are actually buying this crap when it comes to marriage, which is the very last place people should be looking to apply this sordid argument. So you see here, if you make a promise, no matter your intention or motivation or willingness to keep the promise, having made the promise, you are still morally bound and obligated to keep it. The same goes with marriage.
Now just as an interesting thought experiment, what if people started writing into their marriage vows that they'd only stay together under certain conditions -- as long as you treat me right, as long as I don't find someone better .... Can you imagine people actually reading this out to each other at the altar? It's so unromantic, it makes you want to laugh, I guess because as ridiculous as it is, it's also the honest truth. I'd love to see someone make a YouTube video about this. And even better, I'd love to see it go viral. Just imagine it -- a picture-perfect couple trying to pass this off as just a joke; you know -- the kind of joke that you know isn't a joke.
So for even more hypocrisy, let's turn to the Church's double standard when it comes to ordination. As bad as a priest might turn out to be, he's considered indelibly a priest. The hierarchy doesn't go searching into and analyzing his ordination ceremony to try to find something that'll allow them to let this guy off the hook and boot him out the church door. This is because, under Catholic (and Orthodox) theology, this would wreak all sorts of havoc, since all the sacraments rely on for their validity the validity of a priest's ordination, with the exceptions of baptism and holy matrimony. You can't undo an ordination, and although it's true that the Church teaches that neither can you undo marriage, they've figured out a way to have their cake and eat it too -- it's called getting an annulment, and annulments are just Catholic divorce. This is especially evident given that in all the annulment directives I've seen as issued out by dioceses, you have to get a divorce before you get an annulment. That's the very first step in getting an annulment, but that really makes no sense if the marriage is truly invalid. Let's take an example of a "marriage" that's truly invalid -- a case of a brother and sister who marry each other, whether it was on accident or not. In such a case we wouldn't look into what caused the breakup of the marriage, what the couples' intentions were at the moment they got married or any of that. We just know they're brother and sister and we've got to separate them asap. Why in the world would the Church force them to wait until the state grants them a divorce? What good would that do? Furthermore, they wouldn't even be getting a divorce from the state, since the state would also be giving them an annulment. So we see that Catholic annulments are just rubber-stamping civil divorces.
Now let's move on to bonum prolis. This one's particularly relevant today given that more and more couples are choosing to remain childless, and are actually able to do so at higher rates than ever before due to all the birth control options out there. Let's look at the only 2 ways you could fail to fulfill this requirement.
1)You could have a completely sexless marriage, and I can only see 3 reasons why this would happen --
a)for either a religious,
b)a secular, or
c)a physical reason, and
2), because you've sterilized yourself (and I'm not even sure if this really counts as not fulfilling this requirement, but we'll get to that later).
So let's take the sexless marriage for religious reasons -- a Josephite marriage. First of all, we have to consider this a valid marriage because it's the kind that the Virgin Mary and Joseph had. However, for the rest of us, I'm not quite sure why someone would want to contract this sort of marriage unless
1)both the husband and wife are asexual (and yes, there are asexuals out there who get married for romantic/companionship reasons, which is perfectly understandable) or
2) one or both are homosexual (I suspect this is the real reason why Jacques Maritain decided to go Josephite on his wife, as an example).
Herein lies the problem, the contradiction, and I'm really surprised that no one seems to have caught this, as far as I can tell from my research on the internet -- that if a couple goes into a marriage with the agreement to be childfree, this is considered to invalidate their marriage, but if it's a Josephite marriage, it's suddenly considered OK. So the Church seems to want it both ways -- to say that to will to not have children invalidates a marriage, but to do so for spiritual reasons is OK.
But what about the asexual couple? From what I've read, it appears that if they agree to never consummate their marriage, it's considered invalid, unless of course, they decide to do this for spiritual reasons, in which case it's considered OK. I don't know about you, but this sounds real inconsistent to me. You can't have it both ways. Either the Josephite marriage and the asexual marriage are both invalid, or they're both valid. However, since the Josephite marriage is obviously valid, so must the asexual marriage, and so the Church shouldn't prohibit asexuals from getting married, even if they don't fulfill the bonum prolis. But then, neither does the Josephite marriage.
As the policy now stands, an asexual couple can get around this by agreeing to have sex at least once. However, this seems to go against the spirit of the law, which says that one of the purposes of marriage is to produce and raise children. So if the asexual couple has sex only once, they may very well conceive just from that one time, but chances are they won't. So then even though they're married, it proves unfruitful and they're not fulfilling the 3rd good of marriage. The Josephite couple is even worse because there's absolutely no chance of children. So it seems that the Church either has to throw out the bonum prolis criterion, or outlaw Josephite marriages. However, since this is impossible to contemplate, given the example we have in the Holy Family, something else has got to give, which means allowing asexuals to marry.
Neither can I see why those who are permanently impotent or physically unable to have sex can't get married in the Church. I'm not sure why this is treated as an impediment to marriage, and not treated the way sterile people are -- able to get married in the Church despite their inability to have children.
This conclusion rather complicates things for the next part of the bonum prolis question. This is because if we can throw out the requirement for procreation due to Josephite marriages, we can throw it out for any marriage, even for people who have no difficulty in or disinclination to have sex, which is how I would characterize the three above examples (Josephite -- disinclined for religious reasons; asexual/homosexual -- disinclined for secular [personal preference] reasons; and permanently impotent/impaired -- impossible for physical reasons). But what about the vast majority of marriages where none of these considerations apply? This is where we talk about not the childless, but the childfree lifestyle.
First of all, in the above 3 cases, the one thing that they all have in common (other than being sexless) is that the motive for getting married is for companionship. The marriage is considered good because of the good of couple, not the good of children, nor for the good of procreating the next generation for the good of society. There is an indirect benefit to society in that what's good for the well-being of 2 individuals who are committed and caring for each other is also good for the stability of society. But I wouldn't necessarily call it a direct benefit the way procreation is a direct benefit to society.
I think this motive applies to Josephite marriages as well. After all, if you're not going to have sex, you might as well become a monk or a nun. So obviously the couple thinks there's something to be gained from a heterosexual partnership. Even if it's not sexual in nature, it must at least have some kind of romantic/heterosocial aspect to it, and I don't think this bond can be reduced to mere friendship, since one is not necessarily inclined to marry their friend, even if this friend is of the opposite sex.
I must point out, though, that this motive cannot strictly be applied to the Holy Couple. Even though they hadn't planned for it, in God's plan, the purpose of their marriage was to raise Jesus. Could Mary have done this on her own? Sure, and he could have perfectly provided for her and his Son too, but there's a reason God made children to be raised by a married couple, and even though Joseph wasn't Jesus' biological father, God still provided for his Son in this way through adoption. At the same time, this doesn't mean that their marriage was purely utilitarian. After all, had they not been surprised by Jesus' miraculous conception, they would have had a fully normal marriage just like anyone else -- sexual and everything. I know there's a lot of people out there who will vigorously oppose this view because they believe that Mary was dedicated as a virgin to God for his service in the temple, but there's no record of this in the bible, nor is there any definitive teaching on this from the Church -- it's merely a story that has circulated in the Church since ancient times which some have believed and some haven't. Given that there's no mention of this in Scriptures and no authoritative teaching on this from the Church, I have to assume the most likely scenario -- which is that Mary and Joseph were just an average and ordinary engaged couple. Given this, even if their marriage was asexual, there's no reason to think that it wasn't romantic or at least heterosocial. Basically, I don't think they saw each other as "just friends", and I definitely don't think they saw each other as "just roommates" tasked with raising the Son of God. In any case, I just wanted to point out before we continue that even though Josephite marriages exclude the bonum prolis, this isn't entirely true of the Holy Couple's marriage, since Joseph adopted Jesus. It's still partially true because Mary and Joseph never attempted procreating together, and I have to remind you that the bonum prolis requirement applies not to just raising children, but procreating them as well. Basically, I'm saying that an intention or promise to adopt and raise at least one child doesn't cut it.
Having said that, we turn back to childfree couples. One thing I'd like to clarify is this ambiguity about bonum prolis. On one hand I'd have to say that the rationale behind bonum prolis is sound -- it should be apparent to everyone, whether you're Christian or not or Catholic or not, that ideally, children ought to be raised by their biological parents, and that their parents ought to be married to each other. In general, people don't want to have children out of wedlock, which is the number one driving force behind abortion. So even among secular people, the distaste for single parenthood is very strong. Love and marriage and a baby carriage -- they just go together.
But on the other hand, you have the Josephite marriage and all that that entails, as we discussed above. It's the wrench in the system. You could try to get out of this by saying that the Holy Couple's marriage was unique, one-of-a-kind and exceptional, in which case we would just have to do away with Josephite marriages all together and everything would be so much tidier, but this conclusion can't possibly be accepted because natural law, God's law, is unchangeable and can't allow for any exceptions, no matter how exceptional the situation. If we say that Josephite marriages are invalid due to the violation against bonum prolis, this would also invalidate Mary and Joseph's marriage. But their marriage could not possibly have been invalid since it was God who commanded Joseph to take Mary as his wife.
One thing we could argue for, and so possibly save our system, is to relax the stipulation that the couple procreate, and merely impose the duty to bring up children. This would cover Joseph's situation, in which case, we would also have to obligate Josephite, asexual/homosexual couples and the sexually impaired to adopt. But this brings with it its own set of problems. This is because the Church teaches that what makes a marriage is consent, not children. Though children are the ultimate purpose of marriage, marriage comes before children, not the other way around. That is, the marriage is already in place, ready to "receive" children. After all, a couple is really and validly married as soon as they exchange consent. Put another way, every marriage starts out as a "Josephite marriage", at least for a short time, until it's consummated, and then it becomes a regular marriage. This is why even couples who know themselves to be infertile can still get married in the Church, whether this is because of some medical condition or just from the aging process (being post-menopausal). This is also why you're not allowed to get an annulment just because it turns out that either you or your spouse is infertile, and it also explains why being impotent doesn't invalidate a marriage, unless this impotence can be proven permanent, and only if its onset began before the wedding. (However, as we discussed earlier, I believe this last case [of impotence] is inconsistent with Josephite marriages and ought to be struck from canon law.) It's also why a couple can have sex even when they know that no child can be conceived from an act of sex. which is why it's perfectly fine to have sex during pregnancy, after menopause, while breastfeeding, during the natural infertile times during a woman's monthly cycles, and even if the couple is infertile due to some medical or biological reason.
This is a good time to touch on another inconsistency which I mentioned briefly earlier but can elaborate on further. What's weird to me is that what matters to the Church (as canon law now stands) is not that the couple is actually able to produce children, but whether they can perform the act that naturally leads to children -- sex. This is why infertile couples of all stripes can get married, but the sexually impaired cannot. So if you're permanently impotent, or were born without a vagina, etc, the Church will refuse to marry you. Even stranger is the distinction made between azoospermia (no sperm in the semen), and retrograde ejaculation (ejaculating backwards into the bladder so that no semen can be deposited in the vagina). In the former, the couple can get married, but in the latter, marriage will be refused. The reasoning is that with azoospermia, the marital act can still be completed, even if in fact it turns out unfruitful because there's no sperm in the semen. With retrograde ejaculation, the marital act is not completed in the proper way (with the semen deposited in the vagina) and so the marriage is deemed impossible to consummate, and is therefore null. Not only do I think this is the wrong place to draw the line, but due to the leniency which Josephite marriages afford us, I don't even see why there has to be the possibility of having sex in order to make the marriage.
Let's look at a rather contrived, but clever example to illustrate this. Let's say a couple decides to contract a Josephite marriage, but that unbeknowest to them, the man in fact is impotent. However, they never find out about this because they never attempt to have sex. This is an epistemic quandary, because in the eyes of the Church, the couple is validly married. However, are they validly married in the eyes of God, since God knows the man, is in fact, impotent? Or is the fact that the couple married with the intention of remaining continent enough to overlook the fact that the man cannot partake of the marital act? But things get even more complicated when you remember that neither spouse can refuse the marital act if the other requests it, even if at the beginning there was a mutual agreement to perpetually abstain. It is this possibility, however remote, which the Church would focus on, and therefore, I would have to say that the Church would refuse to marry such a couple, if it could be known that the man was permanently impotent. So to highlight this -- 2 couples, both deciding to be Josephite, and both would really carry this out and not fail and never have sex. However, one of the couples would not be able to ever consummate their marriage due to the man's impotence. If all these facts could be known beforehand by the Church, the Church would agree to marry the consummatable couple, but not the impotent one, even if in fact, neither couple would ever even attempt to consummate their marriage. Strange indeed. And I think this is just one more example of why canon law needs to be amended to better fit the teachings of the Church, since as it now stands, canon law contradicts Church teaching. By Church teaching here, I mean the dogma of Mary's perpetual virginity and the Holy Couple's Josephite marriage, as both the bible and tradition instruct us. These things cannot be argued with, but canon law can, and therefore, it's canon law that must be amended.
Let's take another example, a marriage that becomes asexual, for whatever reason, even though it didn't start out that way. Again, the couple doesn't have to produce as many children as they possibly can. That's not the command. The command is that you not purposely frustrate the natural purpose of sex, which is children (through birth control), nor purposely frustrate the natural purpose of marriage, which is children (through birth control, but even through NFP, if it's always used with the purpose of never conceiving). But as we've already seen, while it's easy to see why you shouldn't actively frustrate the natural end of sex through birth control, this isn't so easy to say of using NFP in the same way -- as birth control. Even though no particular sex act is positively frustrated, by that very same reason, it seems that every sex act is frustrated, albeit in a passive way. But then, it's hard to draw a distinction between this and allowing infertile or older couples to get married. This is different from allowing a pregnant, lactating or non-ovulating woman to have sex. In these cases, although the individual sex act is biologically unfruitful, with an infertile couple or older couple (where the woman is past her childbearing years), the entire marriage is inherently unfruitful. However, these people are still allowed to get married. The difference here is that the infertile couple isn't intentionally excluding children, whereas the childfree couple is. Let's tie this in with Josephite marriages, and this is where it gets real tricky. Let's say a couple decides to be Josephite, but the reason they decide this is because they don't want children. And not because they want the childfree lifestyle, but because they know that children are an extremely time-consuming sacrifice, and they would like to devote themselves to some kind of ministry that they feel they would best be able to accomplish together, as a team, a married couple, than single. Therefore, they want to be married, but do not want children, so they decide that being Josephite is the perfect solution for them. And indeed,
find pope reference
research: history of the marital debt
what's the purpose of marriage -- children, undoubtedly, but what of the marriage of the lamb?
history of the emphasis on procreation -- extremely negative and harmful views on marriage and sex.
people finding all kids of reasons to divorce, taking whatever excuse they can grab onto -- middle ages genealogies, faking them too
have to wonder if people really love anyone but themselves -- can't keep their marriage together even for the sake of their children. kids going off the deep end because of divorce.
my priest's confounded argument about how we know more about psychology nowadays -- but still proud that the teaching's the same. apparently agrees with the high number of divorces and annulments.
case of fraud and deception. this too hypocritical. strange case of the gold diggar and billionaire
not consummated; really just another attempt to get out of it
intersex