 
10 Crucial and Surprising Steps to Build Trust in a Relationship He/she had the Affair - Why do I Need to Change? What Everyone Needs to Know About Extramarital Affairs. 10 Fair Fighting Rules for Couples The Good Marriage - How and Why Love Last The Hidden Costs of Keeping Love Alive More Lasting Unions: Christianity, the Family, and Society The Power of Two: Secrets to a Strong & Loving Marriage |  |
 Marriage 101 - Collective Guidance | |
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| More Lasting Unions: Christianity, the Family, and Society By Stephen G. Post Marriage and Family at a Crossroads Optional marriage is unlikely to overwhelm traditional common sense — if only for the practical reason that having four hands is better than just two. But there is far more than tradition and practicality at stake here. I will argue throughout More Lasting Unions that Christians, for both theological and empirical reasons, must view cultural challenges to the norm of marriage as the necessary foundation for procreation as a high-stakes issue worthy of their full attention. While optional marriage remains a somewhat marginal practice, it could not have arisen as a socially acceptable possibility without the increasing moral and theological minimization of the time-honored importance of lasting marriage. This minimization began in the 1960s in both American and European societies. The law, which was historically allied with Christian expectations for the family, has now much diminished its previously robust statements about responsibility and accountability in marriage and parenthood. Political philosopher Michael J. Sandel points to the radical deflation of moral expectations in these spheres, both in the United States and in Europe, and to the steep rise of the self unencumbered by moral judgments or concerned with the family's stakeholders. Legal diminishment and the privatization of conscience work hand in hand, and one of the consequences is a rising divorce rate. Nine out often Americans eventually marry, and half of the marriages entered into since 1970 have ended in divorce; thus, an estimated 45 percent of American adults will experience the breakup of at least one marriage. Institutionalized monogamy has mutated into serial monogamy. The question, then, is not whether monogamy can be saved; the question is whether it can be restored in a manner most fully respectful of human dignity, equality, and love. Since the 1969 Divorce Reform Act in Great Britain, the divorce rate has risen above 40 percent, the highest in the European Union. Many British Christians are concerned about the new confusion that strips meaning from the trinity of mother, father, and child — a trinity beautifully sanctified in late medieval paintings of the "holy family." Prompted by a desire to bring spirituality into the home so that families might be better sustained, European Christian thinkers have established the International Academy for Marital Spirituality (INTAMS). Marriage Resource, a Christian charity in Britain, was responsible for the launch of the first National Marriage Week in February 1997; this event involved 600 churches and 45,000 individuals, and captured great media attention. But the struggle to influence the wider culture and law with regard to marriage and family is difficult; scarcely any residual dignity remains when marriage is entered into without high purpose and lightly dissolved without justification.
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