From this week’s cover story in Time Magazine by Caitlin Flanagan:
The fundamental question we must ask ourselves at the beginning of the century is this: What is the purpose of marriage? Is it — given the game-changing realities of birth control, female equality and the fact that motherhood outside of marriage is no longer stigmatized — simply an institution that has the capacity to increase the pleasure of the adults who enter into it? If so, we might as well hold the wake now: there probably aren’t many people whose idea of 24-hour-a-day good times consists of being yoked to the same romantic partner, through bouts of stomach flu and depression, financial setbacks and emotional upsets, until after many a long decade, one or the other eventually dies in harness.
Or is marriage an institution that still hews to its old intention and function — to raise the next generation, to protect and teach it, to instill in it the habits of conduct and character that will ensure the generation’s own safe passage into adulthood?
For sure, one of the most important reasons God instituted marriage was to provide a supportive and nurturing environment for children to be taught. And I’m stoked to see secular publications saying what Christians have been saying for decades: if marriage is going to survive in our culture, all of us need to value our kids more than we value our own pleasure and comfort.
But God intends us to instill in them much more than “habits of conduct and character.” First and foremost, our marriages are supposed to be a living lesson for our kids (along with our other family and friends) to learn about Christ’s love for his people, and our submission to him.
For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. (Ephesians 5:29-31).