Thus writes David Goldman (aka ‘Spengler’) in the web edition of First Things. Marriage is a ‘condition of life’ that has nothing whatever to do with rights – it is, quite simply, the response of mortals to the fact of a mortality that is both individual and communal. As the Hebrew Bible acknowledges, we achieve immortality in two ways: through our children and through divine grace.
But a civilization that has given up on immortality and eternal things sees no reason to procreate, much less marry. It’s therefore unsurprising that we see the highest birthrates in the religious communities. Religious people – Jews and Christians, certainly – believe in an eschatological future without which earthly life becomes meaningless.
In the first chapter of Genesis, God uniquely imbues humans with sexuality, which is distinct from mere animal procreation and which is, by mysterious metaphor, linked with God’s eternal image. Christians and Jews have understood that sexuality is linked with marriage and that both have echoes in eternity.
But as Goldman understands, marriage is linked to the life of the congregation:
Marriage as an institution that fulfills our nature: It is a holy estate that permits the mating pair of humans to embed their reproductive activity in the eschatological hope of their faith community. The propagation of the species in its animal characteristics is united with the continuity of the people of God. If, as observation seems to confirm, the willingness of humans to form mating pairs and to bear offspring depends in the first instance on eschatological hope, then it is marriage as a sacred institution that makes possible the perpetuation of human life.
In the words of the Christian wedding ceremony that we know from the Book of Common Prayer,
Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation, to join together this man and this woman in holy Matrimony; which is an honorable estate, instituted of God in the time of man’s innocency, signifying unto us the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his Church.
It is the mystical union between Christ and his Church that is primary, and marriage is instituted by God to allow a human mating pair to emulate it.
Not dissimilar are the Seven Blessings of the Jewish marriage service. It is because of the image of God planted in each human being that the perpetuation of humanity is possible. Each bridal pair recreates the bliss of the first man and woman in the Garden of Eden:
Blessing Four: “We bless you, God, for forming each person in your image. You have planted within us a vision of you and given us the means that we may flourish through time. Blessed are you, Creator of humanity.”. . . .
The human bride and bridegroom unite in mystical emulation of God’s espousal of Israel, and the very mountains of Israel dance in joy with each wedded pair.
But in the end, marriage is is bounded in a mystical union: ‘Husband and wife join together as a microcosm of the union of God and his people. It is the union of God and his people that makes possible holy matrimony.’
Read it all. It’s a fine essay by a man with a ‘hearing heart.’
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