Its trendy for religion to romanticize the "sanctity of marriage" of past eras. I do it. Many do.
But hearing the woman known as the 100+ year old virgin talk about how she never had sex, and never got married, due to domestic abuse being endemic in her youth. Makes me question how "sanctified" marriage was in any era of history.
Attempting to approach this pragmatically. Marriage may have been the best arrangement for an underpopulated ancient world with high child mortality rates.
Today's world could be overpopulated thanks to nations like india doubling their populations within roughly the last 50 years.
People love to romanticize traditional christian values. I am also very guilty of it. But there is a legitimate question as to whether ideological values such as "be fruitful and multiply" are sustainable in today's world. And whether or not much of today's sexual behavior people find aberrant is caused by the world being overpopulated by people, with nature being thrown out of its natural balance.
Gay couples produce no children. Perhaps in some sense, this is nature's reaction to a world that is overpopulated by people. The same could be said with many couples choosing not to marry or have kids. And instead treating their pets as if they were children. inappropriate contentography and other behaviors which are viewed as aberrant sexual practices also produce no children.
Perhaps on some level there is an unconscious counter movement being made to correct an overpopulated planet that correlates with the rise of inappropriate content, homosexuality and other trends.
Hello, and welcome to TAW - The Ancient Way.
You may not realize where you've posted, and that's understandable as it's easy to do on CF. I think it's important to understand that in an Orthodox Christian context everything we do is supposed to be done while remaining mindful of God, the Holy Scriptures, the lives and saying of the Saints, the Final Judgement, and so on. That list isn't all inclusive, but the idea is we are to attempt to lead our lives in a Christian manner at all times as much as possible. So this isn't about the romanticization of traditional Christian values; it's about living out our lives with the Holy Scriptures as our guidelines, and with Christ as its centerpiece, and model.
I'll first say that I'm by no means perfect. That said sinful behavior is sinful behavior. That's not me judging anyone as I'm a sinner too, but inappropriate contentography, homosexuality, and other aberrant sexual practices that produce no children are not acceptable in the eyes of Christ. To minimalize the spiritual sickness, and damage that this type of behavior causes in each of us is to bring about our own death at the Final Judgement if left unrepentant.
All of that is to say that we live our lives with our eyes fixed on the Kingdom, and for the betterment of our salvation. The Holy Mysteries, or Sacraments which include marriage are centered around God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit and are there to bring us into communion with Him. All of these things are for our salvation, or that of our spouses. That's why we're married in a church with a clergyman as we are becoming married with/to our spouse before the eyes of God, and beginning a life together to partake in the others journey to salvation. Everything we do is for Him, and our salvation. Or the things that we don't do to include partaking of inappropriate contentography, homosexual acts, and other aberrant behavior that doesn't produce children.
Overpopulation, and the evolutionary aspects that you're citing are of
this world. In the grand scheme the things of this world won't mean much to us once we're no longer living in it.